3 ms·

> Looking at it another way, the cuts are actually decreasing overall efficiency since they're cutting things that deliver decent benefits given that they only

by davidw 2y ago

> Looking at it another way, the cuts are actually decreasing overall efficiency since they're cutting things that deliver decent benefits given that they only cost a small fraction of federal spending. And especially when they're targeting the IRS. What use is it cutting 1% if you lose 10% of your revenue because you don't have the resources to pursue outright cheats or lawyered-up people.

KennyBlanken 2y ago
The IRS makes a huge profit margin on average from audits on the 1%-and-up folks because so many of them are cheating on their taxes. Even before all this, the IRS was spending most of its auditing resources on auditing the poor - especially people using the earned income credit - and losing thousands of dollars or more on each audit because they either didn't find anything, or it was an inconsequential amount of money.
rainsford 2y ago
The IRS cuts are the most obvious ones, since they will clearly end up losing the government far more money than they save. But it would be an interesting, if challenging, project to try to do the same kind of thing with other government agencies. And unlike the IRS, most federal agencies don't generate revenue directly for the government but likely have indirect economic benefits. National parks generate tourism dollars, funding for science research leads to new advances with economic impact, etc. The "savings" from the cuts assumes the money is being set on fire with no economic benefits, but even if you disregard the obvious direct impacts like federal employees or recipients of federal dollars buying stuff just like everyone else, the impact of the service being provided is almost certainly non-trivial if admittedly harder to measure. Any reasonable approach to efficiency and cost cutting needs to take that into account.
mmooss 2y ago
The IRS is political - the Republicans have made cutting (some say eliminating) the IRS a priority for many years now.

by davidw 2y ago

KennyBlanken 2y ago

The IRS makes a huge profit margin on average from audits on the 1%-and-up folks because so many of them are cheating on their taxes. Even before all this, the IRS was spending most of its auditing resources on auditing the poor - especially people using the earned income credit - and losing thousands of dollars or more on each audit because they either didn't find anything, or it was an inconsequential amount of money.

rainsford 2y ago

The IRS cuts are the most obvious ones, since they will clearly end up losing the government far more money than they save. But it would be an interesting, if challenging, project to try to do the same kind of thing with other government agencies. And unlike the IRS, most federal agencies don't generate revenue directly for the government but likely have indirect economic benefits. National parks generate tourism dollars, funding for science research leads to new advances with economic impact, etc. The "savings" from the cuts assumes the money is being set on fire with no economic benefits, but even if you disregard the obvious direct impacts like federal employees or recipients of federal dollars buying stuff just like everyone else, the impact of the service being provided is almost certainly non-trivial if admittedly harder to measure. Any reasonable approach to efficiency and cost cutting needs to take that into account.

mmooss 2y ago

The IRS is political - the Republicans have made cutting (some say eliminating) the IRS a priority for many years now.