Due to an unfortunate career choice, I worked for more than a dozen large companies and went through countless budget cuts by the time I retired. In my experience, most organizations could cut 10% and within 6 months not even remember what was cut. And after 8 years with the Federal government...25% would be no problem in most agencies, including DoD. But probably not SS or IRS.
I worked for Govt. for some time, and they're FAT. Closer you get to welfare the fatter they are too, go figure. Imagine 20 people around a table earning approx. $63 an hour with benefits. 80% just nod their heads, may not even understand the problem. They often throw plenty at a solution that doesn't fully address the problem. A percentage of them, often
high in positions practice negative results.
I have a 4th grade formal ed. The high majority I worked with were college ed. So I don't have the talk. I wasn't management material (from both sides) even though I ran shit during my 20s. The govt. often promotes the incompetent. My work was second to none and they knew it too. The primary problem is I'm not progressively indoctrinated. A few things I did for them:
They assigned me a 40 hr. week job that was performed by an engineer. A single project can go on for months if not approaching one year. I turned the task into 10 minutes, which was just to back it up. I'm not even a programmer, it's just logic. Took two weeks to build and came with a template for future use.
Web design templates. They look and often act like web pages, only they're easy to build and the software is free.
Wrote specs. my way, which is the right way. I made a programmer/test job easy. But as usual they fought me because they were incompetent, and took offense to a clear flow. Not knowing differently, they wasted money on a tool using the same platform they complained about, only my method was free, easier to use and didn't have the problems. They consistently threw major cash at unnecessary if not useless tools that I was doing more simply on free software.
Way above my pay grade, I told everyone on the project how to do the accounting for a new program. They didn't listen, and implemented a system that blew everything up. Basic ledger shit. Then they "had" to hire a contractor to do it my way. Millions in dollars. That's just one example.
If they required deep analysis I was their go to. Meanwhile my peers were mostly college educated. All but one was worthless, and I often cleaned up after their disasters. That didn't go over well either. Better to be socially conscious than effective.
With few exceptions, their best "employees" were contractors, and often Eastern Indian.