4 ms·
"I know that our budgets are already creaking under the load of our spending and entitlement programs [..]" It worries me how that assumption is never challeng
by RobertoG 10y ago
"I know that our budgets are already creaking under the load of our spending and entitlement programs [..]"
It worries me how that assumption is never challenged even by people who "would absolutely love to see a taxpayer-funded initiative ". The deficit-mania narrative is really hegemonic nowadays.
- mtdewcmu 10y agoI was going to say something similar. We could do a lot of good just by shoveling more money to NSF and other established programs, like Obama did in the stimulus. It's a tiny fraction of the federal budget.
- astrodust 10y agoYou can build a million roads and learn almost nothing. You can send a single probe to Venus and learn enough to fill entire books and launch a thousand careers. Some things have higher yields than others.
- leggomylibro 10y agoI don't think we need to cut programs, I just think that our current programs aren't administered effectively. We spend trillions and it seems like there's just so much graft and waste.
- bbctol 10y agoSure, but waste doesn't mean we're "creaking under their load," especially when it comes to entitlement programs. If we just wanted to double the amount we spend on science, energy, and the environment, we'd have some inefficiencies but make a small dent in the overall budget.
- hackuser 10y ago> it seems like there's just so much graft and waste. I hear this claim, but I've never seen evidence of it. How much graft and waste is there? In which department? Every large organization has some of it - name one that doesn't. I have yet to see evidence of how relatively efficient or uncorrupt the U.S. government is. I do know that anti-corruption groups generally rate it highly relative to other governments worldwide, but many of those governments are in poor countries with high corruption (the latter being a major cause of the former).