3 ms·

The sad thing is that after all this, and all the steam vented on both sides of the aisle, nothing is going to meaningfully change on the bottom line. The Fede

by ajross 2y ago

The sad thing is that after all this, and all the steam vented on both sides of the aisle, nothing is going to meaningfully change on the bottom line. The Federal Government writes checks for fixed expenses. The Pentagon "wastes" lots of money in an absolute sense, but on a balance sheet the DoD pays for salaries and maintenance and fuel and replacement equipment. You can't make a difference by pointing and laughing at some oddball science grant. And the same goes for the rest of the government, which to first approximation exists to write entitlement checks and issue health reimbursements. Everyone wants to believe that there's a magic line item that will balance things, but there isn't. Write it down: the deficit as a fraction of GDP will be higher at the end of this Trump term than it is now, not lower.

fastball 2y ago
All of those DoD line items can be reduced: salaries (firing people), maintenance and fuel (fewer, more efficient bases, vehicles, etc), and equipment (cheaper, more re-usable equipment). Anduril seems like a good example here, given that they are not a cost-plus military company and seem to have efficiency fairly high on their list of priorities. Entitlements and health reimbursements can and should be reduced.
- thatguy0900 2y ago
  Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system. Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital
  - fastball 2y ago
    > Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system. Great let's get started. > Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital Does the lion's share of US healthcare reimbursements go towards ensuring poor people don't die on the streets? I hadn't see that statistic.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  Going with more efficient contractors make sense, but just saying "we'll make our bases more efficient and do more with less" is easy to say and hard to do. I'm sure a lot of European countries were trying to do more with less when they embraced the 90s peace dividend, and then what we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine and everyone was checking out the state of their armies, was that mostly they had just done less with less.
  - fastball 2y ago
    The counter-point to that is that Russia has continued to spend a lot on their military and yet wasn't able to steamroll Ukraine at all, so maybe the US is also spending more to get less. Not doing less with less doesn't mean you are doing more with more.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      Russia's problem was they thought they were spending a lot on their military, but they were really enriching their top military brass while their ancient gear mostly rotted.
      - fastball 2y ago
        Yeah, I remember reading a headline like: "Kremlin can't account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets" Gotcha! That was actually the Pentagon[1]. [1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/
        mullingitover 2y ago
        Man, that's a solid whatabout zinger. Back on topic, however, this is what I'm talking about[1]: > The radical-patriotic television channel Tsargrad indignantly reported that “the actual scale of corruption under [former Defense Minister Sergey] Shoigu was not in the millions but in the trillions of rubles that officials dishonorably stole from the Russian Army.” [1] https://cepa.org/article/russias-military-graft-purge-is-destined-to-fail https://cepa.org/article/russias-military-graft-purge-is-des...
- ajross 2y ago
  It's worth pointing out that literally none of the magic tricks you're invoking are part of the linked article. I get that it sounds great in a libertarian comment on HN. It won't happen, is my point. It's too difficult, not amenable to simple solutions, largely mistaken, of questionable value (c.f. my points above) and in any case would be to politically costly to even contemplate in public. So they're doing theater instead.
  - fastball 2y ago
    These are not magic tricks, they are things businesses/organizations/countries do every single day.
batch12 2y ago
Anecdotally, one thing I observed as a lowly enlisted soldier is the need to panic spend money at the end of the fiscal year to make sure the budget next year wouldn't be smaller. Maybe we could start with practices like these.
- creato 2y ago
  The same thing happens in corporate budgeting too. Seems to be an artifact of big organizations.
- mjevans 2y ago
  Sadly, it never works. If someone is efficient one year, the money will be cut and then it won't be there when it IS really needed. It can't be banked, it can't be returned as credits. Human nature is why we can't have nice things. This is why I believe the scope of work should be clearly defined. Requests for funding submitted and approved with relation to that work. Then square up the taxes required based on what was spent, adjust up and down automatically. Congress needs to vote to make that funding come out of the Rich (higher relative % of wealth the more taxed), to largely exempt anyone under an average (E.G. 10X poverty line is where taxes even START), and treat excess property as an Investment while exempting average ownership (E.G. a similar average for 'housing ownership' and 'transport ownership' value).
  - edflsafoiewq 2y ago
    I don't see why this odd pathology is essential to human nature.
    - mjevans 2y ago
      It's a feature of Capitalism. "Waste" that is trimmed one year becomes the new bar "This can run at X". Allocating additional resources requires far higher push than taking back something not spent. Yet some years require more resources. What if there are more natural disasters? What if there's an economic downturn and more people need help? What if companies fail and expected taxes are not paid? What if it's time to replace durable goods that have reached the end of their projected or useful life? (E.G. Some disgruntled person came to court with a shotgun and fired at all the computers; and oh BTW they're both broke and in jail so there's no cash to be had.) You can see the very reluctance and assumptions in other posts in reply. They assume there are no audits, no oversight in the system. That the cursory pointer towards a larger process was the ENTIRE process which they then attack.
jonahbenton 2y ago
Of course, no surprise there. Everyone knows the intentions of this regime.

by ajross 2y ago

fastball 2y ago

All of those DoD line items can be reduced: salaries (firing people), maintenance and fuel (fewer, more efficient bases, vehicles, etc), and equipment (cheaper, more re-usable equipment). Anduril seems like a good example here, given that they are not a cost-plus military company and seem to have efficiency fairly high on their list of priorities. Entitlements and health reimbursements can and should be reduced.

thatguy0900 2y ago
Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system. Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital
- fastball 2y ago
  > Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system. Great let's get started. > Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital Does the lion's share of US healthcare reimbursements go towards ensuring poor people don't die on the streets? I hadn't see that statistic.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
Going with more efficient contractors make sense, but just saying "we'll make our bases more efficient and do more with less" is easy to say and hard to do. I'm sure a lot of European countries were trying to do more with less when they embraced the 90s peace dividend, and then what we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine and everyone was checking out the state of their armies, was that mostly they had just done less with less.
- fastball 2y ago
  The counter-point to that is that Russia has continued to spend a lot on their military and yet wasn't able to steamroll Ukraine at all, so maybe the US is also spending more to get less. Not doing less with less doesn't mean you are doing more with more.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    Russia's problem was they thought they were spending a lot on their military, but they were really enriching their top military brass while their ancient gear mostly rotted.
    - fastball 2y ago
      Yeah, I remember reading a headline like: "Kremlin can't account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets" Gotcha! That was actually the Pentagon[1]. [1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/
      - mullingitover 2y ago
        Man, that's a solid whatabout zinger. Back on topic, however, this is what I'm talking about[1]: > The radical-patriotic television channel Tsargrad indignantly reported that “the actual scale of corruption under [former Defense Minister Sergey] Shoigu was not in the millions but in the trillions of rubles that officials dishonorably stole from the Russian Army.” [1] https://cepa.org/article/russias-military-graft-purge-is-destined-to-fail https://cepa.org/article/russias-military-graft-purge-is-des...
ajross 2y ago
It's worth pointing out that literally none of the magic tricks you're invoking are part of the linked article. I get that it sounds great in a libertarian comment on HN. It won't happen, is my point. It's too difficult, not amenable to simple solutions, largely mistaken, of questionable value (c.f. my points above) and in any case would be to politically costly to even contemplate in public. So they're doing theater instead.
- fastball 2y ago
  These are not magic tricks, they are things businesses/organizations/countries do every single day.

batch12 2y ago

Anecdotally, one thing I observed as a lowly enlisted soldier is the need to panic spend money at the end of the fiscal year to make sure the budget next year wouldn't be smaller. Maybe we could start with practices like these.

creato 2y ago
The same thing happens in corporate budgeting too. Seems to be an artifact of big organizations.
mjevans 2y ago
Sadly, it never works. If someone is efficient one year, the money will be cut and then it won't be there when it IS really needed. It can't be banked, it can't be returned as credits. Human nature is why we can't have nice things. This is why I believe the scope of work should be clearly defined. Requests for funding submitted and approved with relation to that work. Then square up the taxes required based on what was spent, adjust up and down automatically. Congress needs to vote to make that funding come out of the Rich (higher relative % of wealth the more taxed), to largely exempt anyone under an average (E.G. 10X poverty line is where taxes even START), and treat excess property as an Investment while exempting average ownership (E.G. a similar average for 'housing ownership' and 'transport ownership' value).
- edflsafoiewq 2y ago
  I don't see why this odd pathology is essential to human nature.
  - mjevans 2y ago
    It's a feature of Capitalism. "Waste" that is trimmed one year becomes the new bar "This can run at X". Allocating additional resources requires far higher push than taking back something not spent. Yet some years require more resources. What if there are more natural disasters? What if there's an economic downturn and more people need help? What if companies fail and expected taxes are not paid? What if it's time to replace durable goods that have reached the end of their projected or useful life? (E.G. Some disgruntled person came to court with a shotgun and fired at all the computers; and oh BTW they're both broke and in jail so there's no cash to be had.) You can see the very reluctance and assumptions in other posts in reply. They assume there are no audits, no oversight in the system. That the cursory pointer towards a larger process was the ENTIRE process which they then attack.

jonahbenton 2y ago

Of course, no surprise there. Everyone knows the intentions of this regime.