4 ms·

But they're still wastes of money, and based on the one-line description provided by the OP, they are rather absurd. A few others I can think of: Government

by ericmay 3mo ago

But they're still wastes of money, and based on the one-line description provided by the OP, they are rather absurd. A few others I can think of: Government insurance/funding for homes destroyed by natural disasters - why am I bailing out Florida homeowners when their home is destroyed by a hurricane? At best you get the first one free and then you're on your own after that. Billions for highway construction that is not needed, which then costs more to maintain and results in more spending on cars, more deaths, higher costs for insurance, &c. Various improper payments, billions in subsidies handed out, COVID-19 bailouts and forgiveness The broad point wasn't wrong. The government does waste money and frankly is pretty damn well-funded.

quickthrowman 3mo ago
Name a huge organization that doesn’t waste money. I’ll give you as much time as you need.
- ericmay 3mo ago
  "All organizations waste money, therefore organizations should keep wasting money and it's actually fine" doesn't sound very compelling to me.
  - 8note 3mo ago
    the talk of waste is in service of thw question "is the government well funded enough?" and so far it does not appear that reducing waste would properly fund the government? a couple patriot missiles worth is not the debt, and would not allow for much more efficient single payer health care - the single biggest opportunity the US government has to reduce waste in american society
    - ericmay 3mo ago
      Again you can do both - you can cut these wasteful programs, you can have a well-funded government that's already well-funded with trillions of dollars, and then also reform healthcare all without raising taxes. Use your imagination.
      - ben_w 3mo ago
        My imagination is indeed very capable of magical thinking. However, if this was something that worked in the real world, we wouldn't be having this conversation because e.g. DOGE would have been successful.
      - quickthrowman 3mo ago
        That sounds nice in a perfectly spherical world but we live in reality. Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Net discretionary spending is only 27% of the budget, social security, Medicare, and military spending make up the other 73%. If you eliminated all discretionary spending, we’d still be running a budget deficit.
        ericmay 3mo ago
        > Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Politicians? You're sitting here arguing about the line item spending instead of just admitting we should cut obviously bad spending. That's the division that's taking place and it's happening right here in this thread and it's your doing! lol
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
dahart 3mo ago
The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic costs of the alternatives you’re suggesting.
- ericmay 3mo ago
  Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt?
  - SoftTalker 3mo ago
    The point is that you could cut all those "wasteful" projects (and we probably should, just on priciple) but if the savings is millions or even a few billion you aren't even making a dent. The real money is entitlements and defense (and interest on the debt). That's where you have to look to make a difference, but one of those things is mandatory and the other two are basically untouchable.
  - dahart 3mo ago
    I don’t want my tax dollars wasted. We do agree on that, right? The government does waste some money. We agree on that too, right? I’m open to hearing why you think @bilsbie’s list is valid. I’m skeptical, and I’ll offer some reasons why, but please convince me, I will listen. Is there a credible source for the claim that money is being spent studying the effects of yoga on goats? I’ve looked a bunch already, and the consensus seems clear that the claim is simply not true. The empty buildings claim seems mis-stated. The actual wording from the Office of Management and Budget is “empty or underutilized” (emphasis mine). The US government’s real estate portfolio is well over a trillion dollars in holdings, and half a trillion in yearly spending, so this “underutilized” concern amounts to in the neighborhood of less than one half of one percent of spending. If that’s true, I’m absolutely amazed it’s that efficient! Corporate real estate isn’t that efficient. The government manages almost a million military and civilian buildings. Hundreds of buildings come and go every single day. Is it possible this “empty or underutilized” claim is temporary and sometimes unavoidable due to move in/out times, shuffling, and planning? Does it count if the figure includes buildings that are listed for sale and not selling? What about buildings that are held as investment and sell for more than they would have if they’d sold the moment they went empty? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people managing the country’s real estate portfolio. Do you know what they need to do to get from the presumably 99.6% utilization to guaranteed 100% utilization at all times? The smoking claim is real but dramatized for political effect - it’s simply an anti-smoking campaign & survey. Do you know the healthcare costs of smoking in the US? A quick google says direct economic costs in 2018 were ~$240 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering more than half of that. That’s taxpayer money, money you’re paying to cover the predictable effects of other people’s poor life choices, and that cost is literally fifty thousand times larger than the anti-smoking campaign @bilsbie complained about - five hundred of your dollars of medical care for every single penny of hipster music whatever. If the ‘hipster’ anti-smoking campaign was covered purely by taxes on the sale of cigarettes, would that make it okay for you? The $281 billion “managed to misplace” claim is a mis-characterization. This is the amount of money that didn’t have all proper paperwork, it was not all lost or misplaced. It is “payments that did not meet statutory or administrative criteria”. The music and cows claim appears to be false. Google mentions the University of Leicester (not in the US) had a “Moosic Study” in 2001 (BTW, come on, that’s funny), and the University of Wisconsin Madison did some trials in 1930 that did not cost $1M. The fish alcohol claim also appears to be false, an exaggerated carry over of a report from 1975 by Senator William Proxmire, who was the creator of the “Golden Fleece Awards”. Have you read the history of the Golden Goose Awards? It’s seriously worth the 2 minutes. https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history
8note 3mo ago
I think it would be more wasteful overall to not give that bailout to florida home owners. A walking migrant crisis and maintaining the refugee camps for impovrished floridians after a hurricane sounds extremely expensive for a long time.
- ericmay 3mo ago
  Sounds like an excuse for anyone to justify their spending, ergo American debt-to-GDP ratio continues to increase

by ericmay 3mo ago

quickthrowman 3mo ago

Name a huge organization that doesn’t waste money. I’ll give you as much time as you need.

ericmay 3mo ago
"All organizations waste money, therefore organizations should keep wasting money and it's actually fine" doesn't sound very compelling to me.
- 8note 3mo ago
  the talk of waste is in service of thw question "is the government well funded enough?" and so far it does not appear that reducing waste would properly fund the government? a couple patriot missiles worth is not the debt, and would not allow for much more efficient single payer health care - the single biggest opportunity the US government has to reduce waste in american society
  - ericmay 3mo ago
    Again you can do both - you can cut these wasteful programs, you can have a well-funded government that's already well-funded with trillions of dollars, and then also reform healthcare all without raising taxes. Use your imagination.
    - ben_w 3mo ago
      My imagination is indeed very capable of magical thinking. However, if this was something that worked in the real world, we wouldn't be having this conversation because e.g. DOGE would have been successful.
    - quickthrowman 3mo ago
      That sounds nice in a perfectly spherical world but we live in reality. Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Net discretionary spending is only 27% of the budget, social security, Medicare, and military spending make up the other 73%. If you eliminated all discretionary spending, we’d still be running a budget deficit.
      - ericmay 3mo ago
        > Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Politicians? You're sitting here arguing about the line item spending instead of just admitting we should cut obviously bad spending. That's the division that's taking place and it's happening right here in this thread and it's your doing! lol

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

dahart 3mo ago

The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic costs of the alternatives you’re suggesting.

ericmay 3mo ago
Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt?
- SoftTalker 3mo ago
  The point is that you could cut all those "wasteful" projects (and we probably should, just on priciple) but if the savings is millions or even a few billion you aren't even making a dent. The real money is entitlements and defense (and interest on the debt). That's where you have to look to make a difference, but one of those things is mandatory and the other two are basically untouchable.
- dahart 3mo ago
  I don’t want my tax dollars wasted. We do agree on that, right? The government does waste some money. We agree on that too, right? I’m open to hearing why you think @bilsbie’s list is valid. I’m skeptical, and I’ll offer some reasons why, but please convince me, I will listen. Is there a credible source for the claim that money is being spent studying the effects of yoga on goats? I’ve looked a bunch already, and the consensus seems clear that the claim is simply not true. The empty buildings claim seems mis-stated. The actual wording from the Office of Management and Budget is “empty or underutilized” (emphasis mine). The US government’s real estate portfolio is well over a trillion dollars in holdings, and half a trillion in yearly spending, so this “underutilized” concern amounts to in the neighborhood of less than one half of one percent of spending. If that’s true, I’m absolutely amazed it’s that efficient! Corporate real estate isn’t that efficient. The government manages almost a million military and civilian buildings. Hundreds of buildings come and go every single day. Is it possible this “empty or underutilized” claim is temporary and sometimes unavoidable due to move in/out times, shuffling, and planning? Does it count if the figure includes buildings that are listed for sale and not selling? What about buildings that are held as investment and sell for more than they would have if they’d sold the moment they went empty? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people managing the country’s real estate portfolio. Do you know what they need to do to get from the presumably 99.6% utilization to guaranteed 100% utilization at all times? The smoking claim is real but dramatized for political effect - it’s simply an anti-smoking campaign & survey. Do you know the healthcare costs of smoking in the US? A quick google says direct economic costs in 2018 were ~$240 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering more than half of that. That’s taxpayer money, money you’re paying to cover the predictable effects of other people’s poor life choices, and that cost is literally fifty thousand times larger than the anti-smoking campaign @bilsbie complained about - five hundred of your dollars of medical care for every single penny of hipster music whatever. If the ‘hipster’ anti-smoking campaign was covered purely by taxes on the sale of cigarettes, would that make it okay for you? The $281 billion “managed to misplace” claim is a mis-characterization. This is the amount of money that didn’t have all proper paperwork, it was not all lost or misplaced. It is “payments that did not meet statutory or administrative criteria”. The music and cows claim appears to be false. Google mentions the University of Leicester (not in the US) had a “Moosic Study” in 2001 (BTW, come on, that’s funny), and the University of Wisconsin Madison did some trials in 1930 that did not cost $1M. The fish alcohol claim also appears to be false, an exaggerated carry over of a report from 1975 by Senator William Proxmire, who was the creator of the “Golden Fleece Awards”. Have you read the history of the Golden Goose Awards? It’s seriously worth the 2 minutes. https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history

8note 3mo ago

I think it would be more wasteful overall to not give that bailout to florida home owners. A walking migrant crisis and maintaining the refugee camps for impovrished floridians after a hurricane sounds extremely expensive for a long time.

ericmay 3mo ago
Sounds like an excuse for anyone to justify their spending, ergo American debt-to-GDP ratio continues to increase