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Let's waste it in a way that educates people, feeds them, and provides for their basic health care needs.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Funny how the money went to (at least an attempt to) build schools in Afghanistan instead. That country has/had free universal healthcare coverage. Time for Alanis Morissette to male version 3 of "Ironic"...
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
See, the thing about waste is that it doesn't actually achieve what it claims that it's going to achieve. So wasting it on education isn't going to result in more actual education. (And yes, I know it isn't binary. It can be 70% waste and still produce 30% education, which is 30% more than we would have had - which I think is your point. It's still 70% waste, though.) Maybe the answer is to stop letting government spend huge amounts of money, and let the people do so instead?
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  And how is that supposed to work? In detail please. With examples of how it has had successful outcomes in the past. Compared to - say - landmark programs like ARPA in the 60s and 70s. The problem isn't the spending, it's the capture that diverts the spending to useless pork instead of best-in-world investment and R&D. The US used to be quite good at that. Now it isn't.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  This is the wrong takeaway from the whole ordeal. It was largely so-called fiscal conservatives who were very in favor of invading Afghanistan in the first place. Their reasoning was that military defense is one of the few legitimate functions of a government, and since 9/11 had just happened, well, of course we needed more defense. Now that trillions of dollars have been thrown in the trash, they want to pretend this is a teachable moment about goverment waste in general, when it was really their waste. George W. Bush was a two-term president, and his pro-small-government voters share the credit for this fiscal disaster; nobody gets to spin this as a warning against big government. That money absolutely could have been put to much better use in other programs.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Most Republicans and Democrats including Biden voted for it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Funny how the money went to (at least an attempt to) build schools in Afghanistan instead. That country has/had free universal healthcare coverage. Time for Alanis Morissette to male version 3 of "Ironic"...

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

See, the thing about waste is that it doesn't actually achieve what it claims that it's going to achieve. So wasting it on education isn't going to result in more actual education. (And yes, I know it isn't binary. It can be 70% waste and still produce 30% education, which is 30% more than we would have had - which I think is your point. It's still 70% waste, though.) Maybe the answer is to stop letting government spend huge amounts of money, and let the people do so instead?

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
And how is that supposed to work? In detail please. With examples of how it has had successful outcomes in the past. Compared to - say - landmark programs like ARPA in the 60s and 70s. The problem isn't the spending, it's the capture that diverts the spending to useless pork instead of best-in-world investment and R&D. The US used to be quite good at that. Now it isn't.
SantalBlush 5y ago
This is the wrong takeaway from the whole ordeal. It was largely so-called fiscal conservatives who were very in favor of invading Afghanistan in the first place. Their reasoning was that military defense is one of the few legitimate functions of a government, and since 9/11 had just happened, well, of course we needed more defense. Now that trillions of dollars have been thrown in the trash, they want to pretend this is a teachable moment about goverment waste in general, when it was really their waste. George W. Bush was a two-term president, and his pro-small-government voters share the credit for this fiscal disaster; nobody gets to spin this as a warning against big government. That money absolutely could have been put to much better use in other programs.
- swader999 5y ago
  Most Republicans and Democrats including Biden voted for it.

deleted 5y ago

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