6 ms·

We still need social benefits to keep up with potentially devastating changes in society.

adventured 9y ago
We have social benefits. The US spends $4.x trillion every year on social programs, at the local+state+federal levels. The US has the world's largest welfare and social entitlement programs, and some of the richest per capita as well (only rivaled by elite Scandinavian nations). About 65% of all US Government spending is going to entitlements at this point. ~80% is going to entitlements + welfare programs. That percentage will continue to increase over the next decade. At the current rate of growth, entitlement spending alone will consume all US Government spending in about 30 years. Entitlement, welfare programs, and defense spending are basically crowding out all other government spending, pushing the "other" spending toward an ever smaller share of the budget (which is why US infrastructure is in such desperate need of investment). You can certainly argue we need to be a lot smarter in our spending allocation. The biggest problem the US has is not that it isn't spending, it's that the cost of these systems is astronomically out of line with what is actually sustainable (eg the US healthcare system at all levels).
- murftown 9y ago
  > The US spends $4.x trillion every year on social programs Source? > About 65% of all US Government spending is going to entitlements at this point Source? And does this include military? > At the current rate of growth, entitlement spending alone will consume all US Government spending in about 30 years Source? And is this just the "current rate of growth" frozen in place or does it take into account ways that that rate of growth has been changing as well?
  - antidamage 9y ago
    At least part of the problem there is that once you give people that social welfare they're expected to pay for ridiculously high insurance costs. Get rid of the rich-person welfare that comes in the form of bloated medical and insurance costs and your social welfare budget for the poor will plummet. The way it's organised now is that your government gives the poorest some money while the rich complain incessantly, then the rich siphon it off for themselves.
    - murftown 9y ago
      > once you give people that social welfare OK, I don't disagree with what you're saying necessarily, but I'm not convinced that social welfare is by any means biggest way we're wasting money, nor that it's necessarily causing some huge social dysfunction that would magically fix itself if we "trimmed the bloat". I think it's just hard for a lot of people to procure enough resources to comfortably live in this society, so we have to decide how to best deal with that. > Get rid of the rich-person welfare Great idea. How do you propose to do that? > your government gives the poorest some money ..., then the rich siphon it off for themselves.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >At least part of the problem there is that once you give people that social welfare they're expected to pay for ridiculously high insurance costs. Only if your laws allow for "ridiculously high insurance costs". Caps exist for a reason.
  - JauntTrooper 9y ago
    That sounds about right. According to the Center on Budget and Public Policy [0], in the 2016 federal budget, this was spending for each: 24% = Social Security 26% = Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP/Affordable Care Act 9% = Other Safety Net programs ex-SS/Medicare 8% = Benefits for federal retirees + veterans That's 67% right there. Other significant spending: 16% = Defense 6% = Interest on debt 2% = Transportation/Infrastructure 2% = Education 2% = Science and medical research The federal government took in $3.3 trillion and spent $3.9 trillion, so $0.6 trillion borrowed, which is almost our entire defense budget. To balance the budget, you'd need to take out 15 percentage points from the categories above, or increases taxes by ~$4,600 per US household (or a combination of the two). [0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-w...
    - murftown 9y ago
      OK, but isn't it true that a lot of Defense spending is categorized differently and doesn't show up on the budget?
      - Gargoyle 9y ago
        When you ask for a source and someone provides it, any further rebuttals on your part really should include a source of your own.
        murftown 9y ago
        Reasonable request. I thought that by starting with "isn't it true" I was implying that I didn't know. Also, the person who provided the source was someone else, so if you're asking for a source re my question, perhaps someone will provide it. In any case your poke got me wondering and doing a bit of research.
        mistermann 9y ago
        I must admit, those numbers seem dramatically out of line with my intuition as well. If I was a betting man I'd say there's a bit more to the story, but then the source (https://www.cbpp.org/about/mission-history https://www.cbpp.org/about/mission-history) seems fairly left leaning so if there was any bending of the truth I'd expect it in the other direction. Perhaps the reason this feels off is because it's the government budget, which is a subset of the overall economy obviously. And, a lot of the dollars spent here are going back into corporations, for varying levels of return on the dollar I'm sure. I think this is why the numbers sound so great/generous, but don't match reality when you look out the window, watch the news, or read the newspaper.
- afterburner 9y ago
  Imagine robots taking away jobs. Now, do you think less people will require social assistance, or more?
  - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
    Corollary: fewer jobs mean lower costs; social assistance could be more affordable.
  - prepend 9y ago
    Robots will create more jobs that have lower injury rates since they replace manual tasks. This means that there will be less disability and worker’s compensation social assistance.
    - chongli 9y ago
      Robots will create fewer jobs than what they replace. Otherwise, why would a company purchase them? Additionally, there may be less disability and worker's compensation but there will be more costs due to poverty. Homeless people cost society far more money than working people.
      - andrewjl 9y ago
        See the lump of labor fallacy. There's not a fixed amount of work out there and automating one process might make another one cheaper / more efficient causing growth in overall employment.
        chongli 9y ago
        Tell that to the horses whose jobs were replaced by machines and cars during the industrial revolution. Now what use do we have for them? Entertainment. That's it. I've often heard supporters of that so-called fallacy invoke the idea of humans maintaining and repairing robots. That's a pretty weak argument. Warren Bennis has the right of it: The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Maybe not the most favorable opinion, but U.S defense budget is out of control. I take the classic F35 development as the goto example. There is no accountability. There is no oversights. Contractors don’t seem always fulfill contracts on time, and the deliveries have quality problems. Contracts can range from millions to tens of billions. I honestly do not think we need this hundreds of billions budject. Even when we do, we need a complete accountability and we need to make sure money is spent on personnel’s well-being and safety over some “mega vision/next generation weapons we really won’t need and probably never going to happen.” Sadly, unlike other manufacuring industries, LockHead and Boeing can’t just develop random defense products and then let governments buy them (regular annunitions are okay). If that was the case, then DoD would be a client rather than both the client and the project management. Instead, we as client lets Boeing builds the fighting jets, and DoD sells them to foreign countries. The waste could have been invested in veteran service, healthcare, national infrastructure (bridges, highways, dams, power grids), and whatnot. Politicans are scared to cut DoD’s budget because in America we are so supportive of our troops, many get upset when DoD budget is reduced for cleaning up unnecessary projects. [1]: http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/373136-congress-just-agreed-to-completely-out-of-control-pentagon-spending http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/373136-congress-just-agre... [2]: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentagon-never-audited-astonishing-military-spending https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentag... [3]: http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-wasting-money/ http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-w... [4]: http://www.industryweek.com/companies-executives/lockheed-said-get-107-billion-f-35s-budget-plan http://www.industryweek.com/companies-executives/lockheed-sa...
  - Feniks 9y ago
    Really unpopular opinion: The US military itself is a social welfare program. It provides millions of Americans with a job.
  - riku_iki 9y ago
    > I take the classic F35 development as the goto example. this is cutting edge, high risk technology bet, nobody in the world built something like that on such huge scale, it is expected to have problems in such projects. But what is the alternative?
oneplane 9y ago
What devastating changes in society are you referring to? Changes in the trade of time+skill for money is nothing new, so probably not that.
- CoryG89 9y ago
  Devastating changes in society are not new either, so maybe that?
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Changes in the trade of time+skill for money is nothing new, so probably not that. Famine, war and poverty is nothing new either. Neither is social collapse for that matter.

We have social benefits. The US spends $4.x trillion every year on social programs, at the local+state+federal levels. The US has the world's largest welfare and social entitlement programs, and some of the richest per capita as well (only rivaled by elite Scandinavian nations). About 65% of all US Government spending is going to entitlements at this point. ~80% is going to entitlements + welfare programs. That percentage will continue to increase over the next decade. At the current rate of growth, entitlement spending alone will consume all US Government spending in about 30 years. Entitlement, welfare programs, and defense spending are basically crowding out all other government spending, pushing the "other" spending toward an ever smaller share of the budget (which is why US infrastructure is in such desperate need of investment). You can certainly argue we need to be a lot smarter in our spending allocation. The biggest problem the US has is not that it isn't spending, it's that the cost of these systems is astronomically out of line with what is actually sustainable (eg the US healthcare system at all levels).

murftown 9y ago
> The US spends $4.x trillion every year on social programs Source? > About 65% of all US Government spending is going to entitlements at this point Source? And does this include military? > At the current rate of growth, entitlement spending alone will consume all US Government spending in about 30 years Source? And is this just the "current rate of growth" frozen in place or does it take into account ways that that rate of growth has been changing as well?
- antidamage 9y ago
  At least part of the problem there is that once you give people that social welfare they're expected to pay for ridiculously high insurance costs. Get rid of the rich-person welfare that comes in the form of bloated medical and insurance costs and your social welfare budget for the poor will plummet. The way it's organised now is that your government gives the poorest some money while the rich complain incessantly, then the rich siphon it off for themselves.
  - murftown 9y ago
    > once you give people that social welfare OK, I don't disagree with what you're saying necessarily, but I'm not convinced that social welfare is by any means biggest way we're wasting money, nor that it's necessarily causing some huge social dysfunction that would magically fix itself if we "trimmed the bloat". I think it's just hard for a lot of people to procure enough resources to comfortably live in this society, so we have to decide how to best deal with that. > Get rid of the rich-person welfare Great idea. How do you propose to do that? > your government gives the poorest some money ..., then the rich siphon it off for themselves.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >At least part of the problem there is that once you give people that social welfare they're expected to pay for ridiculously high insurance costs. Only if your laws allow for "ridiculously high insurance costs". Caps exist for a reason.
- JauntTrooper 9y ago
  That sounds about right. According to the Center on Budget and Public Policy [0], in the 2016 federal budget, this was spending for each: 24% = Social Security 26% = Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP/Affordable Care Act 9% = Other Safety Net programs ex-SS/Medicare 8% = Benefits for federal retirees + veterans That's 67% right there. Other significant spending: 16% = Defense 6% = Interest on debt 2% = Transportation/Infrastructure 2% = Education 2% = Science and medical research The federal government took in $3.3 trillion and spent $3.9 trillion, so $0.6 trillion borrowed, which is almost our entire defense budget. To balance the budget, you'd need to take out 15 percentage points from the categories above, or increases taxes by ~$4,600 per US household (or a combination of the two). [0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-w...
  - murftown 9y ago
    OK, but isn't it true that a lot of Defense spending is categorized differently and doesn't show up on the budget?
    - Gargoyle 9y ago
      When you ask for a source and someone provides it, any further rebuttals on your part really should include a source of your own.
      - murftown 9y ago
        Reasonable request. I thought that by starting with "isn't it true" I was implying that I didn't know. Also, the person who provided the source was someone else, so if you're asking for a source re my question, perhaps someone will provide it. In any case your poke got me wondering and doing a bit of research.
        mistermann 9y ago
        I must admit, those numbers seem dramatically out of line with my intuition as well. If I was a betting man I'd say there's a bit more to the story, but then the source (https://www.cbpp.org/about/mission-history https://www.cbpp.org/about/mission-history) seems fairly left leaning so if there was any bending of the truth I'd expect it in the other direction. Perhaps the reason this feels off is because it's the government budget, which is a subset of the overall economy obviously. And, a lot of the dollars spent here are going back into corporations, for varying levels of return on the dollar I'm sure. I think this is why the numbers sound so great/generous, but don't match reality when you look out the window, watch the news, or read the newspaper.
afterburner 9y ago
Imagine robots taking away jobs. Now, do you think less people will require social assistance, or more?
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Corollary: fewer jobs mean lower costs; social assistance could be more affordable.
- prepend 9y ago
  Robots will create more jobs that have lower injury rates since they replace manual tasks. This means that there will be less disability and worker’s compensation social assistance.
  - chongli 9y ago
    Robots will create fewer jobs than what they replace. Otherwise, why would a company purchase them? Additionally, there may be less disability and worker's compensation but there will be more costs due to poverty. Homeless people cost society far more money than working people.
    - andrewjl 9y ago
      See the lump of labor fallacy. There's not a fixed amount of work out there and automating one process might make another one cheaper / more efficient causing growth in overall employment.
      - chongli 9y ago
        Tell that to the horses whose jobs were replaced by machines and cars during the industrial revolution. Now what use do we have for them? Entertainment. That's it. I've often heard supporters of that so-called fallacy invoke the idea of humans maintaining and repairing robots. That's a pretty weak argument. Warren Bennis has the right of it: The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
yeukhon 9y ago
Maybe not the most favorable opinion, but U.S defense budget is out of control. I take the classic F35 development as the goto example. There is no accountability. There is no oversights. Contractors don’t seem always fulfill contracts on time, and the deliveries have quality problems. Contracts can range from millions to tens of billions. I honestly do not think we need this hundreds of billions budject. Even when we do, we need a complete accountability and we need to make sure money is spent on personnel’s well-being and safety over some “mega vision/next generation weapons we really won’t need and probably never going to happen.” Sadly, unlike other manufacuring industries, LockHead and Boeing can’t just develop random defense products and then let governments buy them (regular annunitions are okay). If that was the case, then DoD would be a client rather than both the client and the project management. Instead, we as client lets Boeing builds the fighting jets, and DoD sells them to foreign countries. The waste could have been invested in veteran service, healthcare, national infrastructure (bridges, highways, dams, power grids), and whatnot. Politicans are scared to cut DoD’s budget because in America we are so supportive of our troops, many get upset when DoD budget is reduced for cleaning up unnecessary projects. [1]: http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/373136-congress-just-agreed-to-completely-out-of-control-pentagon-spending http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/373136-congress-just-agre... [2]: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentagon-never-audited-astonishing-military-spending https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentag... [3]: http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-wasting-money/ http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-w... [4]: http://www.industryweek.com/companies-executives/lockheed-said-get-107-billion-f-35s-budget-plan http://www.industryweek.com/companies-executives/lockheed-sa...
- Feniks 9y ago
  Really unpopular opinion: The US military itself is a social welfare program. It provides millions of Americans with a job.
- riku_iki 9y ago
  > I take the classic F35 development as the goto example. this is cutting edge, high risk technology bet, nobody in the world built something like that on such huge scale, it is expected to have problems in such projects. But what is the alternative?

oneplane 9y ago

What devastating changes in society are you referring to? Changes in the trade of time+skill for money is nothing new, so probably not that.

CoryG89 9y ago
Devastating changes in society are not new either, so maybe that?
coldtea 9y ago
>Changes in the trade of time+skill for money is nothing new, so probably not that. Famine, war and poverty is nothing new either. Neither is social collapse for that matter.