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Honest, no snark question -- what exactly US government did in last 30 years that should warrant providing more money to it? Is there any guarantee that another

Honest, no snark question -- what exactly US government did in last 30 years that should warrant providing more money to it? Is there any guarantee that another trillion dollars will be used more efficiently than blowing up another Middle East country?

ajross 7y ago
Aren't the last 30 years sort of the problem though? How about we check the 30 years before that: medicare, social security, the tail end of the new deal, the rapid cleanup of acid emissions which were wrecking forests all up and down the east coast... Seems like, starting in the 80's, you would have looked at this and said hey, this government knows what it's doing, we should let it do more stuff. Instead we basically did the opposite, starving federal programs everywhere possible (virtually every entitlement or program that existed in the 80's is smaller today on a per-person-PPP basis). And now we're seeing the results in a crisis that demands an agile and powerful government response. So I'd sort of flip this around: what was it we did in the last 30 years that destroyed our confidence in our own government? Because it used to work.
- nopriorarrests 7y ago
  You might be right, I honestly don't know. But if this is the case, maybe first you need to reform the government (in what exact way? and how the reform should be done, politically?) and after first task is accomplished you can feed it with some trillions of dollars? Otherwise, "tax the living hell out of capital" will just cause some more big BOOM sounds somewhere in middle east, and deplete private capital from making more investments at the same time.
  - ajross 7y ago
    How about "tax the living hell out of capital" on a spending-neutral basis? Pay off the debt. Stimulate local economies. Increase the EITC ceiling. Hell, write a simple UBI statute. There are lots of easy (and easily verifiable) ways to spend government money on things people value. That you think there aren't is sort of the triumph of modern conservatism in a nutshell.
- robotresearcher 7y ago
  > How about we check the 30 years before that: medicare, social security, the tail end of the new deal, And Vietnam, depressed inner cities, social strife, crime and unemployment...
covidacct 7y ago
Here's one teeny tiny example. They made a smart investment, to the tune of billions of dollars, in computer science. And not just for the past 30 years, but continuously for the past 100 years. That investment included a modest (6-7 figure, depending on how your count) investment in a project on digital libraries years before private capital caught on. The private investors were rewarded handsomely for their investment in that digital library, but we, the taxpayers, were not.
- nopriorarrests 7y ago
  I still do not understand the logic. Let me put it straight. 1. US Government has unlimited funding, heck, it came up with 2 trillions _during last month alone_ with some financial alchemy which I don't fully understand. But clearly it's not starving. 2. US Government has kinda poor record producing tangible results during last 30 years, in terms of advancing science, housing, whatever. I mean, can CDC quickly figure out in 2020, are the pieces of cloth on my face help to fight the virus or not? Seems it's still up for discussion. 3. Private capital, during the same time frame, gave us google search and maps, smartphones, movies on demand and god knows how much other stuff. So, based on these 3 observable points, we should "Tax the living hell out of capital"? I still not getting it.
  - covidacct 7y ago
    > Private capital, during the same time frame, gave us google search and maps, smartphones, movies on demand and god knows how much other stuff I was perhaps too coy. https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660&org=IIS https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660... I'm not even sure what to say about maps.
  - mnky9800n 7y ago
    Just to address "producing science". Science is incremental, often is done with out clear end products, and value can only really be measured much later typically in terms of wide spread effect. Like the internet existed decades before everyone used the internet. And only because tax dollars supported it. Thus if you want more output, they only true solution is to fund much more science than is funded today.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
freeone3000 7y ago
Food stamps, medicare, TANF, and welfare improve the daily lives of millions. And this money is accountable to the person who spent it, to the person who voted to spend it, to who raised it.
jimnotgym 7y ago
It could give that money back to people and let them spend and invest it? More people free to quit working for someone else and to instead work on 'building' sounds like exactly what Marc is advocating. We have our smartest maths graduates trying to make automated trading algorithms skim an extra .0000001% off a trade, which you could argue is not helping humanity progress. Maybe with UBI they will quit that and work on something more long-term? For Marc's dream to come true it seems like reducing the concentration of wealth and power is the first step.
camgunz 7y ago
The US funds billions in research, this one time it even resulted in the internet. Probably a good idea to keep doing that.
eli_gottlieb 7y ago
Well, there were those research efforts that came close to a SARS vaccine until their funding got cut: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-close-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago-then-money-dried-n1150091 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-c... By the way, the formal name for COVID-19's virus is SARS-COV-2.

ajross 7y ago

Aren't the last 30 years sort of the problem though? How about we check the 30 years before that: medicare, social security, the tail end of the new deal, the rapid cleanup of acid emissions which were wrecking forests all up and down the east coast... Seems like, starting in the 80's, you would have looked at this and said hey, this government knows what it's doing, we should let it do more stuff. Instead we basically did the opposite, starving federal programs everywhere possible (virtually every entitlement or program that existed in the 80's is smaller today on a per-person-PPP basis). And now we're seeing the results in a crisis that demands an agile and powerful government response. So I'd sort of flip this around: what was it we did in the last 30 years that destroyed our confidence in our own government? Because it used to work.

nopriorarrests 7y ago
You might be right, I honestly don't know. But if this is the case, maybe first you need to reform the government (in what exact way? and how the reform should be done, politically?) and after first task is accomplished you can feed it with some trillions of dollars? Otherwise, "tax the living hell out of capital" will just cause some more big BOOM sounds somewhere in middle east, and deplete private capital from making more investments at the same time.
- ajross 7y ago
  How about "tax the living hell out of capital" on a spending-neutral basis? Pay off the debt. Stimulate local economies. Increase the EITC ceiling. Hell, write a simple UBI statute. There are lots of easy (and easily verifiable) ways to spend government money on things people value. That you think there aren't is sort of the triumph of modern conservatism in a nutshell.
robotresearcher 7y ago
> How about we check the 30 years before that: medicare, social security, the tail end of the new deal, And Vietnam, depressed inner cities, social strife, crime and unemployment...

covidacct 7y ago

Here's one teeny tiny example. They made a smart investment, to the tune of billions of dollars, in computer science. And not just for the past 30 years, but continuously for the past 100 years. That investment included a modest (6-7 figure, depending on how your count) investment in a project on digital libraries years before private capital caught on. The private investors were rewarded handsomely for their investment in that digital library, but we, the taxpayers, were not.

nopriorarrests 7y ago
I still do not understand the logic. Let me put it straight. 1. US Government has unlimited funding, heck, it came up with 2 trillions _during last month alone_ with some financial alchemy which I don't fully understand. But clearly it's not starving. 2. US Government has kinda poor record producing tangible results during last 30 years, in terms of advancing science, housing, whatever. I mean, can CDC quickly figure out in 2020, are the pieces of cloth on my face help to fight the virus or not? Seems it's still up for discussion. 3. Private capital, during the same time frame, gave us google search and maps, smartphones, movies on demand and god knows how much other stuff. So, based on these 3 observable points, we should "Tax the living hell out of capital"? I still not getting it.
- covidacct 7y ago
  > Private capital, during the same time frame, gave us google search and maps, smartphones, movies on demand and god knows how much other stuff I was perhaps too coy. https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660&org=IIS https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660... I'm not even sure what to say about maps.
- mnky9800n 7y ago
  Just to address "producing science". Science is incremental, often is done with out clear end products, and value can only really be measured much later typically in terms of wide spread effect. Like the internet existed decades before everyone used the internet. And only because tax dollars supported it. Thus if you want more output, they only true solution is to fund much more science than is funded today.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

freeone3000 7y ago

Food stamps, medicare, TANF, and welfare improve the daily lives of millions. And this money is accountable to the person who spent it, to the person who voted to spend it, to who raised it.

jimnotgym 7y ago

It could give that money back to people and let them spend and invest it? More people free to quit working for someone else and to instead work on 'building' sounds like exactly what Marc is advocating. We have our smartest maths graduates trying to make automated trading algorithms skim an extra .0000001% off a trade, which you could argue is not helping humanity progress. Maybe with UBI they will quit that and work on something more long-term? For Marc's dream to come true it seems like reducing the concentration of wealth and power is the first step.

camgunz 7y ago

The US funds billions in research, this one time it even resulted in the internet. Probably a good idea to keep doing that.

eli_gottlieb 7y ago

Well, there were those research efforts that came close to a SARS vaccine until their funding got cut: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-close-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago-then-money-dried-n1150091 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-c... By the way, the formal name for COVID-19's virus is SARS-COV-2.