6 ms·

US has a lot of public spending fraud and wastage. Just a few examples 1. San Jose Failed To Adequately Track $300 Million In Homelessness Spending https://sd

• aidenn0 2y ago
  The deficit is about 1.5T annually. You'd have to find a missing $3B 500 times per year to make that up.
  • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    > $3B 500 times per year to make that up. You don't think that is possible? Why? https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105833#:~:text=What%20GAO%20Found,risk%20environments%20during%20this%20period https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105833#:~:text=What%20GA.... > GAO estimated total direct annual financial losses to the government from fraud to be between $233 billion and $521 billion, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022. The range reflects the different risk environments during this period That is just fraud. Wastage will be probably be higher lol. It is morally wrong to pour more water into a container with holes in the middle of water shortage.
    • AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Not only that, you can separate the waste into several different categories. The first is purposeful waste. That is, a corrupt program that diverts tax dollars into the coffers of some corporation with lobbyists. This is extremely common in the DoD, for example, and identifying these has extremely high gains because the program can be deleted wholesale. Then there is simple inefficiency. The government's website is incapable of doing something it should be capable of doing and then the government has to employ an army of clerks to do it by hand. These can be pretty big gains too. If you can reduce the number of clerks by 80%, that's a lot of money. Then there is unnecessary complexity. Most of this comes directly from Congress. Somebody needs to go through all the existing laws and do a cost/benefit analysis to see which ones are still relevant and have a net positive effect, and get rid of the ones that don't. More than that, look at the laws as a whole and see if they make sense. We have a slew of programs that all have the same ostensible purpose, e.g. to provide assistance to the poor, but then they all have different applications and qualification conditions and phase outs and benefits. Combine them all into a single system that provides a cash benefit and you can eliminate a lot of bureaucracy. And for both of these, the savings isn't just to the government -- it's also to the citizens who have to interact with the government. So even though the savings in terms of tax dollars might be smaller than the other categories, the value here gets doubled because it's also a savings to the public in time and paperwork. We have to start doing these things.
      • LorenPechtel 2y ago
        Yeah, there's a lot of inefficiency with handling stuff for the poor. But I suspect a lot of it is deliberate, the more friction in the system the more people get improperly denied or are unable to jump through the hoops. And look at what has been happening in some red states--they're in a rush to kick people off welfare and the system can't handle the load. And since they fail to prove eligibility they're kicked off. While I think the system is in a major need of a cleanup I don't expect it to free up money. I also agree our legal system needs a rewrite. Unfortunately, it's an impossible task because things change. To *some* extent it could be handled by having judges actually change the law (provisional while appeals are pending) but sometimes one judicial ruling will invalidate many laws. (The one that I think probably changed the most laws was the 10th Circuit Court's ruling on top equality. Six states became topfree with the stroke of a pen and there's an awful lot of local laws involved. Roe affected more people but since those were generally state laws there probably were fewer jurisdictions involved.) I would like to see a system in which unclear law is automatically unconstitutional. The defendant should get to choose the most favorable interpretation of what the law says. And if it's not clear to the average person to whom it applies (thus, for example, a law regulating doctors needs to be clear to doctors, but need not be clear to the average person) it's also unconstitutional. And, in addition to the purposeful waste you refer to there is purposeful exploitation. A nice chunk of change could be freed up from the Medicaid system this way. The problem is the federal government pays a *percentage* of the Medicaid costs. Thus you see drug companies colluding with states. Cover our expensive drug X but don't cover the generic, we will rebate you more than the state share of the price difference.
• Iwan-Zotow 2y ago
  > U.N. Has Flown More Than $2.9 Billion in Cash to Afghanistan Since the Taliban Seized Power, Diverting U.S. Funds and why this is inefficient?
  • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    That is just fraud/waste. Zero US tax payer money should go to the Taliban.