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Nonsense. It's all theater. Edit: in response to the downvotes. When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress? Be realistic. The nat

Nonsense. It's all theater. Edit: in response to the downvotes. When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress? Be realistic. The natural trajectory for a state is to consume and expand until doing so is no longer sustainable. Fat people like cake. Dogs chase cats. Bears shit in the woods.

skylan_q 13y ago
Even if it get majorities in both houses and signed by the president it wouldn't matter. When was the last time that the executive branch was beholden to congress in matters of national intelligence and security?
scottshea 13y ago
Admittedly it is theater but even a symbolic defunding like this can help. If nothing else it is impressive to see that this issue has so much bipartisan traction in the most divided House since before the Civil War.
marshray 13y ago
> When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress? All of those old guys in the NSA will remember when Congress defunded supplying arms to the Nicaraguan Contras and the ensuing Iran-Contra scandal which ended quite a few careers and deeply tarnished even the "teflon" president Reagan.
adestefan 13y ago
Congress has defunded the program to close Guantanamo Bay. They defunded the program under which ACORN was made possible. They defund military programs and bases all the time.
rayiner 13y ago
That's not exactly the trajectory evidenced by the numbers: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.pdf (Figure 4, p. 17). Discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP has declined dramatically since 1980. Discretionary spending in absolute terms (adjusted for inflation) declined through the 1990's: http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012/the-federal-budget-1992-2012 http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/feder.... Federal civilian employment is at roughly where it was in the late 1960's: http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962 http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docum..., even though the overall population is 50% larger. Total federal employment, including military, has been smaller over this decade than it was at any time since 1962. About 2 million fewer people worked for the federal government in 2011 as did in 1969. The narrative of ever-ballooning government is almost entirely driven by entitlement spending (i.e. me writing a check that gets immediately sent out again as a check to grandma). Now it's a somewhat philosophical question, but I don't think it's accurate to call increased Social Security or Medicare expenditures an "expansion of the state." When I think of the "state" I think of layers of bureaucracy, weapons programs, etc. I.e. money the government has discretionary control over. The long-term trend of that is one of decline, not growth.
- cpursley 13y ago
  What I mean is nation states in general and over a much longer period than you're talking about.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Okay, let's go back farther. In 1937 (back in history a third of the lifetime of the republic), expenditures as a percentage of GDP were 8.6% (almost all discretionary; SS was nothing back then and there was no Medicare). In 2011, discretionary expenditures as a percentage of GDP were 9%. Going back further than that paints a misleading picture. The scope of government increases, super-linearly, with the complexity of the society being governed.[1] Growth that is the result of accommodating a more complex society with exponentially more interaction between people as a result of ever finer-grained division of labor is still growth, but not the kind of growth alluded to in your comment. The growth implied by your comment is steady-state growth: government consumes more until it becomes unsustainable. The fact that government, at least the federal government, has been remarkably consistent in size during the modern industrial era cuts against that narrative. [1] This is essentially a law of nature, applying to everything from business corporations to operating systems.
  - awj 13y ago
    ...then why make the assertion that congress never defunds anything?
    - adestefan 13y ago
      Because it doesn't fit their narrative that all government is bad government.
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  I agree with social security, as it's simply a direct monetary transfer program, and I personally view these, such as progressive taxation, as vastly preferable to Federal control of services for many reasons. But, Medicare is a state-owned Insurance company, and if I remember correctly, constitutes around 50% of the country's health spending. Also, Do your numbers include contractors? My understanding is that there is a trend of using contractors in all areas of the federal government, and I personally consider contractors to be defacto federal employees. They have the advantage of not being able to belong to public unions, which I consider anti-democratic, but the disadvantage of losing the sense of being a patriotic public servant participating in the betterment of the Republic.

skylan_q 13y ago

Even if it get majorities in both houses and signed by the president it wouldn't matter. When was the last time that the executive branch was beholden to congress in matters of national intelligence and security?

scottshea 13y ago

Admittedly it is theater but even a symbolic defunding like this can help. If nothing else it is impressive to see that this issue has so much bipartisan traction in the most divided House since before the Civil War.

marshray 13y ago

> When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress? All of those old guys in the NSA will remember when Congress defunded supplying arms to the Nicaraguan Contras and the ensuing Iran-Contra scandal which ended quite a few careers and deeply tarnished even the "teflon" president Reagan.

adestefan 13y ago

Congress has defunded the program to close Guantanamo Bay. They defunded the program under which ACORN was made possible. They defund military programs and bases all the time.

rayiner 13y ago

That's not exactly the trajectory evidenced by the numbers: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.pdf (Figure 4, p. 17). Discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP has declined dramatically since 1980. Discretionary spending in absolute terms (adjusted for inflation) declined through the 1990's: http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012/the-federal-budget-1992-2012 http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/feder.... Federal civilian employment is at roughly where it was in the late 1960's: http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962 http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docum..., even though the overall population is 50% larger. Total federal employment, including military, has been smaller over this decade than it was at any time since 1962. About 2 million fewer people worked for the federal government in 2011 as did in 1969. The narrative of ever-ballooning government is almost entirely driven by entitlement spending (i.e. me writing a check that gets immediately sent out again as a check to grandma). Now it's a somewhat philosophical question, but I don't think it's accurate to call increased Social Security or Medicare expenditures an "expansion of the state." When I think of the "state" I think of layers of bureaucracy, weapons programs, etc. I.e. money the government has discretionary control over. The long-term trend of that is one of decline, not growth.

cpursley 13y ago
What I mean is nation states in general and over a much longer period than you're talking about.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Okay, let's go back farther. In 1937 (back in history a third of the lifetime of the republic), expenditures as a percentage of GDP were 8.6% (almost all discretionary; SS was nothing back then and there was no Medicare). In 2011, discretionary expenditures as a percentage of GDP were 9%. Going back further than that paints a misleading picture. The scope of government increases, super-linearly, with the complexity of the society being governed.[1] Growth that is the result of accommodating a more complex society with exponentially more interaction between people as a result of ever finer-grained division of labor is still growth, but not the kind of growth alluded to in your comment. The growth implied by your comment is steady-state growth: government consumes more until it becomes unsustainable. The fact that government, at least the federal government, has been remarkably consistent in size during the modern industrial era cuts against that narrative. [1] This is essentially a law of nature, applying to everything from business corporations to operating systems.
- awj 13y ago
  ...then why make the assertion that congress never defunds anything?
  - adestefan 13y ago
    Because it doesn't fit their narrative that all government is bad government.
jivatmanx 13y ago
I agree with social security, as it's simply a direct monetary transfer program, and I personally view these, such as progressive taxation, as vastly preferable to Federal control of services for many reasons. But, Medicare is a state-owned Insurance company, and if I remember correctly, constitutes around 50% of the country's health spending. Also, Do your numbers include contractors? My understanding is that there is a trend of using contractors in all areas of the federal government, and I personally consider contractors to be defacto federal employees. They have the advantage of not being able to belong to public unions, which I consider anti-democratic, but the disadvantage of losing the sense of being a patriotic public servant participating in the betterment of the Republic.