4 ms·

sure, let's spend our tax dollars more efficiently. point me to the government bureau that magically manages its finances "efficiently".

galdosdi 10y ago
I 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 ago
    It'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 ago
  The "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 ago
Exactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.
- refurb 10y ago
  Laughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    That was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?

galdosdi 10y ago

I 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 ago
  It'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 ago
The "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 ago

Exactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.

refurb 10y ago
Laughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  That was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?