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The underlying problem here is that not enough people care about cutting government spending. Prospective voters put more attention to the issues like gay marri

The underlying problem here is that not enough people care about cutting government spending. Prospective voters put more attention to the issues like gay marriage, war on terror, universal health care, and medical marijuana use. Most voters simply do not pay enough attention on cutting government spending, so politicians can get away with milking people more and more every year.

ajscherer 16y ago
No, the underlying problem is that not enough people all care about cutting the same government spending. If I want to cut my personal spending by 20% next year I can't just wake up on January 1 and do it in one step. I need to figure out what exactly it is I'm going to not buy or pay less for next year. Likewise, Congress can't just pass a law to spend 20% less without identifying exactly what it is going to spend less on and how. Getting people to agree on those particulars is the problem. What makes it worse is that the things you might get wide agreement on cutting generally are things that would save negligible amounts of money. Also, even people who care a lot about the government (one way or the other) generally aren't willing spend time learning all the details of what the government is spending money on. Its really complicated and boring and I think people (especially us hn readers) would rather think of the problem at a higher level of abstraction (and in greatly simplified terms). Unfortunatley that just isn't helpful at this point
amalcon 16y ago
On the contrary, I think people do care about cutting government spending. They just want it cut from very specific places, and there's no widespread agreement on where these places are. Do you want cuts in defense? In social security/medicare? The interstate highway system? Government worker benefits? Unemployment benefits? Veterans' benefits? It's all well and good to cut spending (at pretty much every level), and it's going to have to be done, but every time a serious effort comes along to actually do it, it gets drowned in details.
- dennisgorelik 16y ago
  If you really want to cut spending, then you would want to cut spending in almost all areas. If majority of voters want to cut government spending in more than 50% of areas, then spending would be cut. In the list you provided I'd say everything should be cut. Say, 10%/year cut until spending is at least 50% lower. My personal preference would be not to cut interstate highway system too much, but everything else deserves at least 50% cut in the next 10 years.

ajscherer 16y ago

No, the underlying problem is that not enough people all care about cutting the same government spending. If I want to cut my personal spending by 20% next year I can't just wake up on January 1 and do it in one step. I need to figure out what exactly it is I'm going to not buy or pay less for next year. Likewise, Congress can't just pass a law to spend 20% less without identifying exactly what it is going to spend less on and how. Getting people to agree on those particulars is the problem. What makes it worse is that the things you might get wide agreement on cutting generally are things that would save negligible amounts of money. Also, even people who care a lot about the government (one way or the other) generally aren't willing spend time learning all the details of what the government is spending money on. Its really complicated and boring and I think people (especially us hn readers) would rather think of the problem at a higher level of abstraction (and in greatly simplified terms). Unfortunatley that just isn't helpful at this point

amalcon 16y ago

On the contrary, I think people do care about cutting government spending. They just want it cut from very specific places, and there's no widespread agreement on where these places are. Do you want cuts in defense? In social security/medicare? The interstate highway system? Government worker benefits? Unemployment benefits? Veterans' benefits? It's all well and good to cut spending (at pretty much every level), and it's going to have to be done, but every time a serious effort comes along to actually do it, it gets drowned in details.

dennisgorelik 16y ago
If you really want to cut spending, then you would want to cut spending in almost all areas. If majority of voters want to cut government spending in more than 50% of areas, then spending would be cut. In the list you provided I'd say everything should be cut. Say, 10%/year cut until spending is at least 50% lower. My personal preference would be not to cut interstate highway system too much, but everything else deserves at least 50% cut in the next 10 years.