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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 negligib

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.

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.