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I don't know anything about the specifics, but a thought that came to mind is: If you're trying to thin down agencies to reduce costs so the government can sig

• netlipapa 2y ago
  > If your job is so unimportant that you aren't willing to reach out and make a case to the relevant people for why it is important, maybe the mission won't be deemed strong enough to justify spending tax payer dollars on. "If you don't complain, maybe your job is not important". "If you complain, your job is important". Do these takes sound reasonable to you? > For work that does produce actual value, assistance could be provided in converting that mission to a private company if the entities that depended on it existing will realistically pay for its services. If the solution is to privatize anything that produces value (and I think we can agree that cancer research does produce value), why do we need the government again? That scenario doesn't even sound realistic as it assumes the transition would be done seamlessly, but that can't happen when the existing entity is shut down abruptly. I think it's blatantly obvious that removing funding from NIH is a negative thing for regular people (not only for Americans), but naive people still try to spin actions like this as something that is being done in their best interest. Please think instead in terms of "how can benefit the people that made the decision", and you'll soon find the real reason why it's being done.
  • CMay 2y ago
    If you firmly believe that your job is important and helping people, then it seems reasonable that you would complain and try to get an exception or other people who know of the program would complain. It's not perfect, some people would just be defeatist and assume things are happening at a higher level that they have no control over, even if they think their role is important. The solution would not be to privatize anything that produces value, the solution would be to assess whether privatization would be a good fit for some of the things that do have value, but don't strictly need to be run by the government. I'm not assuming anything seamless, but the process would occur before something gets shut down, not after. I didn't get the impression from the article that anything was totally shut down, just some kinds of activities were paused? I'm not really responding specifically to this, so much as just the general critical need to reduce costs. That said, cutting government costs and people's dependencies on the government down to within a reasonable threshold is in people's best interest. In China and Russia, so many people work for the government. Keeping people not just employed, but ideologically on the side of the status quo of the government can get out of control. It's convenient in some ways, because you can just create jobs out of thin air if the job market is struggling. The best interest of the people is definitely not infinite government growth. Government spends a lot of money too. Spending some money can be in the interests of the people. Spending too much money can flip over to not being in their interest. Spending too much can reduce both the value and the trust (necessarily linked) in the US Dollar, slowly weakening our economic leverage for doing things on behalf of US citizens and our allies. So just spending infinitely like there's no cost to creating money is also not in people's best interest. Some projects could fail, some things that were valuable might fall apart, I don't know. Ideally it's done with some finesse and important things are either kept or found a new home. But the logic of compassion significantly favors cutting government spending and government dependency when it gets past some threshold.
• wink 2y ago
  Let me just say that as a European citizen these US government shutdowns sound downright ridiculous, not even sure how else to put it. And this is just observing from very far, with the tiniest inconveniences like people not being given tickets for state parks etc.pp. We had a thing with the Belgian government 10 years ago and basically everyone in another country was scratching their head. I'm not hinting at everything being perfect here but you seem to be forgetting that governments should work for the people, not against them.
  • CMay 2y ago
    Absolutely, governments should work for the people. Sometimes in order to do more for someone, you do less for them. There's a balance. Sometimes what you or the country needs is not what you want. A lot of people don't necessarily want us spending a lot on military and defense, but we need to. By spending on it, we maintain the private industries even in times of relative peace so that when we do need them they're still there and we don't have to build them up from scratch again. It also becomes an expected necessary cost, so any other initiatives we try to fund have to contend with that part of the budget already being spent. This way we don't accidentally tie up what used to be military funding in all kinds of other programs so that not only do you have to rebuild production, but you have to sort out the financial problems too. Governments make all kinds of decisions based on calculations from analysts, politicians, geopoliticians and so on. What people want is a factor, but not necessarily the most important one. With our government shutdowns, congress and the president both have to agree on where to appropriate funds and how much funding to appropriate for the government. This funding has to occur, because there are critical programs that everyone agrees on, so there's actual pressure to get it passed. At the same time, there are other things that different representatives want to get funded or programs they disagree about and they'll leverage the pressure to appropriate funds before a shutdown or to shorten a shutdown in order to squeeze out decisions that are normally delayed/ignored. That said, there is a critical culture in the US around hassling the government and not treating it as your friend. The government may work for you, but it is not your friend. Governments are bears. Do not feed the bears. Respect them, accepting their co-existence and the value they offer in an ecosystem, sure. Just don't train the bears to come to you when they're hungry, because some day you'll find that it's not a good idea to have a hungry bear in front of you. Even though this is historically true and deeply wise, people find themselves steadily expanding the government despite the government being in debt. We also get people in congress that will vote no on almost anything, because they believe in small government with limited power and are concerned every time it expands. So the shutdowns kind of happen as they haggle over these kinds of issues.
• foogazi 2y ago
  > If your job is so unimportant Wouldn’t management know that already when is fear ever a good workplace strategy?