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I don't understand why people are so opposed to pork spending? Pork is how things got done historically. Sure on the surface it's wasteful, but it promotes comp

I don't understand why people are so opposed to pork spending? Pork is how things got done historically. Sure on the surface it's wasteful, but it promotes compromise and greases the wheels of government. None of the great works in the US would have been completed without it. Pork reform in my opinion is one of the reasons why things are so partisan these days - everyone is in their own corner and there's no incentive for Democrats to help Republicans and vice versa.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
And how some of the biggest boondoggles got built. Never mind bridges to nowhere. The Arkansas river has a multi-billion dollar lock and dam system. To take all those Arkansas products to market presumably. From a state near the bottom rank in GDP. That's pork.
- Server6 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree there's some waste and boondoggles. I'm just arguing that they're necessary in order for government to function.
  - lazide 5y ago
    How do? It’s clear corruption. They could do the same thing with a competitive bidding system more cost effectively no?
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    I see what you’re saying, but it’s only true in the sense that dysfunctional government refuses to operate without a dysfunctional incentive. It is possible to improve the percentage of wisely chosen projects.
- analognoise 5y ago
  On the other hand, if a state has the bottom rank in GDP, wouldn't we want to provide infrastructure to lift them up? Saying "They're already poor, let's not invest in their infrastructure" sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me - they'll stay poor unless we invest in them?
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    States typically have the bottom rank in GDP because they're mostly empty. The big industries in Arkansas are agriculture, forestry and mining. Their agriculture industry isn't fundamentally different than agriculture in some other state, it just so happens that New York also has a major finance industry etc. There is nothing wrong with this. There is no requirement that every state have an equal share of the finance industry etc. But then the Senators from New York represent the finance industry and the Senators from Arkansas represent the forestry industry. So the Senators from New York make sure that nobody is ever allowed to disintermediate Visa and MasterCard and the Senators from Arkansas get big federal money for a lock and dam system. Both of these are simple corruption.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      There are exceptions, like the TVA. No one would have built hydroelectric and electrified Appalachia, because why would you? But once that investment was made, the cheap power did attract new industries, as now those regions had something others did not.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Intel signed an agreement with Hillsboro, Oregon to pay zero taxes for 30 years. It's a little crass for them to go hat-in-hand to the federal government.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The problem works like this. If you have an industry somewhere, all else equal, it will stay there. Costs money to move. A foreign country (e.g. China) wants the industry to come there, so they provide subsidies. The industry moves, because hey, subsidies. Now the industry is there. Do you want them to come back? The alternative to counter-subsidies is tariffs on countries that provide subsidies, but then people whinge about that too.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    How much do we give them before drawing a line? Surely it isn't everything they ask for, and realistically it isn't zero. Look at Connecticut. They gave GE everything they wanted, and their state coffers suffered, and then GE left anyway, and now they are really screwed. Or look at how much Foxconn made off with in Wisconsin. But some people whinge when anyone claims corporations should follow even the smallest accountability or regulation.
  - landemva 5y ago
    Tariffs would also be useful to penalize sending manufacturing environmental damage 'over there'. It is not just cheap labor which drove manufacturing offshore, but also cheap disposal of toxins.
throwawaygh 5y ago
You don't even need those sorts of justifications, because government investment is historically how things got built. The Great American Giant (Intel) could never have existed without massive R&D spend in the post-war period, not to mention the fact that it more recently had its ass completely whipped by a government-funded company (the aptly-named Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited). But, anyways, the answer to your question is: because government ==== bad.
Nasrudith 5y ago
Pork is malinvestment by definition - if it served interests as a whole efficiently it wouldn't be pork, regardless of who benefitted. The cooperation also isn't guaranteed to be something where cooperation is actually needed or useful. A quid-pro-quo bill bundling of say "rural retraining programs to address unemployment bundled with urban housing availability solutions" would be a cooperative compromise example that serves both broad interests and wouldn't be pork. Overpaying for US Army widgets they don't even want or need as a lazy solution for rural unemployment? Pork.
ishjoh 5y ago
I'm not against pork spending, especially in cases like this where we know how strategically important it is to be a world leader in semiconductors. Critics will point out correctly though, that the government isn't historically good at picking winners and losers, and that a lot of this money is paid to companies who donate heavily to a candidate, so they look a lot like political favors
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Critics say that - true. But first of all, those critics originate more from Milton Friedman school of economics. Or the Austrian school. And honestly, as the work of economists like Card/Krueger show - many of the so-called common sense economics understandings have very shaky evidence foundations. Long story short, there is very little data in evidence of such claims.
- lazide 5y ago
  Pork == corruption. You can protect an industry without explicitly handing billions of dollars to one single player in a corrupt process that doesn’t actually help the company or the country be competitive.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    That single player is the only player. And semiconductors are a classic case of structural monopolies, because semiconductor manufacturing is closer to an utility rather than competing food joints - the barriers to entry are insanely capital intensive.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Just like commercial aerospace, and hence why Boeing gets the special treatment it does. Doesn’t make it stink less though, in my opinion.
      - N1H1L 5y ago
        The solution to this is stricter anti-trust laws. The FTC is honestly outgunned when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Part of it is manpower and salaries, and part of it is by design (regulatory capture). However, Intel is not that much to blame here. GlobalFoundries bowed out of the node race on it's own.
ch4s3 5y ago
> None of the great works in the US would have been completed without it I'm not so sure about that. People like to point out Johnson's wheeling and dealing but there was a broad consensus in US politics, he had a near mastery of the senate, and he ultimately broke the existing party alliances. Looking further back you really see most large bills getting done through essentially 1 party rule or during a crisis. FDR had gigantic majorities.
stefan_ 5y ago
Intel reduced their R&D spending on semiconductors, predictably fell behind, and now the government should make it up? I'm not opposed to spending cash to make sure we have competitive semiconductor factories, but until very recently, Intel wasn't even that! They only produced their own chips, another massive 20-year industry shift that their executives somehow missed? Where are the consequences for those long gone utter failures of leadership?
- ac29 5y ago
  > Intel reduced their R&D spending on semiconductors Intel has consistently increased their R&D spending for the past 5 years: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/financials?p=INTC https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/financials?p=INTC (see financials tab)

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

And how some of the biggest boondoggles got built. Never mind bridges to nowhere. The Arkansas river has a multi-billion dollar lock and dam system. To take all those Arkansas products to market presumably. From a state near the bottom rank in GDP. That's pork.

Server6 5y ago
Yeah, I agree there's some waste and boondoggles. I'm just arguing that they're necessary in order for government to function.
- lazide 5y ago
  How do? It’s clear corruption. They could do the same thing with a competitive bidding system more cost effectively no?
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I see what you’re saying, but it’s only true in the sense that dysfunctional government refuses to operate without a dysfunctional incentive. It is possible to improve the percentage of wisely chosen projects.
analognoise 5y ago
On the other hand, if a state has the bottom rank in GDP, wouldn't we want to provide infrastructure to lift them up? Saying "They're already poor, let's not invest in their infrastructure" sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me - they'll stay poor unless we invest in them?
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  States typically have the bottom rank in GDP because they're mostly empty. The big industries in Arkansas are agriculture, forestry and mining. Their agriculture industry isn't fundamentally different than agriculture in some other state, it just so happens that New York also has a major finance industry etc. There is nothing wrong with this. There is no requirement that every state have an equal share of the finance industry etc. But then the Senators from New York represent the finance industry and the Senators from Arkansas represent the forestry industry. So the Senators from New York make sure that nobody is ever allowed to disintermediate Visa and MasterCard and the Senators from Arkansas get big federal money for a lock and dam system. Both of these are simple corruption.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    There are exceptions, like the TVA. No one would have built hydroelectric and electrified Appalachia, because why would you? But once that investment was made, the cheap power did attract new industries, as now those regions had something others did not.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

Intel signed an agreement with Hillsboro, Oregon to pay zero taxes for 30 years. It's a little crass for them to go hat-in-hand to the federal government.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The problem works like this. If you have an industry somewhere, all else equal, it will stay there. Costs money to move. A foreign country (e.g. China) wants the industry to come there, so they provide subsidies. The industry moves, because hey, subsidies. Now the industry is there. Do you want them to come back? The alternative to counter-subsidies is tariffs on countries that provide subsidies, but then people whinge about that too.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  How much do we give them before drawing a line? Surely it isn't everything they ask for, and realistically it isn't zero. Look at Connecticut. They gave GE everything they wanted, and their state coffers suffered, and then GE left anyway, and now they are really screwed. Or look at how much Foxconn made off with in Wisconsin. But some people whinge when anyone claims corporations should follow even the smallest accountability or regulation.
- landemva 5y ago
  Tariffs would also be useful to penalize sending manufacturing environmental damage 'over there'. It is not just cheap labor which drove manufacturing offshore, but also cheap disposal of toxins.

throwawaygh 5y ago

You don't even need those sorts of justifications, because government investment is historically how things got built. The Great American Giant (Intel) could never have existed without massive R&D spend in the post-war period, not to mention the fact that it more recently had its ass completely whipped by a government-funded company (the aptly-named Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited). But, anyways, the answer to your question is: because government ==== bad.

Nasrudith 5y ago

Pork is malinvestment by definition - if it served interests as a whole efficiently it wouldn't be pork, regardless of who benefitted. The cooperation also isn't guaranteed to be something where cooperation is actually needed or useful. A quid-pro-quo bill bundling of say "rural retraining programs to address unemployment bundled with urban housing availability solutions" would be a cooperative compromise example that serves both broad interests and wouldn't be pork. Overpaying for US Army widgets they don't even want or need as a lazy solution for rural unemployment? Pork.

ishjoh 5y ago

I'm not against pork spending, especially in cases like this where we know how strategically important it is to be a world leader in semiconductors. Critics will point out correctly though, that the government isn't historically good at picking winners and losers, and that a lot of this money is paid to companies who donate heavily to a candidate, so they look a lot like political favors

N1H1L 5y ago
Critics say that - true. But first of all, those critics originate more from Milton Friedman school of economics. Or the Austrian school. And honestly, as the work of economists like Card/Krueger show - many of the so-called common sense economics understandings have very shaky evidence foundations. Long story short, there is very little data in evidence of such claims.
lazide 5y ago
Pork == corruption. You can protect an industry without explicitly handing billions of dollars to one single player in a corrupt process that doesn’t actually help the company or the country be competitive.
- N1H1L 5y ago
  That single player is the only player. And semiconductors are a classic case of structural monopolies, because semiconductor manufacturing is closer to an utility rather than competing food joints - the barriers to entry are insanely capital intensive.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Just like commercial aerospace, and hence why Boeing gets the special treatment it does. Doesn’t make it stink less though, in my opinion.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      The solution to this is stricter anti-trust laws. The FTC is honestly outgunned when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Part of it is manpower and salaries, and part of it is by design (regulatory capture). However, Intel is not that much to blame here. GlobalFoundries bowed out of the node race on it's own.

ch4s3 5y ago

> None of the great works in the US would have been completed without it I'm not so sure about that. People like to point out Johnson's wheeling and dealing but there was a broad consensus in US politics, he had a near mastery of the senate, and he ultimately broke the existing party alliances. Looking further back you really see most large bills getting done through essentially 1 party rule or during a crisis. FDR had gigantic majorities.

stefan_ 5y ago

Intel reduced their R&D spending on semiconductors, predictably fell behind, and now the government should make it up? I'm not opposed to spending cash to make sure we have competitive semiconductor factories, but until very recently, Intel wasn't even that! They only produced their own chips, another massive 20-year industry shift that their executives somehow missed? Where are the consequences for those long gone utter failures of leadership?

ac29 5y ago
> Intel reduced their R&D spending on semiconductors Intel has consistently increased their R&D spending for the past 5 years: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/financials?p=INTC https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/financials?p=INTC (see financials tab)