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>what with government penniless and gridlocked Um, the U.S. federal government will be spending something like $3.4 trillion in the fiscal year beginning at th
by declan 12y ago
>what with government penniless and gridlocked
Um, the U.S. federal government will be spending something like $3.4 trillion in the fiscal year beginning at the end of this month.
That's pretty much the exact opposite of truly "penniless."
As for gridlocked, sure, it's going to be difficult for the Dems to expand Obamacare, and it's going to be difficult for the GOP to repeal Obamacare, so by that crabbed version of "gridlocked" the author has a point.
But in reality, you'll see 99% of appropriations bills (measured by pages of text) over the next few months become law with enthusiastic bipartisan votes. You'll see the NSA's budget increased for next year by an enthusiastic bipartisan vote. You'll see the number of new federal regulations expand every year with no outcry from any U.S. senator of either major party. Etc.
That's pretty much the exact opposite of truly "gridlocked."
On a more HN-relevant point, the author's suggestion of fixing the VA is something that needs to be done by the Feds, not an app. They created these serious, systemic problems for veterans and they're the only ones that have the legal authority (and responsibility) to implement a fix. The WSJ has been writing for years about sensible plans for VA reform but nobody in D.C. seems to be listening.
- ejain 12y agoNeed to distinguish between legislators and administrators. Selling a solution to latter is a losing proposition, because they are usually struggling to accommodate all the spending mandated by former.
- onion2k 12y agoImagine I give you $20. Then I tell you that you have to spend all of that $20 on x, y, and z. Are you penniless? Yes. You have no money. All of the government's $3.4 trillion is budgeted for, allocated and spent. What makes the government penniless is the fact that they can't do anything else because they have no budget for it.
- refurb 12y agoBut the gov't creates the budget. They choose what to spend that $20 on.
- marcosdumay 12y agoAnd then we go into the usual falacy. No governemnt is a single coherent entity. The people creating the budget aren't the ones doing the spending. And the ones planning the outcome of the spending are even a thrid, disjunct group. If you try to sell something to the first group, you'll discover they are separated from the outcome by (at least) two layers of intermediaries, and probably have no idea about the problem. If you try to sell it to the third group, you'll discover that they have no power at all to put resources onto a solution. And if you try to sell it to the second group, you'll discover that they only care about accounting, and have no desire do think about resource allocation or real-world problems.
- PeterisP 12y agoThe whole point is to look at the budgeted allocations - if it has budgeted $100 million on foobar, then that's a $100 million marketplace for foobar-replacing products and services.