4 ms·

Pardon my language but where the f** is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? I t

Pardon my language but where the f** is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? I think thats the first thing that HAS to happen, a clear transparent audit down to the penny. As a coder, this kind of complexity just drives me up the wall. Also on a side note, I love how sneaky that NY Times article leaves out the option to cut defense. After all we can NEVER reduce our military industrial complex, only cut everything else to the bone.

creato 4y ago
The top 3 chunks of spending are social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The majority of that spending is payments to individuals or on behalf of individuals for medical bills. You can probably find the exact fraction of overhead for each program somewhere.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > The top 3 chunks of spending After national defense, you mean. https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
  - creato 4y ago
    According to the link in the parent I replied to, social security and Medicare are larger, by more than 0.7%
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Hmmm, so do I trust a media source, or the gov't themselves. Decisions, decisions!
      - hcurtiss 4y ago
        On the site you link, 2020 and 2021 tell a different story, though only on the margin.
icelancer 4y ago
> Pardon my language but where the f* is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? Not really, but for as bearish as I am on the government in general, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a bright spot, and they do very good work at forecasting, auditing, and evaluating tax cuts, tax increases, budget cuts, and so forth. The average person can have faith that the CBO does mostly good work because politicians on both sides of the aisle really dislike the department when they tell the truth about their plans.
supernova87a 4y ago
If you assume that most government programs have on the order of a very few % misspending or outright fraud (which is the case, aside from fiascos like the pandemic stimulus payments) then you just have to assume that the real decisions to be made are the "should we have this program at all" or "do rates need to increase / benefits need to decrease". The auditing and details will get worked out by an existing government apparatus designed to ensure this. You cannot let yourself get lost from the bigger picture believing that what is missing is the audit. The big questions are what need to be solved.
- 76384638 4y ago
  There is no reason to believe government programs are ran efficiently or without large amounts of fraud and corruption. There has to be a reason it costs governments (including government contracts) several times as much to do things compared to the private sector and non-profits.
  - supernova87a 4y ago
    I didn't say efficiently. I said fraud, which is a different thing. If you want to attack efficiency, you have a lot of work to deeply change how the government, and in fact many aspects of our public / government works. How they use contractors, the kinds of contracts they're allowed to enter into, the reviews and permitting and public commenting they need to engage in, unions, labor rates, etc. That would be as big a challenge as the above debate.
    - 76384638 4y ago
      Maybe I should not have said efficiently, as it really understates it. It's like if someone gets hired to work full time and then only works 20 minutes per week. Is that person committing fraud or just inefficient? What if the person gives part of their salary to their boss to look the other way? What if the person is a company, their boss is a politician, and the money is given to campaign organisation?
HDThoreaun 4y ago
The graphic lets you include defense cuts. It doesn't originally because republicans have pledged to block any cuts in defense spending.
noelsusman 4y ago
https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer
- nebula8804 4y ago
  This site puts you in a dead end. I followed one thread to figure out Air Force spending and this is the most granularity that it offers. OK I know that 1.9 billion was spent....on what? [1]:https://i.imgur.com/73vv6oK.png https://i.imgur.com/73vv6oK.png
lotsofpulp 4y ago
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown-3305789 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown... For states and cities, see local government websites for reports. Or you can start here: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/ https://www.truthinaccounting.org/ On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road. The reason this is different from regular old debt is that via questionable accounting methods and actuarial assumptions, the cost of the deferred compensation is presented as absurdly low compared to what it really is. So it does not show up on any official figures anywhere, just greater and greater portions of the government budget go to paying benefits.
- OrvalWintermute 4y ago
  > On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road. This is why contracting out services makes public sector CFOs so happy. Replace a large % of your civil servant workforce with a company that specializes in that one function, eat potentially higher or inflated OPEX, but no long-term costs regarding pensions. If the requirement for services change, scale down the contract.

creato 4y ago

The top 3 chunks of spending are social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The majority of that spending is payments to individuals or on behalf of individuals for medical bills. You can probably find the exact fraction of overhead for each program somewhere.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> The top 3 chunks of spending After national defense, you mean. https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
- creato 4y ago
  According to the link in the parent I replied to, social security and Medicare are larger, by more than 0.7%
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Hmmm, so do I trust a media source, or the gov't themselves. Decisions, decisions!
    - hcurtiss 4y ago
      On the site you link, 2020 and 2021 tell a different story, though only on the margin.

icelancer 4y ago

> Pardon my language but where the f* is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? Not really, but for as bearish as I am on the government in general, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a bright spot, and they do very good work at forecasting, auditing, and evaluating tax cuts, tax increases, budget cuts, and so forth. The average person can have faith that the CBO does mostly good work because politicians on both sides of the aisle really dislike the department when they tell the truth about their plans.

supernova87a 4y ago

If you assume that most government programs have on the order of a very few % misspending or outright fraud (which is the case, aside from fiascos like the pandemic stimulus payments) then you just have to assume that the real decisions to be made are the "should we have this program at all" or "do rates need to increase / benefits need to decrease". The auditing and details will get worked out by an existing government apparatus designed to ensure this. You cannot let yourself get lost from the bigger picture believing that what is missing is the audit. The big questions are what need to be solved.

76384638 4y ago
There is no reason to believe government programs are ran efficiently or without large amounts of fraud and corruption. There has to be a reason it costs governments (including government contracts) several times as much to do things compared to the private sector and non-profits.
- supernova87a 4y ago
  I didn't say efficiently. I said fraud, which is a different thing. If you want to attack efficiency, you have a lot of work to deeply change how the government, and in fact many aspects of our public / government works. How they use contractors, the kinds of contracts they're allowed to enter into, the reviews and permitting and public commenting they need to engage in, unions, labor rates, etc. That would be as big a challenge as the above debate.
  - 76384638 4y ago
    Maybe I should not have said efficiently, as it really understates it. It's like if someone gets hired to work full time and then only works 20 minutes per week. Is that person committing fraud or just inefficient? What if the person gives part of their salary to their boss to look the other way? What if the person is a company, their boss is a politician, and the money is given to campaign organisation?

HDThoreaun 4y ago

The graphic lets you include defense cuts. It doesn't originally because republicans have pledged to block any cuts in defense spending.

noelsusman 4y ago

https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer

nebula8804 4y ago
This site puts you in a dead end. I followed one thread to figure out Air Force spending and this is the most granularity that it offers. OK I know that 1.9 billion was spent....on what? [1]:https://i.imgur.com/73vv6oK.png https://i.imgur.com/73vv6oK.png

lotsofpulp 4y ago

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown-3305789 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown... For states and cities, see local government websites for reports. Or you can start here: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/ https://www.truthinaccounting.org/ On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road. The reason this is different from regular old debt is that via questionable accounting methods and actuarial assumptions, the cost of the deferred compensation is presented as absurdly low compared to what it really is. So it does not show up on any official figures anywhere, just greater and greater portions of the government budget go to paying benefits.

OrvalWintermute 4y ago
> On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road. This is why contracting out services makes public sector CFOs so happy. Replace a large % of your civil servant workforce with a company that specializes in that one function, eat potentially higher or inflated OPEX, but no long-term costs regarding pensions. If the requirement for services change, scale down the contract.