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"Starve the Beast" wasn't about efficiency. It was about reducing revenue without even bothering to think through to deal with that on the spending end. It was
by CobrastanJorji 3y ago
"Starve the Beast" wasn't about efficiency. It was about reducing revenue without even bothering to think through to deal with that on the spending end. It was the governmental equivalent of a parent quitting their job because "we spend too much." Heck, that was the exact metaphor Reagan used in the debates (except he made it about a kid's allowance). It made very little sense on the surface, and that was because the motivation was focused almost entirely on reducing the tax rates for the wealthy.
They offered a bunch of insane justifications, including the famous "voodoo" "trickle-down economics" idea that if you cut taxes for the wealthy enough, they'd use the money to boost the economy, thereby raising tax revenue, so everybody would win. Absolute bullshit, but it's been seriously spoken of for decades like it's an actual thing with some sort of economic or mathematical backing.
- rqtwteye 3y ago"Starve the beast" really means to reduce income while not reducing spending. The goal is to pile up so much debt that future generations will have no other choice than to reduce government. Evidence is that every republican president since Reagan has implemented big tax cuts while at the same increasing spending (mostly defense) and deficits. They never bothered to reduce spending or increasing government efficiency in any meaningful way.
- tomrod 3y agoCorrect, because it's an article of faith that government must be inefficient among a multitude of other service providers.
- rbanffy 3y agoEfficiency is not the top priority of government-provided services. The top priority is (or should be) to provide universally and fairly, without any form of discrimination against the population that make use of such services. Efficiency is a nice-to-have, while universality and fairness are hard requirements.
- tomrod 3y agoEfficiency should be a target with a tight constraint of service provision as you've described. It's the dual optimization problem of providing the most service for a given goal; rather, we should agree to a level of service being absolutely required (as you've laid out) then push improvement to decrease unnecessary expenditure (IMO).
- rbanffy 3y agoExactly. Universality and fairness is non-negotiable.