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A persistent failing in the U.S. system is the ability of congress to micromanage the minutiae of larger programs, all for pork barrel spending. Things like the
by p_eter_p 12y ago
A persistent failing in the U.S. system is the ability of congress to micromanage the minutiae of larger programs, all for pork barrel spending. Things like the gasket problems on the Shuttle SRBs, and NASA in general being spread all over the country are all related to every single Congressperson trying to get a little something to take home. In a perfect world, they would have to authorize money at an agency level and with no finer granularity. Of course, if that were the case no money would ever be allocated at all...
- SoftwareMaven 12y agoAnd this would be bad why? Snark aside, the federal government is out of control with no accountability. I don't even know how they could be held accountable.
- p_eter_p 12y agoThe short version is, I think one of the main things that separates, say, the U.S. from the E.U. is the ability to shift vast quantities of money around the country in the guise of federal programs. It's spectacularly inefficient, but it also helps to set a floor on how bad any one area can get. If that's good or bad largely depends on your personal politics.