6 ms·

Can the government do anything right? Seriously. Can you give me examples of successful government programs?

by fasteddie31003 6y ago

t-writescode 6y ago
* The highway program * The national parks program * Army Corps of Engineers' projects * FEMA ?
- s0rce 6y ago
  USGS maps are also amazing, not sure really what project they came from but you can get a very good topo map of anywhere in the country. Really nice to have for planning hiking trips.
  - bennettfeely 6y ago
    I'd add the NWS to that. I don't know of a better place to get weather information and forecasts than weather.gov. Perhaps it's just a lack of ads on the website compared to every other weather site.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marcinzm 6y ago
Medicaid seems successful.
softwaredoug 6y ago
I see successful government projects in many countries. Unfortunately in the US we have this belief that government projects are destined to fail, which means we don’t invest in them, so they often fail... self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.
- rayiner 6y ago
  That’s not true! Blue states exist, and they invest in plenty of things. Those fail, but that doesn’t deter blue state voters.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    If you look at why they fail, it can typically be followed back to interventions made by the right.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Sorry, no, that excuse is toxic because it provides cover for bad government that doesn’t work. We’re talking about states like California and New York that don’t have a meaningful “right.” California’s attempt at universal healthcare managed to self-destruct with Democrats having the Governorship as well as super-majorities in the state legislature. Every now and then these states will elect a moderate Republican just to get a reprieve from the repeated waves of failure of public services, but those failures can’t be blamed on “the right.” People in blue states should be madder about the fact that their public services are bad. That just means that people get less than what they pay for, and people in need do without. If it cost Europeans as much money to build subways as it does New York or SF they probably wouldn’t do it! And even when it doesn’t like (like California HSR) and is merely 5-10x more expensive than it should be, that just means 1/5 or 1/10th as many people get the service.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        People should be mad about the quality of public services in the states but "delivering universal health care" seems like a weirdly high bar to set.
        rayiner 6y ago
        It’s just the latest example of something European countries a lot less wealthy than California have managed to do that California can’t manage to do.
readflaggedcomm 6y ago
This is a vicious circle. The less trust, the less effective government can achieve society's goal. Just look at all the civil servants like nurses and firemen who still refuse the jab.
bsder 6y ago
There is a vast difference between "Can the government do anything right?" and "Can the Trump administration do anything right?" The Federal government can be an amazing force for help in times of crisis when run by competent people. As we have seen, though, when run by actively malicious people, it can grind to a halt. The current Covid vaccine situation is due to a bunch of idiotic Federal decisions made starting 12 months ago that continue through to the present day--including things like "Not paying money to vaccine companies in advance to help them ramp up faster".
- ArtisanOfWar 6y ago
  Other states are doing fine. CA already has the vaccines. Thanks, Trump.
krupan 6y ago
The U.S. government was purposefully designed to be inefficient. Checks and balances, multiple branches of government, rotating people out every so often, pesky votes and confirmations to decide anything. “Getting things done” was never the goal. The fact that everyone wants the government to be the one to get things done, and then acts surprised and frustrated when it can’t just shows...I don’t know, that we didn’t pay attention in school when the basics of the constitution were taught? I mean, can you imagine if Trump (or whichever president you hate) had been in charge of some well oiled “gets things done” government for the last 4 years? The founders knew exactly what they were doing.
notatoad 6y ago
Can you give me an example where a system that isn't a government did a better job than a government could do, while maintaining a similar scale and level of inclusion? It's easy to be successful when you reduce your goals from something like "vaccinate all long-term care residents in the state" to "vaccinate all the people who we have accepted into our long-term care facility which has a strict capacity limit and we turn away people when it's full or they don't pay us enough"
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  Also businesses and NGOs fail all the time. Businesses go bankrupt. NGOs continue funneling money into unproven or disproven programs. The world is complicated, and only more so when lots of people are involved.
greesil 6y ago
There's always one person with this comment. From a USA perspective, social security, the space program, the all powerful military machine, operation warp speed, the UFO cover-up. FDA, EPA, FEC. The FTC seems pretty successful if you're a wall street trader. In California , medi-cal covers 1/3 of the population. Firefighters. Police... Kind of iffy here.
- fasteddie31003 6y ago
  Social Security works because the federal government just needs to print checks. Well some contractor prints the checks. But will the government be responsible enough to fund social security sustainably into the future? The US Space program is falling apart with NASA's SLS rocket failing basic tests and costing $20B. Oh and James Webb being delayed years and costing $10B (if it even works). The only bright light in American space programs is SpaceX and JPL. The $750B a year military machine is a huge waste of money which deserves a post on itself. Here's a terrible waste from Biden's Defense Secretary nominee https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-austin-us-trained-syrian-rebels-fighting-isis/story?id=33802596 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-austin-us-trained-sy... $500M for 4-5 actual fighters. I'm ok paying police and firefighters at the local level. The government bureaucracy gets worse and worse the further you get away from local government. I can go on.
  - greesil 6y ago
    Military: We haven't been invaded yet. And it employs lots of people. And it brings pork to lots of districts. We installed two puppet regimes on the other side of the planet! How is that not success? Space: every single robot/vehicle/probe that does science across the solar system and beyond. Every single NRO satellite the size of Hubble pointed at our enemies. I'm actually serious about social security. How does that not work? Between it and medicare that makes most of the federal budget, and it keeps people healthy and fed. Repeating a libertarian trope does not make it so.
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  Also I’ve heard the SEC and the like has enormously reduced fraudulent/swindling over the last century.
therealdrag0 6y ago
Here’s an argument for successful program: “The CARES superdole was a huge success” https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-cares-superdole-was-a-huge-success https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-cares-superdole-was-a-huge-...
tjalfi 6y ago
Here are a few examples. Hoover Dam Panama Canal Tennessee Valley Authority NASA's Apollo Program The Manhattan Project Energy Star National Malaria Eradication Program Boll Weevil Eradication Program Smallpox eradication Safe Drinking Water Act and many other USDA, FDA, and EPA programs that regulate food, air, and water quality.

Can the government do anything right? Seriously. Can you give me examples of successful government programs?

t-writescode 6y ago

* The highway program * The national parks program * Army Corps of Engineers' projects * FEMA ?

s0rce 6y ago
USGS maps are also amazing, not sure really what project they came from but you can get a very good topo map of anywhere in the country. Really nice to have for planning hiking trips.
- bennettfeely 6y ago
  I'd add the NWS to that. I don't know of a better place to get weather information and forecasts than weather.gov. Perhaps it's just a lack of ads on the website compared to every other weather site.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

marcinzm 6y ago

Medicaid seems successful.

softwaredoug 6y ago

I see successful government projects in many countries. Unfortunately in the US we have this belief that government projects are destined to fail, which means we don’t invest in them, so they often fail... self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.

rayiner 6y ago
That’s not true! Blue states exist, and they invest in plenty of things. Those fail, but that doesn’t deter blue state voters.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  If you look at why they fail, it can typically be followed back to interventions made by the right.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Sorry, no, that excuse is toxic because it provides cover for bad government that doesn’t work. We’re talking about states like California and New York that don’t have a meaningful “right.” California’s attempt at universal healthcare managed to self-destruct with Democrats having the Governorship as well as super-majorities in the state legislature. Every now and then these states will elect a moderate Republican just to get a reprieve from the repeated waves of failure of public services, but those failures can’t be blamed on “the right.” People in blue states should be madder about the fact that their public services are bad. That just means that people get less than what they pay for, and people in need do without. If it cost Europeans as much money to build subways as it does New York or SF they probably wouldn’t do it! And even when it doesn’t like (like California HSR) and is merely 5-10x more expensive than it should be, that just means 1/5 or 1/10th as many people get the service.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      People should be mad about the quality of public services in the states but "delivering universal health care" seems like a weirdly high bar to set.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        It’s just the latest example of something European countries a lot less wealthy than California have managed to do that California can’t manage to do.

readflaggedcomm 6y ago

This is a vicious circle. The less trust, the less effective government can achieve society's goal. Just look at all the civil servants like nurses and firemen who still refuse the jab.

bsder 6y ago

There is a vast difference between "Can the government do anything right?" and "Can the Trump administration do anything right?" The Federal government can be an amazing force for help in times of crisis when run by competent people. As we have seen, though, when run by actively malicious people, it can grind to a halt. The current Covid vaccine situation is due to a bunch of idiotic Federal decisions made starting 12 months ago that continue through to the present day--including things like "Not paying money to vaccine companies in advance to help them ramp up faster".

ArtisanOfWar 6y ago
Other states are doing fine. CA already has the vaccines. Thanks, Trump.

krupan 6y ago

The U.S. government was purposefully designed to be inefficient. Checks and balances, multiple branches of government, rotating people out every so often, pesky votes and confirmations to decide anything. “Getting things done” was never the goal. The fact that everyone wants the government to be the one to get things done, and then acts surprised and frustrated when it can’t just shows...I don’t know, that we didn’t pay attention in school when the basics of the constitution were taught? I mean, can you imagine if Trump (or whichever president you hate) had been in charge of some well oiled “gets things done” government for the last 4 years? The founders knew exactly what they were doing.

notatoad 6y ago

Can you give me an example where a system that isn't a government did a better job than a government could do, while maintaining a similar scale and level of inclusion? It's easy to be successful when you reduce your goals from something like "vaccinate all long-term care residents in the state" to "vaccinate all the people who we have accepted into our long-term care facility which has a strict capacity limit and we turn away people when it's full or they don't pay us enough"

therealdrag0 6y ago
Also businesses and NGOs fail all the time. Businesses go bankrupt. NGOs continue funneling money into unproven or disproven programs. The world is complicated, and only more so when lots of people are involved.

greesil 6y ago

There's always one person with this comment. From a USA perspective, social security, the space program, the all powerful military machine, operation warp speed, the UFO cover-up. FDA, EPA, FEC. The FTC seems pretty successful if you're a wall street trader. In California , medi-cal covers 1/3 of the population. Firefighters. Police... Kind of iffy here.

fasteddie31003 6y ago
Social Security works because the federal government just needs to print checks. Well some contractor prints the checks. But will the government be responsible enough to fund social security sustainably into the future? The US Space program is falling apart with NASA's SLS rocket failing basic tests and costing $20B. Oh and James Webb being delayed years and costing $10B (if it even works). The only bright light in American space programs is SpaceX and JPL. The $750B a year military machine is a huge waste of money which deserves a post on itself. Here's a terrible waste from Biden's Defense Secretary nominee https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-austin-us-trained-syrian-rebels-fighting-isis/story?id=33802596 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-austin-us-trained-sy... $500M for 4-5 actual fighters. I'm ok paying police and firefighters at the local level. The government bureaucracy gets worse and worse the further you get away from local government. I can go on.
- greesil 6y ago
  Military: We haven't been invaded yet. And it employs lots of people. And it brings pork to lots of districts. We installed two puppet regimes on the other side of the planet! How is that not success? Space: every single robot/vehicle/probe that does science across the solar system and beyond. Every single NRO satellite the size of Hubble pointed at our enemies. I'm actually serious about social security. How does that not work? Between it and medicare that makes most of the federal budget, and it keeps people healthy and fed. Repeating a libertarian trope does not make it so.
therealdrag0 6y ago
Also I’ve heard the SEC and the like has enormously reduced fraudulent/swindling over the last century.

therealdrag0 6y ago

Here’s an argument for successful program: “The CARES superdole was a huge success” https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-cares-superdole-was-a-huge-success https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-cares-superdole-was-a-huge-...

tjalfi 6y ago

Here are a few examples. Hoover Dam Panama Canal Tennessee Valley Authority NASA's Apollo Program The Manhattan Project Energy Star National Malaria Eradication Program Boll Weevil Eradication Program Smallpox eradication Safe Drinking Water Act and many other USDA, FDA, and EPA programs that regulate food, air, and water quality.