3 ms·

Yes. That's my point about news sources. If you're surprised at this building waste and unaware of many others, then you might want to branch out in your read

by crusso 13y ago

Yes. That's my point about news sources. If you're surprised at this building waste and unaware of many others, then you might want to branch out in your reading. Or is this another red herring like earmarks that amounts to a few billion here and there? I'm not sure if you're just trolling me here, but I'll bite. The problem with earmarks isn't the total that they add as a broken-out line item. It's the corruption of a system that creates you-scratch-my-back incentives for passing unnecessary legislation. The cost of earmarks isn't the line item. It's the cost of the entire boondoggle law that wouldn't have been passed without the back room incentives.

rayiner 13y ago
> Yes. That's my point about news sources. If you're surprised at this building waste and unaware of many others, then you might want to branch out in your reading. I'd love to see a source that shows "hundreds of billions" in actual waste, in an itemized fashion. > The cost of earmarks isn't the line item. It's the cost of the entire boondoggle law that wouldn't have been passed without the back room incentives. The idea of earmarks is to attach them to a law that was going to pass anyway.
- crusso 13y ago
  > I'd love to see a source that shows "hundreds of billions" in actual waste, in an itemized fashion. This is again my point. You're waiting for me to show up with links at your front doorstep showing you a perfectly digested and itemized list for information that you should be seeing all the time if you have a healthy list of news sources. So where I see this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-is-costing-taxpayers-billions/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medic... Even though it references Eric Holder's mentioning that fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid is probably between $120 - $180 billion, that's not an itemized list. In your mind, I'm sure you think that crusso provided no evidence whatsoever that there's plenty of waste in the budget. My guess is that your world view just doesn't include the possibility that the government could be tragically wasteful of money. I'm sure that if you looked around at the Heritage Foundation, they probably have itemized lists, but you'd disregard that because of the source, I'd suspect. Really, the only groups you trust to tell you that there was hundreds of billions of dollars in waste wouldn't dare do that kind of research in the first place. The idea of earmarks is to attach them to a law that was going to pass anyway. That makes absolutely no sense. Why would they include earmarks in a bill if they were superfluous. They're there to grease the wheels. They're incentives to get congressional votes. They're bribes, but legal.
  - araes 13y ago
    The article you linked to does almost nothing to make the case for poor management of Medicare / Medicaid. In fact, it does a pretty good job of saying that a program which provides health services for 1/6th of our population is waging a pretty darn good fight against an army of people who want to defraud it. Probably the only thing in the article that could be called "waste" is the policy of "pay and chase", which they then immediately note is improving. Sure, there are an army of medical professionals that want to scam the Fed, but its not like Medicare / Medicaid's just sitting there and letting them be scammed. I mean really, if you're going to pick on a gov. program, you probably shouldn't go for one of the better run ones in the Fed, maybe try the DoD. Now them,... they've got some waste. How many times has the DoD said it doesn't want more tanks? "Oh, what's that, you say you want more tanks? Here's 50 billion. Make it happen. In my district."

by crusso 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

> Yes. That's my point about news sources. If you're surprised at this building waste and unaware of many others, then you might want to branch out in your reading. I'd love to see a source that shows "hundreds of billions" in actual waste, in an itemized fashion. > The cost of earmarks isn't the line item. It's the cost of the entire boondoggle law that wouldn't have been passed without the back room incentives. The idea of earmarks is to attach them to a law that was going to pass anyway.

crusso 13y ago
> I'd love to see a source that shows "hundreds of billions" in actual waste, in an itemized fashion. This is again my point. You're waiting for me to show up with links at your front doorstep showing you a perfectly digested and itemized list for information that you should be seeing all the time if you have a healthy list of news sources. So where I see this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-is-costing-taxpayers-billions/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medic... Even though it references Eric Holder's mentioning that fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid is probably between $120 - $180 billion, that's not an itemized list. In your mind, I'm sure you think that crusso provided no evidence whatsoever that there's plenty of waste in the budget. My guess is that your world view just doesn't include the possibility that the government could be tragically wasteful of money. I'm sure that if you looked around at the Heritage Foundation, they probably have itemized lists, but you'd disregard that because of the source, I'd suspect. Really, the only groups you trust to tell you that there was hundreds of billions of dollars in waste wouldn't dare do that kind of research in the first place. The idea of earmarks is to attach them to a law that was going to pass anyway. That makes absolutely no sense. Why would they include earmarks in a bill if they were superfluous. They're there to grease the wheels. They're incentives to get congressional votes. They're bribes, but legal.
- araes 13y ago
  The article you linked to does almost nothing to make the case for poor management of Medicare / Medicaid. In fact, it does a pretty good job of saying that a program which provides health services for 1/6th of our population is waging a pretty darn good fight against an army of people who want to defraud it. Probably the only thing in the article that could be called "waste" is the policy of "pay and chase", which they then immediately note is improving. Sure, there are an army of medical professionals that want to scam the Fed, but its not like Medicare / Medicaid's just sitting there and letting them be scammed. I mean really, if you're going to pick on a gov. program, you probably shouldn't go for one of the better run ones in the Fed, maybe try the DoD. Now them,... they've got some waste. How many times has the DoD said it doesn't want more tanks? "Oh, what's that, you say you want more tanks? Here's 50 billion. Make it happen. In my district."