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== If we believed all of these claims, then it would be impossible to cut the scope of government spending== What is the goal of cutting government spending? M

== If we believed all of these claims, then it would be impossible to cut the scope of government spending== What is the goal of cutting government spending? Most would say it is to balance the Federal budget. The controlling party is planning to do the opposite, so the argument kind of falls apart.

Ajedi32 1y ago
The goal of cutting government spending is ultimately to reduce the amount of resources drained out of the economy through taxes/inflation. Balancing the budget is useful insofar as it reduces the resources that will need to be drained out of the economy in the future to pay interest on our growing debt (currently 11% of all Federal spending).
- neaden 1y ago
  Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. Even money to pay down debt isn't removed from the economy since the majority of that debt is held by US citizens who use that money to buy things.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. You're fractionally engaging in the broken windows fallacy. Every time we pay for something that wouldn't have got done otherwise it comes at our expense. That's not to say that some of these things aren't worth doing. But there are a whole great many things the feds spend money on that aren't worth doing. If two dollars go to invading some stupid sandbox and one dollar goes to Nasa and the NASA dollar pays back a buck fiddy we're half a dollar poorer at the end of the day.
  - Ajedi32 1y ago
    > Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. That's not remotely how this works. By this logic, wars are actually free since the money spent goes to defense contractors who use it to buy things and hire employees. We can have an unlimited military budget with no negative repercussions! As the sibling commenter pointed out, you're engaging in a classic economic fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window To help you avoid this in the future, remember that "the real economy is not money, it is goods & services". Any government spending necessarily takes goods and services out of the real economy and allocates them towards things the government wants done. Some of those things might have a positive ROI, but with government spending there's absolutely no guarantee of that since they're getting those resources through taxes, not through voluntary economic transactions.
    - neaden 1y ago
      The broken windows parable is about causing destruction and then repairing it, which thankfully isn't what NASA is doing. If you read your Wikipedia link you would see that this was never meant to apply to all government spending. To help you avoid this in the future, read the links before you try to correct people.
      - Ajedi32 1y ago
        The fallacy is thinking all money spent "goes right back into the economy" and ignoring opportunity costs. If you pay people to break windows and then repair them, that money "goes right back into the economy" but it's still a net negative. Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI, since the money they spend is obtained by force, not by voluntary transactions.
        supplied_demand 1y ago
        ==Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI== Sure they do, elections.
        Jensson 1y ago
        And this thread is talking about the result of that, and quite a lot of people seem to think this "control via elections" thing isn't working that well.
        supplied_demand 1y ago
        Most democracies don’t have 100% vote share or approval going to one party, so we have disagreements. There are also lots of other elections that happen more often than every 4 years.
    - supplied_demand 1y ago
      The broken windows fallacy isn’t about government spending. The parable never mentions governments or taxes, you have added that piece. Voluntary economic transactions don’t have a positive ROI by virtue of being voluntary. People and companies engage in negative ROI activities all the time.

Ajedi32 1y ago

The goal of cutting government spending is ultimately to reduce the amount of resources drained out of the economy through taxes/inflation. Balancing the budget is useful insofar as it reduces the resources that will need to be drained out of the economy in the future to pay interest on our growing debt (currently 11% of all Federal spending).

neaden 1y ago
Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. Even money to pay down debt isn't removed from the economy since the majority of that debt is held by US citizens who use that money to buy things.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. You're fractionally engaging in the broken windows fallacy. Every time we pay for something that wouldn't have got done otherwise it comes at our expense. That's not to say that some of these things aren't worth doing. But there are a whole great many things the feds spend money on that aren't worth doing. If two dollars go to invading some stupid sandbox and one dollar goes to Nasa and the NASA dollar pays back a buck fiddy we're half a dollar poorer at the end of the day.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  > Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. That's not remotely how this works. By this logic, wars are actually free since the money spent goes to defense contractors who use it to buy things and hire employees. We can have an unlimited military budget with no negative repercussions! As the sibling commenter pointed out, you're engaging in a classic economic fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window To help you avoid this in the future, remember that "the real economy is not money, it is goods & services". Any government spending necessarily takes goods and services out of the real economy and allocates them towards things the government wants done. Some of those things might have a positive ROI, but with government spending there's absolutely no guarantee of that since they're getting those resources through taxes, not through voluntary economic transactions.
  - neaden 1y ago
    The broken windows parable is about causing destruction and then repairing it, which thankfully isn't what NASA is doing. If you read your Wikipedia link you would see that this was never meant to apply to all government spending. To help you avoid this in the future, read the links before you try to correct people.
    - Ajedi32 1y ago
      The fallacy is thinking all money spent "goes right back into the economy" and ignoring opportunity costs. If you pay people to break windows and then repair them, that money "goes right back into the economy" but it's still a net negative. Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI, since the money they spend is obtained by force, not by voluntary transactions.
      - supplied_demand 1y ago
        ==Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI== Sure they do, elections.
        Jensson 1y ago
        And this thread is talking about the result of that, and quite a lot of people seem to think this "control via elections" thing isn't working that well.
        supplied_demand 1y ago
        Most democracies don’t have 100% vote share or approval going to one party, so we have disagreements. There are also lots of other elections that happen more often than every 4 years.
  - supplied_demand 1y ago
    The broken windows fallacy isn’t about government spending. The parable never mentions governments or taxes, you have added that piece. Voluntary economic transactions don’t have a positive ROI by virtue of being voluntary. People and companies engage in negative ROI activities all the time.