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Assuming 2 is true, shouldn't Americans then be more concerned with spending those hundreds of billions of dollars a year more efficiently, so USA's power could
by mtgx 10y ago
Assuming 2 is true, shouldn't Americans then be more concerned with spending those hundreds of billions of dollars a year more efficiently, so USA's power could be 2x, 4x (just by cutting the waste/corruption alone), or even 10x bigger (by using the money buy smarter/more effective technology than say...more tanks, or F-35's)?!
People who keep supporting more military spending aren't patriots. Quite the opposite. Those that want their army to run well and effectively are the true patriots.
- lintiness 10y agosure, let's spend our tax dollars more efficiently. point me to the government bureau that magically manages its finances "efficiently".
- galdosdi 10y agoI can think of one. The SSA spends just a fraction of a percentage point of its disbursements on administrative costs. There's probably others. Like private industry, government is huge, contains many agencies at many levels, and some of them are well run and some of them are poorly run and some of them are somewhere in between.
- lintiness 10y ago.39% of "assets" (debt issued by other parts of government). vanguard charges about a quarter this (with vehicles delivering substantially better risk adjusted returns). their "plan" is also slated to go bankrupt without adjustment.
- galdosdi 10y agoIt's true that their costs are greater than vanguard which is literally the cheapest private mutual fund company around. Try comparing it to an industry average; 0.39% is quite fair then. The "plan going bankrupt" has nothing to do with the administration of benefits, however. It's not happening because the bureaucracy is screwing up and wasting too much money -- even if they worked for free, you'd only gain 0.39% more per year. It's congress that is underfunding (or overprovisioning, or some combination of the two) -- could be fixed in two seconds with a bill cutting benefits and/or increasing taxes without any real change for SSA. Also, when it "goes bankrupt" as people misleadingly call it, they'll still be able to pay about 4/5 of the benefits currently promised. In effect, congress by doing nothing has already implicitly reduced future benefits to 4/5 of the current statutory amounts. If you just assume you'll get 4/5 of what is being promised, then it's in no way bankrupt and is self sustaining forever. 4/5 is not chump change. I've started to realize this whole "social security is a failure" talk may be FUD being spread to get people to accept further raiding of social security because "whatever, it's already broken"
- kbutler 10y agoThe "efficiency" of the SSA is simply because of the vast flow of money the SSA distributes. Similarly, the IRS is hugely "profitable", because its administrative costs are a tiny fraction of the money it brings in.
- monkmartinez 10y agoExactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.
- refurb 10y agoLaughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?
- monkmartinez 10y agoThat was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dforrestwilson1 10y agoFormer military and former intelligence contractor here. No quarrel with what you are saying. The answer to "why not" is lobbying, constituents, and corruption. Military spending influences the economy in literally every state. That's why they don't close bases. That's why the legislature optimizes for maximum spend rather than ROI.
- sremani 10y agoHe is basically challenging the idea US being a maritime power projecting its power across the globe. I am more interested your answer to that line of questioning rather than institutional quid pro quo to get favors and support from senators.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoAs the UK declined as the maritime power, the US filled the gap. This is on a line of history going back to the Dutch and the Spanish.
- chiph 10y agoFormer military here. The #1 way to reduce waste would be to change the accounting rules. As it is, if you don't spend your full budget for the year, next year's budget will be cut by that amount. And you aren't allowed to keep a "rainy day fund". This causes problems when you have expensive equipment that only fails occasionally. You have to budget for a possible replacement, but if you make it through the year without a failure, you've got all this money that you have to suddenly find a use for.