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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 governmen

by 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.
      - EdSharkey 11y ago
        "we don't have a single preferential way of allocating budget." That's a very charitable way of saying there are no priorities in Washington and there never will be. I don't mind discussions of cutting the federal government drastically even with overblown threats of riots and unrest. Why continue to prop up a federal system that was never designed to scale up to the size it is and that is out of control? It can't be fixed by any amount of tinkering so just let it collapse back to the original limited powers concept. U.S. state and local governments do a much better job spending taxpayer money, just revert all these poorly run federal agencies and programs back to the state level.
        newjersey 11y ago
        A major issue here is income inequality. I understand that a part of me says "well, what's wrong with differences in the quality of life between someone living in some town in state A and someone else living in some town in state B. We can talk about our successes with independent school districts where communities proudly fund their own schools with taxes at rates that they think are the best. Or take local police and EMS or local utilities for that matter. It is glorious when it works as it creates a sense of ownership and responsibility towards a community resource. I agree with you in broad strokes that we can and should support devolution. However, I assert that we should not do this because our federal government was not "designed" to do this but because it is the right thing to do and it is in all our best interest to do it. We should not do something or avoid doing something based solely on what the system was "designed" to do. We should be willing to make changes to the system as we learn new things. I cringe on the amount of reverence with which we hold our founding fathers. The United States is a well recognized nation throughout the world and we do not need this crutch. (:
        EdSharkey 11y ago
        It's not a crutch. Separation of powers is a desirable thing because it tries to prevent the concentration of too much power in a body, group, or person. The Bill of Rights and constitution specifically LIMITS the powers of the federal government. America is an experiment in government that is no longer running, but its edifice is still there - which does not scale because it was designed _not to_. Any power or service the federal government was not designed to own is reserved for the individual states. All the wealth transfer programs, pension plans, and public services we have now federally can be delivered by the states. So yes, there is a "design" there, we're just not adhering to it. And when it all reverts to the states, then we can have real fights over what's the "right thing" for the state to do and where the dollars go.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  And the accountability ends up causing waste. A basic example I've given before is when you can't go and buy the cheapest thing because you have to prove it is the cheapest thing, which you can't do without a review (because people abused this is the past). The end result is that the cost to approve the cheapest option is so high you stick with a more expensive option that is overall worse, but currently considered the best. Imagine a programmer who has to document what they do every quarter hour of their work day to ensure accountability to auditors looking to reduce waste. They end up wasting more time documenting what they do than you end up saving.

by jqm 11y ago

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.
    - EdSharkey 11y ago
      "we don't have a single preferential way of allocating budget." That's a very charitable way of saying there are no priorities in Washington and there never will be. I don't mind discussions of cutting the federal government drastically even with overblown threats of riots and unrest. Why continue to prop up a federal system that was never designed to scale up to the size it is and that is out of control? It can't be fixed by any amount of tinkering so just let it collapse back to the original limited powers concept. U.S. state and local governments do a much better job spending taxpayer money, just revert all these poorly run federal agencies and programs back to the state level.
      - newjersey 11y ago
        A major issue here is income inequality. I understand that a part of me says "well, what's wrong with differences in the quality of life between someone living in some town in state A and someone else living in some town in state B. We can talk about our successes with independent school districts where communities proudly fund their own schools with taxes at rates that they think are the best. Or take local police and EMS or local utilities for that matter. It is glorious when it works as it creates a sense of ownership and responsibility towards a community resource. I agree with you in broad strokes that we can and should support devolution. However, I assert that we should not do this because our federal government was not "designed" to do this but because it is the right thing to do and it is in all our best interest to do it. We should not do something or avoid doing something based solely on what the system was "designed" to do. We should be willing to make changes to the system as we learn new things. I cringe on the amount of reverence with which we hold our founding fathers. The United States is a well recognized nation throughout the world and we do not need this crutch. (:
        EdSharkey 11y ago
        It's not a crutch. Separation of powers is a desirable thing because it tries to prevent the concentration of too much power in a body, group, or person. The Bill of Rights and constitution specifically LIMITS the powers of the federal government. America is an experiment in government that is no longer running, but its edifice is still there - which does not scale because it was designed _not to_. Any power or service the federal government was not designed to own is reserved for the individual states. All the wealth transfer programs, pension plans, and public services we have now federally can be delivered by the states. So yes, there is a "design" there, we're just not adhering to it. And when it all reverts to the states, then we can have real fights over what's the "right thing" for the state to do and where the dollars go.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
And the accountability ends up causing waste. A basic example I've given before is when you can't go and buy the cheapest thing because you have to prove it is the cheapest thing, which you can't do without a review (because people abused this is the past). The end result is that the cost to approve the cheapest option is so high you stick with a more expensive option that is overall worse, but currently considered the best. Imagine a programmer who has to document what they do every quarter hour of their work day to ensure accountability to auditors looking to reduce waste. They end up wasting more time documenting what they do than you end up saving.