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Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US
- pthreads 9y agoI am very eager to see what's in store here when it goes live. If indeed it contains accurate, unbiased and factual data then it is a great project. And it is about time someone did it. I wish it was citizen funded instead of rich individuals (even if the intentions are good). But I will take what I can get for now.
- nojvek 9y agoI'll get excited when it comes out. What is in it for ballmer?
- gumby 9y agoIt makes his wife happy? That is what is discussed in the article. Frankly, it's a reasonable motivation.
- xbmcuser 9y agoI think it was more about him wanting to win an argument with his wife about his tax dollars being enough for charity but once he started getting the data like all engineers he kept going deeper down the rabbit hole.
- hkmurakami 9y agoIt struck me as philanthropy in a way. And he confirms it. * “We’re making philanthropic donations elsewhere — I think of this as another,” he said, referring to himself and his wife. “I don’t even deduct this for my taxes. I pay this with after-tax money, no pretax money, because I don’t want anybody being able to think that factors in. But I feel like it’s a civic contribution more than anything else.”
- jonknee 9y agoI've made databases to scratch an itch before and this is that, but at a curious billionaire scale. Sounds like an a fun project to work on.
- aggie 9y agoIs Steve Ballmer not a citizen? Do you mean crowd-funded? Assuming you're worried about self-interest tainting the project, a crowd-funded project doesn't necessarily eliminate that since someone still has to be in charge. Open-source for peer review would be necessary.
- pthreads 9y agoI meant public-funded. My concern was more in terms of funding drying up after a few years if the individual's philanthropic interests change. To me it is not a debate between two choices. It is just the order of preferences. But, like I said this could still be a great project. Looking forward to it's release.
- gumby 9y agoI really never liked Ballmer, but I did love him for the Developers dance, and now, well, this is awesome. I hope he does it in a long-term sustainable way.
- donatj 9y agoFunny and satirical as it is, [1] completely changed my opinion of Steve Ballmer for the positive. > Steve Ballmer. You open the door to his enormous grinning face, and before you know it he’s in the hall handing over a bottle of something cheap (but with such confidence you don’t notice) and he’s giving you the handshake of your life. Then he’s in. Loving it. Loving the music. Loving the food and drink. He’s going up to everyone, saying hello. And after a while you realize he’s started balling “thanks for coming, great to see you man!” to your guests. By the end of the evening it’s his party and everybody had a great time. That’s Steve Ballmer. https://medium.com/packt-publishing/how-to-be-like-steve-ballmer-cf4c9803d74c https://medium.com/packt-publishing/how-to-be-like-steve-bal...
- astronautjones 9y ago> handing over a bottle of something cheap (but with such confidence you don’t notice) Three commas?
- polyomino 9y agoThat's Mark Cuban
- plaguuuuuu 9y agoThat was a really strange article
- SamReidHughes 9y agoOne thing that gets wrong is calling Gates the genius. Ballmer is the smarter of the two.
- 9y ago
- samfisher83 9y agoI think this is an interesting point: >One rule Mr. Ballmer said his team made early on was to use only government data — no outside providers — to avoid accusations of bias. But this created its own challenges. Its going to be interesting to see the site. I wonder if it will be free?
- bluejekyll 9y agoHopefully free for non-profit uses at least.
- smithkl42 9y agoIt's quite possible for someone to be a mediocre CEO and still do good, smart things. This is a good thing, and smart.
- nyolfen 9y agoi'm not sure why the dig at him was a necessary foreword
- aryehof 9y agoThe article mentions that the data shows a huge allocation of resources to education. Why is education publicly funded in the USA, and not left to market forces? Can't that be considered a "socialist" policy?
- stuartaxelowen 9y agoBecause education is one of the foundations of a productive life, and we don't want to even further widen the gap between the rich and poor?
- castratikron 9y agoA public company generally cares about quarterly performance. A private company might have its sights as far as a few years out. However, with education it takes about 20 years to start seeing a return on investment. It just doesn't make sense to approach education from a business standpoint, both because the ROI is very low, and you need to have stability in education, you can't have someone like ITT Tech all of a sudden deciding to close their door to tens of thousands of students and leave with a bunch of useless credits that won't transfer.
- killjoywashere 9y agoYou're telling me Exxon doesn't look 20 years out? Burlington Northern, a railroad, was looking 30 years out when my dad worked for them. Is there a more classic example of American "big business"?
- SamReidHughes 9y agoIf you really believe this why don't you short-sell a bunch of companies and make a killing?
- tanderson92 9y agoBecause the belief has nothing to do with your arbitrary test. And even if it did, the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- scosman 9y ago"“But come on, doesn’t the government take care of the poor, the sick, the old?” Mr. Ballmer recalled telling her." Too bad he never had a mentor who was an expert in philanthropy...
- simplegeek 9y agoIt seems his wife is.
- akcreek 9y agoHe was sarcastically alluding to Bill Gates.
- chickenfries 9y agoWhat an incredible quote. I wonder if his obnoxious opinions on philanthropy came up while they were dating. Certainly sounds like an awkward conversation to me.
- taurath 9y agoIt sounds pretty great, but I'm very worried about what actually comes out of it given the media landscape. People will use the data in ways that benefit them - even the CBO's reports are highly politicized. If we can't start taking "real, true" data at face value and using it to drive actual policy again, this is just another drop in the bucket.
- hackuser 9y ago> even the CBO's reports are highly politicized I'm pretty sure I've read about many CBO reports that disagreed with the party in power. What basis is there for saying they are highly politicized?
- taurath 9y agoNot the reports themselves, the results from them. Its good data but doesn't "matter".
- kuyan 9y ago> even the CBO's reports are highly politicized Can you source that?
- MisterBastahrd 9y agoI took it to mean "third parties politicize CBO reports" rather than "CBO reports are created with ideological slants," because, well, that's the truth of the matter. You can't criticize a CBO forecast for being slightly inaccurate when politicians decide to change the parameters after the fact.
- astronautjones 9y agoI think you're correct, but it was poorly worded
- taurath 9y ago
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoOh this is fascinating. I can't wait for people to slice and dice this up and show all kinds of data and analysis. This reminds me of how the NBA opened up the data stores from Sport Vu analytics and other advanced statistics and how much we learned from it by all the people on the web looking at it and thinking about it, sorting it and analyzing it in many different ways to see things no one had seen before. That has to be good for our country.
- castratikron 9y agoConservative AM radio, I can hear it now: "You know who the largest employer in the country is? It isn't WalMart, it's the US guberment!"
- 1wheel 9y agoThe NBA stopped posting the Sport Vu data early last year - I don't think it is coming back.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoDo you have an article describing why they did that? I can't find one.
- 1wheel 9y agoThe NBA stopped posting the Sport Vu data early last year - I don't think it is coming back.
- nimchimpsky 9y agom$ has got so much better since he left.
- hoodoof 9y agoSeems to me lots of companies make $ Do they all get a derogatory psuedonym? adob$ amaz$ face$ goog$ mailchim$ etc etc etc or is the negativity reserved for M$ Suggesting there is something wrong with a software company because it makes money seems to be a blow in from 1990's militant open source philosophy and probably best left in the 1990s.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gonvaled 9y agoM$ will never, ever, be forgiven for the FUD that put OS in dire straits.
- praneshp 9y agoO$ is not in dire straits. No point in hating on them if that's the reason.
- gonvaled 9y agoWithout the forces that were pushed against OS for the good part of the 90s, it would have arguably taken over the software world. In that situation, Apple would not have succeeded as a walled garden, as it has. So, although OS-the-product is still going strong, OS-the-movement was effectively stopped on its tracks. Which is a very bad thing, in my opinion.
- ksk 9y agoI'd argue the opposite. That OS-the-product hasn't actually succeeded because it doesn't have a business model that works. I'd guess about 0.000001% of open source projects actually make money (sure, maybe making money is not their goal, but it sure helps spread the word). Where as 100% of proprietary products make money - whether they make enough money is a separate issue ofcource ;) I don't believe that the FUD from MS actually accomplished anything besides a very minor short term benefit where people didn't touch the GPL for legal reasons. Businesses are smart and they are very capable of figuring out what does and doesn't make money. Heck even Google figured out that being open is bad for business. OS-the-movement OTOH is going strong. Its cool to have contributed to an open source project. Its cool to have all your work up on github. Its pretty much a gold star on your resume if you have a popular OSS project...
- propman 9y agoI am definitely very excited about this. Blanket statements like "government is too inefficient and such a waste" or "we need to raise more taxes to fix this problem" are statements that are irrefutable due to the convoluted nature of government. Now we can have a little more insight into what is efficient and what isn't. Also the opaqueness and division of data makes it difficult to make meaningful and economical decisions in a macro sense. I feel like there are lots of untapped opportunities to create services that involve gathering specific data that may also be sold anonymously to government in order to make better decisions along with helping customers.
- peteretep 9y agoI think it's optimistic to think that data will sway political opinion in America
- afsina 9y agoSadly, many people who make those blanket statements (such as myself) also believe governments, especially big-centralized ones cannot be fixed. These kind of data is good, it may be an eye opener for some. But governments will find loop holes to make those spendings look like justified. Most people will be fine with it anyway. Look at the authors response: "Oh there are 10 million public school teachers, those are nice people!"
- thomastjeffery 9y agoAt the same time, more specific data is always better. Soon he'll realize the slim margins that go to actual teachers, and see that most of it goes to boards, etc.
- rayiner 9y agoNope. 80% of per school expenditures goes to salary and benefits, with the overwhelming majority for instruction rather than administration: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmb.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmb.asp.
- WalterBright 9y ago> “How many people work for government in the United States?” he asked, with the excitement of a child showing off a new toy, before displaying the answer. “Almost 24 million." Directly, sure. Indirectly, a lot more. By indirectly, I mean companies that do government contract work.
- vanderZwan 9y agoAnd how often are those contractors the target of budget cuts, and how often do nurses, teachers and so on end up bearing the brunt of them?
- dingdongding 9y agoIf you go by that approach then everyone in the society indirectly works for the govt in some way or the other.
- seoguru 9y agocorrect! if you are paid in dollars, you are indirectly working for the government. what is the purpose of taxes? to create unemployment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1uWVj0YJ3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1uWVj0YJ3M
- ht_th 9y agoSure. But I was more thinking about people who directly work indirectly for the government, such as cleaners who work for a company that has them clean (the same) government offices (all the time). There are a lot of similar supporting services that have been privatized and "out-sourced" to external companies but which employees are practically working for the government.
- WalterBright 9y agoThis will be a much needed site. Thanks, Steve!
- guelo 9y agoOne of the hardest views of government budget to come by is per-category over time or per budget proposal. So you could see, for example, how much police funding has gone up or down over time. Or for different budget proposals the increase/decrease of each category compared to the current baseline. That data is never available when proposals are debated in Congress every year. The best you get in the news is when some interest group digs deep to find the most click baity possible shocking line item. I think even the politicians just vote based on party and don't really have any idea about the budget big picture. Hopefully this Ballmer will provide that kind of view.
- saadrizvi 9y agoThis is fantastic - this type of transparency will also put positive pressure on agencies and departments to demonstrate their outcomes for citizens.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- joshu 9y agoI just bought a domain for something similar. Oops
- CalChris 9y agoAnd in related news, Trump killed open.gov today. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170414/13382037153/trump-administration-kills-opengov-will-not-release-white-house-visitor-logs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170414/13382037153/trump...
- joshmn 9y agoAnd he wonders why people are increasingly skeptical of his administration.
- jonknee 9y agoI don't think he wonders about anything at all. He knows (and is wrong).
- flukus 9y agoIncreasingly? Weren't most of his supporters somewhat skeptical from the start?
- mistersys 9y agoHis approval rating was highest his first week as president: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
- 40acres 9y agoThis makes me wonder, has the data been public all this time?
- roymurdock 9y agoI have found this website very helpful in the past few years when researching government financial info: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart I reached out to the website developer/maintainer/creator, Chris Chantrill, telling him I appreciated his work on the site and asking if he needed help (seems like a 1 man operation?) - here's how he responded: Thanks! I started the site in 2007 when "I couldn't take it any more." Since then it has just growed. Here's how you can help. Suggest a feature. Best wishes, --Chris Chris' site provides unbiased commentary on the importance/relevance of certain measurements, and gives access to download data. It could use a bit of a UX/UI overhaul but it's an amazing feat for a one-man operation to track and present all these different sources of gov data. I'll be interested to see how Balmer's site compares in functionality (and neutrality) especially given his vast resources and team of experts.
- Clownshoesms 9y agoThe UI is actually making me feel angry, for some reason I can't put my finger on.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- r00fus 9y agoCould it be the front-and-center red * bolded * text? Or perhaps the logo with the clipped words?
- Clownshoesms 9y agoHehe that might be part of it, I actually feel claustrophobic reading it. A neutron star of text and links.
- Sunset 9y agoThe font size is "wrong" for everything and completely inconsistent and all over the place. White spacing is all wrong too. The font color is non-contrasting, because gray on blue is a brilliant idea. I'd literally fire someone if they submitted this as graphics design.
- analog31 9y agoI'd love to see the same thing done with the health care industry. I have a pet hypothesis that the financial complexity of the industry is one of the barriers to reducing costs: Nobody knows what's being spent on what, and to whom. Everybody can claim that somebody else is gouging us.
- thatwebdude 9y ago> Everybody can claim that somebody else is gouging us. I feel this is the case more and more...
- sjg007 9y agoThey're probably all gouging each other where in the end the retail patient with no insurance suffers bankruptcy.
- jliptzin 9y agoToday I filed my tax return showing all the money that came in and every minute expense required to make that money. Why can't we hold the government to the same standard? There should be one (huge) annual spreadsheet published showing how much money came in (federal, state, and local levels), with a detailed accounting of where every penny went, just like I am required to do for my business to claim deductions.
- Clownshoesms 9y agoI agree, I think absolute transparency should be a given with any democratic government. One reason, aside from national security to a hopefully minor degree, is to cover their behinds when stupid things are done (and they're done an awful lot in the public service). I think if we had a crystal-clear/omniscient view of the wastage that goes on in various governments, we'd be collectively appalled.
- parasubvert 9y ago"I think if we had a crystal-clear/omniscient view of the wastage that goes on in various governments, we'd be collectively appalled." I think the opposite. Most people already believe the government is incredibly wasteful, there's a much greater opportunity in highlighting where it surprisingly efficient. This will serve to blow up many ideological truisms.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- crusso 9y agoIndividuals have very personal views of finances. When people are asked how they should spend their own money, they're very careful with it and analyze expenditures and benefits carefully. On an individual basis, money is spent efficiently and people understand that. As the responsibility for spending money is removed from the individual, efficiency plummets. Government jobs are the ultimate in a lack of accountability. Voters don't have the visibility to see what politicians and other government workers spend money on. The one entity that should effectively provide oversight on how the government spends our money is the government itself - and they're loathe to limit their own power. Then on top of all that, even voters aren't spending their own money when they make voting decisions. They're mostly rationalizing that their voting decisions are affecting the other guy, like "the rich".
- tommoor 9y agoThe UK gov supplies a very simple chart that shows where your taxes have gone, it looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/pr6LQ https://imgur.com/a/pr6LQ Although the real thing shows how much money you personally contributed to each sector - I removed for the screenshot.
- adventured 9y agoThe US already has numerous breakdowns on where the money goes in segments. For example, I can tell you how much of the budget & tax revenue goes to the military, Social Security, medicare, veterans housing, interest on the public debt, and on and on. We have vast, freely available public data on spending. That's not what Ballmer is doing.
- ashnyc 9y agoSteve Ballmer will be running for president ... wait and see
- nickgrosvenor 9y agoand they're using mail chimp to manage their email database
- runeks 9y ago> His first instinct, naturally, was to go to a search engine. “My favorite one, of course: I go to Bing,” he said. “And by the way, I check it with Google, just to make sure there’s nothing I’m missing.” It appears that Mr. Ballmer could cut his search time in half by just skipping the first step here. I believe this is the optimization everyone else applies.
- joshmn 9y agoI've always kind of had a crush on Steve Ballmer, he just seems like a real jolly fellow. After reading the excerpts, that crush only grew.
- victor22 9y agoI hope he focus on collecting and funneling the data vs. spending a ton on analyzing the current easily available data.
- victor22 9y agoIt's fascinating how great leaders do PR by making it seem they run the whole show, therefore making them look even greater.
- yeukhon 9y agoHe talks about his motivation in this speech: https://youtu.be/ChxeCKyafVU https://youtu.be/ChxeCKyafVU "How to Tell a Story", I recommend watch it.
- discordance 9y agoDirect link to Ballmer's site - https://www.usafacts.org https://www.usafacts.org
- Clownshoesms 9y agoThere's something comically evil looking about Ballmer, almost the Emperor from Star Wars. A former Microsoft exec wondering what the government does with money? A lot landed in his pockets I suspect, but it's good he's philanthropic now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs.
- dandare 9y agoDear competitor, we welcome you! :) Our startup is trying open the information on government spending to the masses: https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016 https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016.
- afsina 9y agoI strongly disagree with the author here: "Suddenly, he explained, the faceless bureaucrats who are often pilloried as symbols of government waste suddenly start to look like the people in our neighborhood whom we’re very glad to have."
- rahimnathwani 9y agoThe UK's National Audit Office has this page: https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/whole-of-government-accounts/ https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/whole-of-government-accoun... It shows a breakdown, for the year 2014-2015, of "consolidated financial statements for the whole of the UK public sector". The pie chart and "Breakdown of WGA Balances" can be hard to understand when you first load the page, but if you hover over a column in the column chart (under '2011-2015 Balance Information'), you can click to see a breakdown for one of the sections of the column chart. It's kind of nice to see the information categorised by type, rather than by which body spent the money.
- macawfish 9y agoI'm enjoying how his enthusiasm is being channelled in a productive way!
- rbanffy 9y agoWow! I'd never imagine Steve would eventually grow up into a responsible citizen... After everything he did at the helm of Microsoft, I'm genuinely, positively surprised.
- whatupmd 9y agoA step in the right direction, to say the least.
- yread 9y agoHe talked about it in his recent TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRgmKiE0Js https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRgmKiE0Js Quite interesting (and low-key for Ballmer) talk
- ceejay 9y agoGranted, I don't yet know the scope of the project precisely (ie. how detailed and how much information was collected), but if it's as big as I think it is, Steve Ballmer has instantly become one of my favorite people currently inhabiting this planet.
- thr0waway1239 9y agoIt was created by someone who was at Microsoft. If the past is any indicator, you will see a splashy introduction, the follow-up and follow-through will be horrendous, and in the end everyone will hold their noses and still use it anyway.
- bawana 9y agocan we translate this data into performance measures for our politicians? After all, we are paying freshmen congressmen >150K annually with an additional stipend of several million to run their office. EVERY YEAR. How does what they do make a measurable impact on our lives?
- danilovescake 9y agoOh wow, thanks for all this trouble Trump..... Lol
- danilovescake 9y agoThanks for all this trouble with the government Trump. :) lol
- Zigurd 9y agoThe problem with "radical transparency"is that the worst money-wasters get to hide behind confidentiality in the name of security: 1. Counter-terrorism spending, which wastes money protecting backwaters no terrorist has even heard of 2. The Drug War and it's army of informants 3. Seizures of property and cash, dimensions currently unknown 4. A Cold War-sized military in a post-Cold War world 5. The prison-industrial complex Those are all discretionary spending. And those are all conservatives' favorites. And they all get wrapped in "we can't be transparent, because drug lords and terrorists!"
- marcosdumay 9y agoAt a minimum, transparency lets you say "hey, we do all that stuff with this $, why is there all that extra $$$$ spent there where we can't see?"
- Zigurd 9y agoSure. But if you look at other comments on this thread, there are arguments for fine-grained transparency for, for example, school spending, or social program spending. The objection to that is that it's grist for the outrage mill: "How DARE they spend money on LGBT issues!" Radical transparency would be better supportable if it did not exclude the secret policeman's budget.
- vitorbaptistaa 9y ago_Disclaimer: I work for Open Knowledge International and have worked on OpenSpending in the past_ If you're interested in public spending data, take a look at OpenSpending (https://openspending.org/ https://openspending.org/). It's a project that aims to make exploring, visualizing, and searching spending data easier. It's all free software (https://github.com/openspending https://github.com/openspending) and you can upload your own datasets or explore others. It also provides you with an API, so you can use it to build finance-related projects (e.g. http://orcamento.inesc.org.br http://orcamento.inesc.org.br)
- marcgcombi 9y agoAnd of course, USAFacts' interpretation of the responsibilities of government are right out of the liberal progressive manifesto... but I think that is the way the data need to be reported, because there is no Constitutional anchor-point for 2/3rds of what the US Federal Gov't actually does.
- Fifer82 9y agoJust incase there isn't already enough other links. This one is for the US / UK / Czech Republic I liked the style. https://www.wikibudgets.org/ https://www.wikibudgets.org/
- 24gttghh 9y ago>With an unlimited budget, he went about hiring a team of researchers in Seattle and made a grant to the University of Pennsylvania to help his staff put the information together. Altogether, he has spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants. $10 million spent so far just trying to figure out what the collective governments in the US is spending money on. Is this an argument for privatization or a failure of government to provide this information succinctly itself?
- rjtavares 9y agoWhy do you believe an equivalent effort to figure out what the private sector is spending money on would be cheaper?
- 24gttghh 9y agoI don't; it was meant to be a jab at privatization worshippers since the second part of that, "the government has failed by not providing this information" had more meat to it.
- Zak 9y agoWhen it comes to publicly-traded companies, it probably would be because they're required to make specific, comprehensive disclosures about their income and spending on a regular basis. Governments, especially local governments are much less consistent about such disclosures. It's also reasonable to expect that a government that is elected by the public and funded by taxation provide an accounting to voters and taxpayers.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoHe's only using government provided data for this site, so it's not like the data isn't available.
- ridgeguy 9y agoI don't see that it's either. If it were privatized, it would suffer from economic pressure to suppress data that conflicts with its economic incentives. And we don't pay government (i.e., tax ourselves to provide funds) to do this. No money, no results. That's not a failure of government, it's taxpayers deciding not to have the government provide this service.
- 0x445442 9y agoBravo Mr. Ballmer. Now lets get all government financial transactions on the block chain...
- jsl6906 9y agoI'm not sure how comparable it is, but for what it's worth, the Census Bureau disseminates data on State and Local Government Finances: https://www.census.gov/govs/local/ https://www.census.gov/govs/local/. Not particularly timely however, as the most recent data available is for 2014.
- asveikau 9y agoSteve Ballmer gives mainly to Republicans and gave money to oppose income tax in Washington state specifically for high earners. I doubt he can be totally nonpartisan on this subject.
- berberous 9y agoSo? Literally everyone is partisan. Everyone has a world view. That doesn't mean you can't legitimately aim to have a non-biased open and accurate dataset. Different folks can interpret that data set in different ways. Balmer's view of how the data suggests we should drive policy can be different from your own.
- pc2g4d 9y agoThere's more to it, though. Washington has a long history of opposition to state income taxes, for various reasons: http://kuow.org/post/strange-short-story-washington-state-s-income-tax http://kuow.org/post/strange-short-story-washington-state-s-... In a way, he was just supporting state tradition.
- scott_karana 9y agoIf his quotes in the article were genuine, there's hope.
- clavalle 9y agoThis is half the battle. The other half is figuring out the value created by the spending. Hopefully having the data in one place can help us calculate that fuzzier side of the equation.
- OliverJones 9y agoI love how this article portrays Mr. Ballmer as a wide eyed innocent. “I mean it’s funny, but I didn’t realize all these not-for-profits were in a sense almost like government contractors.” Well, yeah. Antipoverty nonprofit agencies run programs like Head Start and handle all sorts of charity operations. Adoption agencies, training programs, and on and on. A key skill for nonprofit comptrollers is knowing how to get governments to cough up the money they're contracted to pay these agencies. “You know it’s not legal to know how many firearms that are in this country? The government is not allowed to collect the number.” Mr. Ballmer, are you the LAST person to know that? People interested in stemming urban violence have known that for decades. Maybe somebody with his clout can make a difference. It's good to have this information gathered up in a useful form. But, enough with the "innocents abroad" narrative!
- bufbupa 9y agoI'm going to have to disagree with you here. I think its much more constructive to encourage potentially ignorant individuals to be inquisitive, rather than to reprimand them for not knowing something sooner. To belittle those individuals who did not have access or exposure to this information seems cynical or high-horsed. Exposing verifiable data is the first step, encouraging people to challenge their belief systems through curiosity and with the assurance that changing their mind (based on that data) is not stupid or reprehensible is the second.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoI don't know anything about the man, but, maybe he really is that innocent. Maybe he threw himself into his career and that's ALL he focused on. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope his wide-eyed innocence helps others by making this data easily digestible.
- marxidad 9y agoOr how about this gem: “If you look at these tax deductions for employer-provided health or for state and local taxes or mortgage-interest deductions, they’re really subsidies to the affluent, which I guess I hadn’t thought about them.”
- dang 9y agoSince the project itself is now at #1 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139186), I suppose we can treat this earlier discussion as the duplicate.
- aaronjgreenberg 9y agoIt's funny how well this dovetails with the stereotype of the tech industry. WIFE: You should help with these philanthropic efforts. BALLMER: I pay lots of taxes, the government takes care of helping people. WIFE: That's not true. BALLMER: Yes it is, and rather than contribute philanthropically, I'll start a start-up to settle this.
- prance 9y ago> Well, let’s look at that. People who work in schools, higher ed, public institutions of education — they are government employees.” And they represent almost half of the 24 million, his data shows. > “And you say, O.K., what are the other big blocks?” Mr. Ballmer continued. “Well, active-duty military, war fighters. Government hospitals. Really? I didn’t know that.” I'm really surprised if this really surprised him. I mean, the ex-CEO of one of the most powerful and influential corporates on Earth didn't know that soldiers, public teachers, medical personnel etc. are employed by government?? If that's true, I don't even know what to say. I would find it ridiculous, laughable, if it wasn't so sad.
- lifeformed 9y agoI think he was surprised at the scale, not that those groups counted as gov't.
- hNewsLover99 9y agoTalk about your fluff pieces! Sorkin's article ignores Ballmer's billion-dollar tax dodge... er, break... for buying a basketball team.* Ballmer should revise his boast from "paid for with pre-tax dollars" to "paid for with "shamefully un-taxed dollars." Interesting terms that don't show up when Googling Ballmer's site (at least as of today...) tax expenditure tax shelter estate tax good will sports team basketball site:usafacts.org And so much for the "already taxed" argument by Trump's billionaire class (and their gullible working-class sycophants) against the estate tax. How much supposedly already-income-taxed dollars of wealth will soon escape estate taxes? And how much will all of these tax expenditures add to working and middle class taxes and the national debt? Now that, Mr. Sorkin, would be an interesting article. * Check out "Steve Ballmer Gets Billion-Dollar Tax Write-Off For Being Basketball Baron" at https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/27/0237200/steve-ballmer-gets-billion-dollar-tax-write-off-for-being-basketball-baron https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/27/0237200/steve-ballme... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_expenditure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_expenditure