10 ms·

I am reminded of Thiel's op ed in the Wapo[0]: "Our government used to get things done [..] Our newest fighter jet has already been under development for more

by rjeli 10y ago

I am reminded of Thiel's op ed in the Wapo[0]: "Our government used to get things done [..] Our newest fighter jet has already been under development for more than 15 years and it costs more than 15 times as much as the Manhattan Project (adjusted for inflation), but last year it lost a dogfight to a plane from the 1970s [..] Instead of spending a fortune, Trump won the primaries by saying things that made sense to voters. His greatest heresy was to declare that government health care can work [..] Trump’s heretical denial of Republican dogma about government incapacity is exactly what we need to move the party — and the country — in a new direction. For the Republican Party to be a credible alternative to the Democrats’ enabling, it must stand for effective government, not for giving up on government [..] I believe that effective government will require less bureaucracy and less rulemaking; we may need to have fewer public servants, and we might need to pay some of them more." [0]: http://wapo.st/2ceA9DK http://wapo.st/2ceA9DK

maxxxxx 10y ago
That's the problem. There has been so much propaganda about the impossibility of government to do anything right that people don't even try to run an efficient government. But they also don't try to shrink it so money just gets wasted. This happens with healthcare, defense and infrastructure. I think this may get even worse with Trump. During Bush's the Republicans just cut taxes while spending a lot of money on war so I would expect the same to happen again. People like Paul Ryan only turned into deficit hawks when Obama became president. They will probably forget the deficit now that they are in power.
- nickff 10y ago
  I once heard a comment from a (George W Bush) White House staffer who said something to the effect of: 'there is no point trying to save money while we are in power, because the democrats will just come in and spend it; we should just spend it on our favorite programs.' This is somewhat aligned with Bruce Buena de Mesquita's theories on how politicians act to retain power. I think that the Bush administration's largest impact on the budget was definitely Medicare Part D, which is not as obvious as the war in Iraq, but is much more expensive (>> $100 billion/year), and will probably last much longer (10 years so far).
  - refurb 10y ago
    Medicare Part D is actually an example of a good social program, even for those on the right side of the spectrum. The only thing the gov't does is define the parameters of the benfits and then has private insurers bid on providing benefits. It's come in well under budget projections and seniors are generally happy with how they can shop around for the right plan for them. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it a pretty successful social program? I'd say so.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Part D costs twice as much as it would if run like Medicare. So, no it's a boondoggle worse than the Big Dig which had some difficult problems to solve beyond making campaign donors richer.
      - refurb 10y ago
        costs twice as much as it would if run like Medicare Not sure what you mean, Part D is Medicare.
        Retric 10y ago
        Part A is through the government, part D uses private insurance.
        refurb 10y ago
        Well Part A is going broke while Part D is under budget, so...
  - twoodfin 10y ago
    That's fair, but something like Medicare Part D was essentially inevitable. Even if you think a better-structured program could provide more value / $, you're still talking thousands per senior per year for those drugs.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  It is simple really, it has gotten to large to work. Worse, far too much of it is not accountable to anyone. Look at the VA, how can this have gone on for so long and how is it even going on now?
- mtgx 10y ago
  Yes, I think the biggest reason for that happening, as well as the obstructionism in general is the extreme partisanship that has come from the FPTP voting system. Republicans say big government doesn't work, for which they are partly right, but they usually say it for the wrong reasons - wanting to cut some services so they can cut taxes for corporations or spend that money for Defense, not because they want to make the gov more efficient. Then to oppose them in a partisan way, the Democrats come and say "you're wrong! big government does work! and the people need it!" So they just end up wasting a lot of money not trying to make things more efficient, because doing so would "prove the Republicans right" or something. Same issue with electoral rigging. Republicans yell about it but mainly referring to "voter fraud" (probably a non-issue for the most part, but I haven't looked at the data), while real electoral fraud issues do exist, voter suppression being included in that. But for the most part Democrats don't call for audits and such either, because "voter fraud is not real" (even if other type of fraud is) and they think they might be helping Republicans by admitting it. This toxic partisanship is what's ruining politics in the U.S. Everything has to be black or white, red or blue. This is why I said it before when I criticized Sam Altman here for "simply encouraging young people to vote" as an obvious political ploy to get the Democrats to win. If Altman and others here are actually serious about democracy and fairness of the political process in the U.S., then they should be supporting stuff like removing electoral processes that don't work anymore and aren't democratic. Processes like the FPTP voting system for Congress as well as primaries and other elections (to proportional representation or RCV/approval voting for single-winner elections), as well as removing the electoral college, and the caucus system from primaries. They should also fight to make the "money vote" equal, just like the real vote is, and fight to limit individual political campaign donations. A rich person shouldn't have a "1,000 times stronger voice" than a regular or poorer person that can donate to a campaign. There are other real issues they can fix as well, such as fighting to eliminate electronic voting machines. Even when they aren't hacked to steal the elections have a ton of other issues like not working properly, and thus making a lot of people's vote not count, which should be a crime in itself. Fix the fundamental problems in the U.S. electoral process and everything else take care of itself in time, including climate change, and all the other important issues. As Elon Musk says, go at the problem from a "first principles" angle, rather than try to fix the symptoms (get more young people to vote so the "bad" Republicans don't win - the point is to make it so there aren't any "bad" Republicans anymore, at least not any worse than the typical right-wing party in Europe).
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Instead of spending a fortune, Trump won the primaries by saying things that made sense to voters. I'm afraid Peter is misinformed. Trump did spend a fortune to win the primaries. $63.3 million, to be exact. Only Ted Cruz spent more than him, at $85.8 million. You can look at the numbers by the Federal Elections Commission here: http://www.fec.gov/press/summaries/2016/tables/presidential/presdisbursements_2016_m6.pdf http://www.fec.gov/press/summaries/2016/tables/presidential/...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pmorici 10y ago
  He isn't talking about only the republicans. Clinton spent something like 3x Trump to win the Democratic primary. She also spent twice as much as Trump in the general election. http://freebeacon.com/politics/hillary-clinton-spent-three-times-money-primary-donald-trump/ http://freebeacon.com/politics/hillary-clinton-spent-three-t...
  - tl 10y ago
    A career politician who had lost the primary in 2008 proved that money and connections aren't everything.
    - tstactplsignore 10y ago
      Right... because the billionaire who is friends with dozens of billionaires, media owners and personalities, and rich politicians- who represents the interests of these monied connections- won the presidency? Trump is the definition of "money and connections"- all he has that and a particularly low-brow form of salesmanship. The only things this election proved is that things like truth and tact don't count for nearly as much as money and connections.
      - 7952 10y ago
        I think most elections are won of the basis of charisma. It is just hard to see the appeal when you find the candidate so unpleasent.

by rjeli 10y ago

maxxxxx 10y ago

That's the problem. There has been so much propaganda about the impossibility of government to do anything right that people don't even try to run an efficient government. But they also don't try to shrink it so money just gets wasted. This happens with healthcare, defense and infrastructure. I think this may get even worse with Trump. During Bush's the Republicans just cut taxes while spending a lot of money on war so I would expect the same to happen again. People like Paul Ryan only turned into deficit hawks when Obama became president. They will probably forget the deficit now that they are in power.

nickff 10y ago
I once heard a comment from a (George W Bush) White House staffer who said something to the effect of: 'there is no point trying to save money while we are in power, because the democrats will just come in and spend it; we should just spend it on our favorite programs.' This is somewhat aligned with Bruce Buena de Mesquita's theories on how politicians act to retain power. I think that the Bush administration's largest impact on the budget was definitely Medicare Part D, which is not as obvious as the war in Iraq, but is much more expensive (>> $100 billion/year), and will probably last much longer (10 years so far).
- refurb 10y ago
  Medicare Part D is actually an example of a good social program, even for those on the right side of the spectrum. The only thing the gov't does is define the parameters of the benfits and then has private insurers bid on providing benefits. It's come in well under budget projections and seniors are generally happy with how they can shop around for the right plan for them. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it a pretty successful social program? I'd say so.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Part D costs twice as much as it would if run like Medicare. So, no it's a boondoggle worse than the Big Dig which had some difficult problems to solve beyond making campaign donors richer.
    - refurb 10y ago
      costs twice as much as it would if run like Medicare Not sure what you mean, Part D is Medicare.
      - Retric 10y ago
        Part A is through the government, part D uses private insurance.
        refurb 10y ago
        Well Part A is going broke while Part D is under budget, so...
- twoodfin 10y ago
  That's fair, but something like Medicare Part D was essentially inevitable. Even if you think a better-structured program could provide more value / $, you're still talking thousands per senior per year for those drugs.
Shivetya 10y ago
It is simple really, it has gotten to large to work. Worse, far too much of it is not accountable to anyone. Look at the VA, how can this have gone on for so long and how is it even going on now?
mtgx 10y ago
Yes, I think the biggest reason for that happening, as well as the obstructionism in general is the extreme partisanship that has come from the FPTP voting system. Republicans say big government doesn't work, for which they are partly right, but they usually say it for the wrong reasons - wanting to cut some services so they can cut taxes for corporations or spend that money for Defense, not because they want to make the gov more efficient. Then to oppose them in a partisan way, the Democrats come and say "you're wrong! big government does work! and the people need it!" So they just end up wasting a lot of money not trying to make things more efficient, because doing so would "prove the Republicans right" or something. Same issue with electoral rigging. Republicans yell about it but mainly referring to "voter fraud" (probably a non-issue for the most part, but I haven't looked at the data), while real electoral fraud issues do exist, voter suppression being included in that. But for the most part Democrats don't call for audits and such either, because "voter fraud is not real" (even if other type of fraud is) and they think they might be helping Republicans by admitting it. This toxic partisanship is what's ruining politics in the U.S. Everything has to be black or white, red or blue. This is why I said it before when I criticized Sam Altman here for "simply encouraging young people to vote" as an obvious political ploy to get the Democrats to win. If Altman and others here are actually serious about democracy and fairness of the political process in the U.S., then they should be supporting stuff like removing electoral processes that don't work anymore and aren't democratic. Processes like the FPTP voting system for Congress as well as primaries and other elections (to proportional representation or RCV/approval voting for single-winner elections), as well as removing the electoral college, and the caucus system from primaries. They should also fight to make the "money vote" equal, just like the real vote is, and fight to limit individual political campaign donations. A rich person shouldn't have a "1,000 times stronger voice" than a regular or poorer person that can donate to a campaign. There are other real issues they can fix as well, such as fighting to eliminate electronic voting machines. Even when they aren't hacked to steal the elections have a ton of other issues like not working properly, and thus making a lot of people's vote not count, which should be a crime in itself. Fix the fundamental problems in the U.S. electoral process and everything else take care of itself in time, including climate change, and all the other important issues. As Elon Musk says, go at the problem from a "first principles" angle, rather than try to fix the symptoms (get more young people to vote so the "bad" Republicans don't win - the point is to make it so there aren't any "bad" Republicans anymore, at least not any worse than the typical right-wing party in Europe).

enraged_camel 10y ago

>>Instead of spending a fortune, Trump won the primaries by saying things that made sense to voters. I'm afraid Peter is misinformed. Trump did spend a fortune to win the primaries. $63.3 million, to be exact. Only Ted Cruz spent more than him, at $85.8 million. You can look at the numbers by the Federal Elections Commission here: http://www.fec.gov/press/summaries/2016/tables/presidential/presdisbursements_2016_m6.pdf http://www.fec.gov/press/summaries/2016/tables/presidential/...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pmorici 10y ago
He isn't talking about only the republicans. Clinton spent something like 3x Trump to win the Democratic primary. She also spent twice as much as Trump in the general election. http://freebeacon.com/politics/hillary-clinton-spent-three-times-money-primary-donald-trump/ http://freebeacon.com/politics/hillary-clinton-spent-three-t...
- tl 10y ago
  A career politician who had lost the primary in 2008 proved that money and connections aren't everything.
  - tstactplsignore 10y ago
    Right... because the billionaire who is friends with dozens of billionaires, media owners and personalities, and rich politicians- who represents the interests of these monied connections- won the presidency? Trump is the definition of "money and connections"- all he has that and a particularly low-brow form of salesmanship. The only things this election proved is that things like truth and tact don't count for nearly as much as money and connections.
    - 7952 10y ago
      I think most elections are won of the basis of charisma. It is just hard to see the appeal when you find the candidate so unpleasent.