5 ms·

Shaming big public companies brings more attention to the discussion, which is a good thing, but I've always felt the entire focus was misdirected. How about .

by jemka 14y ago

Shaming big public companies brings more attention to the discussion, which is a good thing, but I've always felt the entire focus was misdirected. How about ... spend less. Streamline that bloated money burning monstrosity called a government. "Who pays" is probably the last thing we should be talking about.

archgoon 14y ago
What do you feel should be cut in government? Where do you feel that money is being misappropriated?
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Off the top of my head: * Million dollar Vegas conferences? (Recent GSA scandal) * Guantanamo Bay * Unnecessary military bases all over the world Give me a day and access to the books for any branch of government and I would bet my life savings on being able to find hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars, if not millions.
  - alphakappa 14y ago
    The US federal budget is in Trillions. If you can find wastes that range in "hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars, if not millions", they are just a negligible drop in the bucket and it would serve purely to distract from the bigger expenditures. If you were to really spend time on such an exercise, it would be more useful to find the big items that can be reformed, not the minuscule ones that would take up a lot of mindshare but ultimately change nothing.
    - beagle3 14y ago
      I'm sure there's a name for what you've just done to derail the discussion. "strawman" is not exactly it. But you make an impossible demand. I've managed a big budget before. There are usually no more than a few items that account for most of the spending (in the US, these are probably defense, health, pensions and education), which you can usually cut 10% easily, and from that point on, the devil is in the details, both for the big items, and for the smaller level items. And it always looks like there's nothing you can cut, and yet, there is always a lot you can cut, usually in the vicinity of 50%, if you have to, without endangering the viable status of the operation (although the stakeholders - employees / citizens / whatever - will find things are much less convenient than before). Give me a proper OLAPpable database of government expenses (star scheme with properly categorized fact tables), and I'll show you where to cut. And no, it won't be popular or easy, but it's possible. Right now, the US government spends ~60% more[0] than it collects in taxes (otherwise stated: taxes account for only ~70% of US government spending. For 2011, there's 2.4T in tax receipts, 1.3T in borrowing, 2012 is looking worse - http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2011USbn_13bs1n http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2011USbn_1... ). Saying that you cannot reform down to 50% is equivalent to saying that the US cannot be run sustain-ably. I would guess that's not true -- it just cannot be sustained with the current entitlements and spending. [0] Depending on how you look at it. This is using government's own numbers, which do not include e.g. backstops against otherwise bankrupt financial institutions like Freddie, Fannie. And it doesn't include IMHO proper treatment of social security. I estimate it actually spends 100% more than it collects.
  - jbooth 14y ago
    You already have a day and access to the books. Go read them. Military procurement in particular is an amazing one if you're looking for waste and corruption.
- jemka 14y ago
  >What do you feel should be cut in government? Where do you feel that money is being misappropriated? I'm not for big government. So, I wouldn't go department by department and audit to find fraud, waste, and abuse. I used to get paid to do that for the defense department. It's a complete waste of time and ultimately a paper drill. But what I want is moot. What I don't understand is why many others sit idly by and argue who is going to contribute X%, when they should be more skeptical about where the money is going in the first place. Regardless of who's money it is. If the government was run more like a business (which there's no reason why it couldn't be) we wouldn't be having this discussion. But for starters, how about term limits and contractual accountability for the leaders? This say one thing do another without recourse is getting old.
  - rprasad 14y ago
    By design, the U.S. government cannot be run like a business. The Founding Fathers consciously and deliberately chose to make the federal government as structurally inefficient as possible so that the actual exercise of federal powers (which are effectively unlimited under the Constitution except as provided for in the Bill of Rights) would be constrained. Businesses don't have to deal with the Bill of Rights; the government does. Every exercise of government power must conform to the Bill of Rights and Constitutional prescriptions and proscriptions. The current government could be run more like a business than it currently is, but there is no way under the Constitution that it could be run like a business.
    - jemka 14y ago
      Thanks. I edited my post after re-reading it assuming someone would make the argument you just have. :)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - archgoon 14y ago
    I like the contractual accountability idea. However, I'd like to point out that term limits is making government less like a business. Imagine you told a CEO 'Well, you're here for 4, maybe 8 years, but no longer." Zuckerberg's term would be over in 2014, Jobs wouldn't have been able to return (or would have stopped in 2005 if you just want to count his return in 1997). That's not to say that term limits are a bad idea (however, I'm unimpressed with their implementation in California), just that I don't think that people really feel comfortable with having a government, that can make it's own rules, run itself like a business.

by jemka 14y ago

archgoon 14y ago

What do you feel should be cut in government? Where do you feel that money is being misappropriated?

Karunamon 14y ago
Off the top of my head: * Million dollar Vegas conferences? (Recent GSA scandal) * Guantanamo Bay * Unnecessary military bases all over the world Give me a day and access to the books for any branch of government and I would bet my life savings on being able to find hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars, if not millions.
- alphakappa 14y ago
  The US federal budget is in Trillions. If you can find wastes that range in "hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars, if not millions", they are just a negligible drop in the bucket and it would serve purely to distract from the bigger expenditures. If you were to really spend time on such an exercise, it would be more useful to find the big items that can be reformed, not the minuscule ones that would take up a lot of mindshare but ultimately change nothing.
  - beagle3 14y ago
    I'm sure there's a name for what you've just done to derail the discussion. "strawman" is not exactly it. But you make an impossible demand. I've managed a big budget before. There are usually no more than a few items that account for most of the spending (in the US, these are probably defense, health, pensions and education), which you can usually cut 10% easily, and from that point on, the devil is in the details, both for the big items, and for the smaller level items. And it always looks like there's nothing you can cut, and yet, there is always a lot you can cut, usually in the vicinity of 50%, if you have to, without endangering the viable status of the operation (although the stakeholders - employees / citizens / whatever - will find things are much less convenient than before). Give me a proper OLAPpable database of government expenses (star scheme with properly categorized fact tables), and I'll show you where to cut. And no, it won't be popular or easy, but it's possible. Right now, the US government spends ~60% more[0] than it collects in taxes (otherwise stated: taxes account for only ~70% of US government spending. For 2011, there's 2.4T in tax receipts, 1.3T in borrowing, 2012 is looking worse - http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2011USbn_13bs1n http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2011USbn_1... ). Saying that you cannot reform down to 50% is equivalent to saying that the US cannot be run sustain-ably. I would guess that's not true -- it just cannot be sustained with the current entitlements and spending. [0] Depending on how you look at it. This is using government's own numbers, which do not include e.g. backstops against otherwise bankrupt financial institutions like Freddie, Fannie. And it doesn't include IMHO proper treatment of social security. I estimate it actually spends 100% more than it collects.
- jbooth 14y ago
  You already have a day and access to the books. Go read them. Military procurement in particular is an amazing one if you're looking for waste and corruption.
jemka 14y ago
>What do you feel should be cut in government? Where do you feel that money is being misappropriated? I'm not for big government. So, I wouldn't go department by department and audit to find fraud, waste, and abuse. I used to get paid to do that for the defense department. It's a complete waste of time and ultimately a paper drill. But what I want is moot. What I don't understand is why many others sit idly by and argue who is going to contribute X%, when they should be more skeptical about where the money is going in the first place. Regardless of who's money it is. If the government was run more like a business (which there's no reason why it couldn't be) we wouldn't be having this discussion. But for starters, how about term limits and contractual accountability for the leaders? This say one thing do another without recourse is getting old.
- rprasad 14y ago
  By design, the U.S. government cannot be run like a business. The Founding Fathers consciously and deliberately chose to make the federal government as structurally inefficient as possible so that the actual exercise of federal powers (which are effectively unlimited under the Constitution except as provided for in the Bill of Rights) would be constrained. Businesses don't have to deal with the Bill of Rights; the government does. Every exercise of government power must conform to the Bill of Rights and Constitutional prescriptions and proscriptions. The current government could be run more like a business than it currently is, but there is no way under the Constitution that it could be run like a business.
  - jemka 14y ago
    Thanks. I edited my post after re-reading it assuming someone would make the argument you just have. :)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- archgoon 14y ago
  I like the contractual accountability idea. However, I'd like to point out that term limits is making government less like a business. Imagine you told a CEO 'Well, you're here for 4, maybe 8 years, but no longer." Zuckerberg's term would be over in 2014, Jobs wouldn't have been able to return (or would have stopped in 2005 if you just want to count his return in 1997). That's not to say that term limits are a bad idea (however, I'm unimpressed with their implementation in California), just that I don't think that people really feel comfortable with having a government, that can make it's own rules, run itself like a business.