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The notion that there is no point saving money because the total amount of debt is high is effectively saying that the problem can never be solved. A billion d

The notion that there is no point saving money because the total amount of debt is high is effectively saying that the problem can never be solved. A billion dollars is still a billion freaking dollars. I encounter the same attitude sometimes with program optimization too. Sometimes it’s death by a thousand cuts and you just need to shave off 0.1% at a time until your program is fast.

stetrain 1y ago
Sure, but the goal was first a trillion dollars, then $150 billion dollars. There's also the question of what is actual savings versus what is going to end up costing us more in the long run. You can save money in your personal budget by cancelling oil changes on your car, but that doesn't represent a real long-term savings. In fact quite the opposite. Things like the National Parks produce huge amounts of economic activity in the surrounding communities. Things like food safety regulations and testing promote consumer confidence in our food and agricultural industries. Social Security money not sent to seniors or children of deceased parents places a larger burden on our communities. Not every cut is a savings, and the information being given about what has been cut across all of these agencies has been less than stellar.
bloppe 1y ago
27% of the federal budget for 2024 was spent on health care [1]. A lot of that is because health care in America is, on average, twice as expensive as in other rich countries [2]. Clearly, it ought to be possible for us to achieve the same level of care while shrinking the budget by about 13%. If you actually care about the deficit, then that's what you should be focusing on. If you don't actually care about the deficit, then ya; just gut a ton of minuscule social services that add up to <1% of the budget but can be touted to your base as "political wins" while actually kneecapping American scientific competitiveness. [1]: https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/what-does-the-federal-government-spend-on-health-care/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/what-does-the-feder... [2]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

stetrain 1y ago

Sure, but the goal was first a trillion dollars, then $150 billion dollars. There's also the question of what is actual savings versus what is going to end up costing us more in the long run. You can save money in your personal budget by cancelling oil changes on your car, but that doesn't represent a real long-term savings. In fact quite the opposite. Things like the National Parks produce huge amounts of economic activity in the surrounding communities. Things like food safety regulations and testing promote consumer confidence in our food and agricultural industries. Social Security money not sent to seniors or children of deceased parents places a larger burden on our communities. Not every cut is a savings, and the information being given about what has been cut across all of these agencies has been less than stellar.

bloppe 1y ago

27% of the federal budget for 2024 was spent on health care [1]. A lot of that is because health care in America is, on average, twice as expensive as in other rich countries [2]. Clearly, it ought to be possible for us to achieve the same level of care while shrinking the budget by about 13%. If you actually care about the deficit, then that's what you should be focusing on. If you don't actually care about the deficit, then ya; just gut a ton of minuscule social services that add up to <1% of the budget but can be touted to your base as "political wins" while actually kneecapping American scientific competitiveness. [1]: https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/what-does-the-federal-government-spend-on-health-care/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/what-does-the-feder... [2]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...