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> Why not? Drifting off-topic, but the short version is that "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the s

> Why not? Drifting off-topic, but the short version is that "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the shelf at the pharmacy), validating schools, etc all comes down to recreating work that the govt does and then making sure that it's more cost-effective to provide good value than it is to be deceptive about providing good value. I suppose I should get a few degrees to make sure I know how to evaluate these different areas. Hopefully I know which schools will teach me for real and not deliver empty bombastic lies. There's a reason that everywhere that does a good job at these (IMHO) have plenty of taxes. Ultimately it's a war between where you want efficiency (private market) and reliability (govt). All of which is mostly unrelated to the point I made above: The people under discussion are upset about results, not taxation. Even if you are 100% correct that giving them their tax money will allow them to fix the issues they are upset about, that's not the same as actually fixing them. And I, for one, pay taxes so that people with the right knowledge, authority, and economies of scale CAN fix those things. Giving me a tax refund is no different than refunding me for a product not delivered - it's better than losing the money, but I wanted the product.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the shelf at the pharmacy), validating schools, etc all comes down to recreating work that the govt does That's kind of the point. If the government is doing a crappy job and you can get your money back, go take it to someone else who can do a better job. Maybe even your state or local government instead of the feds. > and then making sure that it's more cost-effective to provide good value than it is to be deceptive about providing good value. This is the exact problem we already have with the government. It isn't inefficient because nobody wants it that way, it's because of regulatory capture and corruption. The only way out of that is for the real party in interest (i.e. the citizens) to be paying attention. But that doesn't work at the scale of the federal government, because a billion dollars in graft is a rounding error but it's still a billion dollars, so you get a billion dollars of incentive for corruption and the taxpayers only care about that specific thing as much as they care about 0.03% of their tax dollars. But the same is true for every other individual program, so corruption and waste is rampant. The problem is that we keep comparing the US government to the governments of other countries when it's the individual US states that are at the scale of most other countries. The national healthcare systems in Europe aren't administered by the EU. They don't have a single military or school system. If they did they would have all the problems we have by trying to do it here -- that much centralization is too big a target for corruption and too easy to hide inefficiency in the complexity and scale. There is a point at which more scale no longer yields more efficiency and instead yields bureaucracy and inefficiency.
- ergothus 8y ago
  This will be my last comment on this thread as you've repeatedly failed to keep it topical, but I'm loathe to stop commenting and let your points appear persuasive by default. (the trap of the internet) The issue is not that I trust the government, it's that I trust companies less. Governments have done a lot of bad things, and have done a lot of deception, but ultimately I trust their model of accountability more than I do companies. I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about. Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism. That govt can over-regulate does not mean that (1) it must, nor (2) that it is. All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results. The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things. These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about. The common examples are invisible because nobody talks about things that are working. For example, ever have to buy a box of screws, or a hammer, or a piece of rope? Sold in any hardware store at low, transparent prices with minimal regulation and good quality. > Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism. This is the trap of ideological purism. You can argue about "less regulation is better" or "more regulation is better" as an abstract principle but that's not a way to evaluate an individual regulation. Applying either principle blindly and universally would require either total anarchy or total authoritarianism, which isn't what anybody actually wants. It's possible to eliminate necessary regulations while still having too many (or the wrong) other regulations -- this is in fact what commonly happens in Washington, because the people who win there are the people with the best lobbyists, whether they want to pass/preserve bad competition-destroying regulations or eliminate good competition-protecting ones. The advantage of a general principle of less regulation, especially at the national level in an environment known to be wasteful and corrupt, is that you can find alternatives for the national government not doing something -- whether it's markets or citizen organizations or local government. But if they waste your resources on corruption and bureaucracy, you can't recover them to use for something better, which interferes with anybody doing something better. > All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results. You keep saying this, but the article doesn't say that at all. It says that people are dissatisfied, not why. And given the demographics of the most dissatisfied groups, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to learn that they would e.g. prefer to reduce military spending. And if you do want the results, wasting tax money still interferes with that. For example, you mention homelessness, but that is inherently a local issue. There is a major homelessness problem in San Francisco but not so much in Kansas. And you also can't solve it in SF by building shelters in Kansas. You can't even solve it in SF by building shelters in Bakersfield. The relationship it has with inefficient military spending is that they come from the same tax base -- if the people of San Francisco are paying taxes to fund the military, those dollars can't be used (by the local government or the people themselves) to address homelessness there. Resources are scarce. When the government wastes them, you no longer have them. > The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things. Only the federal budget hasn't declined. It has been ~20% of GDP since the end of WWII and still is. Which means it has been growing over time, since real GDP per capita is up. If they're providing worse or fewer services than they used to, it's because they're doing less with more, not because they have less in total. > These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for. That is the corruption and inefficiency. The people asking for that are defense contractors and oil companies and their workers, who have tons of (taxpayer-sourced) money to lobby with are not a small voting block because the scope of the expenditures is so massive that it employs a large number of people. It's exactly the sort of thing we could reduce in order to lower taxes without impacting the level of actual services provided.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> "subscribe to a service that would independently validate pharmacies" (meaning everything on the shelf at the pharmacy), validating schools, etc all comes down to recreating work that the govt does That's kind of the point. If the government is doing a crappy job and you can get your money back, go take it to someone else who can do a better job. Maybe even your state or local government instead of the feds. > and then making sure that it's more cost-effective to provide good value than it is to be deceptive about providing good value. This is the exact problem we already have with the government. It isn't inefficient because nobody wants it that way, it's because of regulatory capture and corruption. The only way out of that is for the real party in interest (i.e. the citizens) to be paying attention. But that doesn't work at the scale of the federal government, because a billion dollars in graft is a rounding error but it's still a billion dollars, so you get a billion dollars of incentive for corruption and the taxpayers only care about that specific thing as much as they care about 0.03% of their tax dollars. But the same is true for every other individual program, so corruption and waste is rampant. The problem is that we keep comparing the US government to the governments of other countries when it's the individual US states that are at the scale of most other countries. The national healthcare systems in Europe aren't administered by the EU. They don't have a single military or school system. If they did they would have all the problems we have by trying to do it here -- that much centralization is too big a target for corruption and too easy to hide inefficiency in the complexity and scale. There is a point at which more scale no longer yields more efficiency and instead yields bureaucracy and inefficiency.

ergothus 8y ago
This will be my last comment on this thread as you've repeatedly failed to keep it topical, but I'm loathe to stop commenting and let your points appear persuasive by default. (the trap of the internet) The issue is not that I trust the government, it's that I trust companies less. Governments have done a lot of bad things, and have done a lot of deception, but ultimately I trust their model of accountability more than I do companies. I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about. Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism. That govt can over-regulate does not mean that (1) it must, nor (2) that it is. All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results. The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things. These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > I'm not against being persuaded...but I don't see a lot of (any?) real world examples of this free-market utopia you describe, nor signs that it would come about. The common examples are invisible because nobody talks about things that are working. For example, ever have to buy a box of screws, or a hammer, or a piece of rope? Sold in any hardware store at low, transparent prices with minimal regulation and good quality. > Instead, whenever govt reduces regulation too far, companies form monopolies, perform deceptive trade practices, and break the fundamental concepts of capitalism. This is the trap of ideological purism. You can argue about "less regulation is better" or "more regulation is better" as an abstract principle but that's not a way to evaluate an individual regulation. Applying either principle blindly and universally would require either total anarchy or total authoritarianism, which isn't what anybody actually wants. It's possible to eliminate necessary regulations while still having too many (or the wrong) other regulations -- this is in fact what commonly happens in Washington, because the people who win there are the people with the best lobbyists, whether they want to pass/preserve bad competition-destroying regulations or eliminate good competition-protecting ones. The advantage of a general principle of less regulation, especially at the national level in an environment known to be wasteful and corrupt, is that you can find alternatives for the national government not doing something -- whether it's markets or citizen organizations or local government. But if they waste your resources on corruption and bureaucracy, you can't recover them to use for something better, which interferes with anybody doing something better. > All of which is irrelevant (again) to this article, which is stating that people are unhappy with the results. They aren't demanding tax cuts, they want the results. You keep saying this, but the article doesn't say that at all. It says that people are dissatisfied, not why. And given the demographics of the most dissatisfied groups, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to learn that they would e.g. prefer to reduce military spending. And if you do want the results, wasting tax money still interferes with that. For example, you mention homelessness, but that is inherently a local issue. There is a major homelessness problem in San Francisco but not so much in Kansas. And you also can't solve it in SF by building shelters in Kansas. You can't even solve it in SF by building shelters in Bakersfield. The relationship it has with inefficient military spending is that they come from the same tax base -- if the people of San Francisco are paying taxes to fund the military, those dollars can't be used (by the local government or the people themselves) to address homelessness there. Resources are scarce. When the government wastes them, you no longer have them. > The primary obstacle to results in recent decades has not been the govt being bad at it's job, but people demanding the govt stop doing these things and cutting their funding to do so, then complaining about the govt's inability to fix things. Only the federal budget hasn't declined. It has been ~20% of GDP since the end of WWII and still is. Which means it has been growing over time, since real GDP per capita is up. If they're providing worse or fewer services than they used to, it's because they're doing less with more, not because they have less in total. > These are the same people demanding bigger military funding and focus on oil, so the govt seems to be doing a decent job of doing what it's asked...it's just not what I and many others are asking for. That is the corruption and inefficiency. The people asking for that are defense contractors and oil companies and their workers, who have tons of (taxpayer-sourced) money to lobby with are not a small voting block because the scope of the expenditures is so massive that it employs a large number of people. It's exactly the sort of thing we could reduce in order to lower taxes without impacting the level of actual services provided.