7 ms·

True. If you don't believe the government has any role to play in, say, paving roads, maintaining bridges, etc, then there's no "cost for society". Well, unt

by zzalpha 11y ago

True. If you don't believe the government has any role to play in, say, paving roads, maintaining bridges, etc, then there's no "cost for society". Well, until the bridges start falling down, anyway...

clarkmoody 11y ago
Ah, the tried-and-true roads & bridges argument. No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things. But if you look at actual government spending, these sorts of infrastructure projects are dwarfed by things like military spending, which could use a reduction.
- pc86 11y ago
  Let's keep in mind we're talking about Italy here. So the knee-jerk "BUT DRONES" response is probably less accurate than if we were talking about the US or the UK or something.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    Yes, let's indeed keep in mind that we're talking about Italy here. http://www.voxeu.org/article/public-sector-inefficiency-and-firm-productivity-italy http://www.voxeu.org/article/public-sector-inefficiency-and-...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rsync 11y ago
  "No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things." I live on a very long (two miles) private road that I jointly build and maintain with an association, etc. There is no government role whatsoever, and we even have bridges. So it would appear that my experience validates your libertarian fantasy world. Look - we're actually doing it! I've got sour news for you. Even a wealthy, well educated collection of fair minded and well intentioned people find it very difficult to maintain a dirt/gravel road to an acceptable condition. It's very difficult and costly. We are right on the edge of success or failure in this maintenance. Further, if we were to actually pave the road (a true fantasy) it would be completely, totally unthinkable with regard to cost. Asphalt is paid for by the square foot and it isn't cheap. When you drive by a very quick section of asphalt road being resurfaced ... say 200-400 meters or something - very short ... understand that that is millions of dollars in asphalt work. Millions. Can you build some roads and bridges without the government ? Sure, of course you can. Will they approach, in any category, even the bare minimum acceptable standard that you hold ? No.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Hm. I understood that freeway (one of the most expensive roads in the world) was $1000 per foot. $5M per mile. I would expect asphalt to be much less. Here's a link: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/policy/costs/costs-D7.pdf http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/policy/costs/costs-D7.pd... Florida says 2-lane roadway is $3.3M per mile. So a few hundred feed, costing millions? Nonsense.
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      > So a few hundred feed, costing millions? Nonsense. 1. Your parent actually actively maintains a private road, and has probably done their research... 2. It costs them so much because they just have a single road, so they can't amortize the cost over an entire city or country of roadway. Public utilities tend toward monopoly for exactly this reason -- providing the utility to any small fraction of society is enormously expensive. Make no mistake, natural monopoly is what happens when you privatize utilities. Ever met a Comcast customer who feels anything short of contempt toward Comcast? Now imagine dealing with Comcast any time you need to drive to the grocery store. Or even leave your house. 3. Parent's numbers actually make sense when compared to Florida's, once you realize Florida has an entire state over which it can amortize costs.
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        The Govt doesn't actually pave anything. Roads are a commodity. There are a half-dozen pavers in my small community of 50,000. If the costs are in the $100K per thousand feet, they are that for everybody. Again, $M for a few hundred feet is nonsense.
        nmrm2 11y ago
        Parent said METERS, not feet. So parent is saying maybe 8mil for a mile. Not insane to assume low volume work in a presumably remote area will be double or triple the price that the entire state of Florida can get. Especially for a previously unpaved roadway with bridges that probably also needs widening, leveling, etc. That isn't patch work cleaning up existing paved road... The number is high but not unfathomably so... Anyways, either parent is telling the truth or not. But I find it hard to believe parent helps maintain a 2 mile private road and also you know better than him the cost of paving that particular road.
jqm 11y ago
Roads and bridges are fine. 700 hammers for the military maybe not. I worked as project manager for a contractor doing public works at one point. The government (at least in the US and probably everywhere) wastes a staggering amount of money. Not saying the government doesn't need funding. They do. But they could certainly do a lot more with less.
- cmurf 11y ago
  They need better internal auditors. If you just cut their budget alone, it doesn't decrease waste or fraud. To change the percentage of waste requires accountability for wasting.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    Accountability must come from outside government for it to be effective.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      Not necessarily, you just need the internal auditors to have independence and the right incentives. And actually-enforced penalties for individuals in government who stonewall the auditors because they know an honest auditor would want to reduce their budget.
      - newjersey 11y ago
        Also I absolutely hate how people think cutting government income is a good way to cut wasteful spending because it is immediately obvious it doesn't work. It can't work. We cheered when that scumbag Reagan talked about starving the beast. It was clear that even George HW Bush, Reagan's running mate knew it was a stupid idea. The problem that neocons won't talk about is that we don't have a single preferential way of allocating budget. Imagine we shrunk government income by one trillion dollars. That's the easy part but where will we cut our expenses? We haven't dealt with the difficult problem at all. Remember that every dollar "wasted" goes to someone. If they are loud and influential, they will probably get to keep their money/credit. So basically the rebalancing brought upon by starving the beast is nothing more than a cash grab by the more powerful more influential over those less so. I invite anyone who talks about cutting taxes to first come up with a plan to cut government spending. If the spending cut is palatable and can survive the mobs, I am in favor of starving our babies to cut taxes for the wealthy. But we can't put the cart before the horse. No new tax cuts without at least a matching spending cut that we can keep for at least a decade or so.
mason240 11y ago
No one takes this argument seriously because the people who use that argument usually want the government to do so much that roads are tiny fraction of what they do, or in a lot of cases, are outright hostile to roads altogether.

by zzalpha 11y ago

clarkmoody 11y ago

Ah, the tried-and-true roads & bridges argument. No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things. But if you look at actual government spending, these sorts of infrastructure projects are dwarfed by things like military spending, which could use a reduction.

pc86 11y ago
Let's keep in mind we're talking about Italy here. So the knee-jerk "BUT DRONES" response is probably less accurate than if we were talking about the US or the UK or something.
- mseebach 11y ago
  Yes, let's indeed keep in mind that we're talking about Italy here. http://www.voxeu.org/article/public-sector-inefficiency-and-firm-productivity-italy http://www.voxeu.org/article/public-sector-inefficiency-and-...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rsync 11y ago
"No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things." I live on a very long (two miles) private road that I jointly build and maintain with an association, etc. There is no government role whatsoever, and we even have bridges. So it would appear that my experience validates your libertarian fantasy world. Look - we're actually doing it! I've got sour news for you. Even a wealthy, well educated collection of fair minded and well intentioned people find it very difficult to maintain a dirt/gravel road to an acceptable condition. It's very difficult and costly. We are right on the edge of success or failure in this maintenance. Further, if we were to actually pave the road (a true fantasy) it would be completely, totally unthinkable with regard to cost. Asphalt is paid for by the square foot and it isn't cheap. When you drive by a very quick section of asphalt road being resurfaced ... say 200-400 meters or something - very short ... understand that that is millions of dollars in asphalt work. Millions. Can you build some roads and bridges without the government ? Sure, of course you can. Will they approach, in any category, even the bare minimum acceptable standard that you hold ? No.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Hm. I understood that freeway (one of the most expensive roads in the world) was $1000 per foot. $5M per mile. I would expect asphalt to be much less. Here's a link: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/policy/costs/costs-D7.pdf http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/policy/costs/costs-D7.pd... Florida says 2-lane roadway is $3.3M per mile. So a few hundred feed, costing millions? Nonsense.
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    > So a few hundred feed, costing millions? Nonsense. 1. Your parent actually actively maintains a private road, and has probably done their research... 2. It costs them so much because they just have a single road, so they can't amortize the cost over an entire city or country of roadway. Public utilities tend toward monopoly for exactly this reason -- providing the utility to any small fraction of society is enormously expensive. Make no mistake, natural monopoly is what happens when you privatize utilities. Ever met a Comcast customer who feels anything short of contempt toward Comcast? Now imagine dealing with Comcast any time you need to drive to the grocery store. Or even leave your house. 3. Parent's numbers actually make sense when compared to Florida's, once you realize Florida has an entire state over which it can amortize costs.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      The Govt doesn't actually pave anything. Roads are a commodity. There are a half-dozen pavers in my small community of 50,000. If the costs are in the $100K per thousand feet, they are that for everybody. Again, $M for a few hundred feet is nonsense.
      - nmrm2 11y ago
        Parent said METERS, not feet. So parent is saying maybe 8mil for a mile. Not insane to assume low volume work in a presumably remote area will be double or triple the price that the entire state of Florida can get. Especially for a previously unpaved roadway with bridges that probably also needs widening, leveling, etc. That isn't patch work cleaning up existing paved road... The number is high but not unfathomably so... Anyways, either parent is telling the truth or not. But I find it hard to believe parent helps maintain a 2 mile private road and also you know better than him the cost of paving that particular road.

jqm 11y ago

Roads and bridges are fine. 700 hammers for the military maybe not. I worked as project manager for a contractor doing public works at one point. The government (at least in the US and probably everywhere) wastes a staggering amount of money. Not saying the government doesn't need funding. They do. But they could certainly do a lot more with less.

cmurf 11y ago
They need better internal auditors. If you just cut their budget alone, it doesn't decrease waste or fraud. To change the percentage of waste requires accountability for wasting.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  Accountability must come from outside government for it to be effective.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    Not necessarily, you just need the internal auditors to have independence and the right incentives. And actually-enforced penalties for individuals in government who stonewall the auditors because they know an honest auditor would want to reduce their budget.
    - newjersey 11y ago
      Also I absolutely hate how people think cutting government income is a good way to cut wasteful spending because it is immediately obvious it doesn't work. It can't work. We cheered when that scumbag Reagan talked about starving the beast. It was clear that even George HW Bush, Reagan's running mate knew it was a stupid idea. The problem that neocons won't talk about is that we don't have a single preferential way of allocating budget. Imagine we shrunk government income by one trillion dollars. That's the easy part but where will we cut our expenses? We haven't dealt with the difficult problem at all. Remember that every dollar "wasted" goes to someone. If they are loud and influential, they will probably get to keep their money/credit. So basically the rebalancing brought upon by starving the beast is nothing more than a cash grab by the more powerful more influential over those less so. I invite anyone who talks about cutting taxes to first come up with a plan to cut government spending. If the spending cut is palatable and can survive the mobs, I am in favor of starving our babies to cut taxes for the wealthy. But we can't put the cart before the horse. No new tax cuts without at least a matching spending cut that we can keep for at least a decade or so.

mason240 11y ago

No one takes this argument seriously because the people who use that argument usually want the government to do so much that roads are tiny fraction of what they do, or in a lot of cases, are outright hostile to roads altogether.