i don’t think that problem is how much the government spends. realisticly, all money belongs to the government anyway. all money ultimately comes from government spending and loans and eventually goes back to government as successive transactions are taxed. i also hate to be cleve-ish, but the only reason money is worth anything is because the government says that it is.
the problem is where the money comes from. middle and lower class people are forced to pay more in taxes than they can reasonable afford, because the corporations and the rich are the ones with power and influence, so they keep pressuring to have their tax burden reduced.
where the government spends the money is less of a problem, imo. obviously, some programs are more effecient at helping the common good, but any money the government spends is money going into the economy.
Partly yes, no, and no. The government creates money in a superficial sense (in that they mint the actual bills and coins that we use as currency). The government does not create wealth, not is it the originator of such.
Since I don’t speak for 51% of the population, or know what 51% of the population wants, no. I can tell you which programs I think are a waste of money, though. You already mentioned the biggest one–Social Security. It’s a wasteful and unnecessary program that is spiralling towards bankruptcy, whether 51% of the population likes it or not.
I don’t want to get Jason started on fiscal policies, the middle class and Capitalism but man am I ever a fan of small government and fiscal responsibility. I know those are buzzwords and what they really mean is debateable. But shit like setting up a Dept of Homeland Security replicating functionality we already have in government is just one example of wastage. 5 billion a month to be Iraqi skeet pidgeons is another. At least Clinton seemed willing to be responsible when the money was flying in…when things get tough is when you tighten the belt not let it all hang out.
Bill O’Reilly who I realize is universally hated by both sides and the mere mention of his name seems to draw groans, talked about some bills that were passed just last week. Studies about whether there were and how many gay Native Americans there are, oriental massage parlor workers who contract AIDS in San Francisco, do men lose their sex drive as they get older and if so why…and on and on. No, none were over one million dollar studies, but they are all worthless, pointless examinations that will not improve the quality of life in our country. Why it is the government’s place to do these studies in the first place is beyond me.
There are hundreds of such examples that are trade offs between politicians for support for other things. Quid pro quo support for each other’s state projects. I also do not believe for a second that the 88% of “non-waste” budget items do not have fat and waste embedded in them.
My point was that literally every single program of reasonable size has a 51% constituency behind it. What do you expect a democracy to do? Not operate by majority rule?
You can always find silly programs that would die if anyone ever heard of them, but they’re pocket change. The entire non-defense discretionary budget - the stuff politicians vote on every year, where you end up with pork, road construction, and silly studies about old guy sex drives - is about 12% of the federal budget. Needless to say, there’s a lot of nonwasteful stuff in there.
As far as “waste embedded in popular programs” goes - it’s government. What do you expect? And GAO doesn’t really agree with you anyway; like where would the “waste” in stuff like Social Security be, anyway? The entire SS program apparently operates with half the overhead of private retirement programs.
Whee. So we might have enough to cover the Social Security deficit. Assuming that’s true (I’d like to see the actual paper; that article is pretty vague on the specifics), that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of the system.
Social Security, even when working as intended, makes a crappy retirement fund. If you took the same money you put into Social Security and invested in a mutual fund or a private pension, you’d do much better. A person retiring today after making a salary of $20,000 a year after making 40 years’ worth of deposits into a private pension, would have a nest egg of nearly $400,000. Then, if this person turned this sum over to an insurance company, he or she could get a monthly annuity of $2,740 for life.
That same person’s monthly Social Security benefit would have been $775. Plus, the money invested in Social Security is not an asset. The person can collect their monthly check, and that’s about it. Seems like a waste of money to me.
My point was that literally every single program of reasonable size has a 51% constituency behind it. What do you expect a democracy to do? Not operate by majority rule?
Yeah, I expect exactly that, since our government is not a democracy. The founders disliked democracy for exactly this reason–sometimes the majority of the public doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about.
I’ve seen issues discussed on that paper; one is that assumes the retirement benefits will be taxed at 26%, which is probably too high by a factor of 2.
And Social Security is not a retirement fund; it’s a risk-pooling operation. No matter how badly your investments turn out, you’ll have a reasonable retirement. That the first generation in got wildly silly “rates of return” (because they didn’t really pay anything in) doesn’t change that.
Yeah, I expect exactly that, since our government is not a democracy. The founders disliked democracy for exactly this reason–sometimes the majority of the public doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about.
Yes, that must be why they required two-thirds supermajorities to pass any sort of spending program! Wait…
A person retiring today after making a salary of $20,000 a year after making 40 years’ worth of deposits into a private pension, would have a nest egg of nearly $400,000. Then, if this person turned this sum over to an insurance company, he or she could get a monthly annuity of $2,740 for life.
That same person’s monthly Social Security benefit would have been $775
This double-counts contributions. Unless you think we can pay off the last generation’s retirement for free.
Edit: Oh yeah, and 40% of Social Security payouts are to the disabled and what not. Where are their benefits going to come from?
Social Security, even when working as intended, makes a crappy retirement fund. If you took the same money you put into Social Security and invested in a mutual fund or a private pension, you’d do much better. A person retiring today after making a salary of $20,000 a year after making 40 years’ worth of deposits into a private pension, would have a nest egg of nearly $400,000. Then, if this person turned this sum over to an insurance company, he or she could get a monthly annuity of $2,740 for life.
Without the forced retirement savings that Social Security represents, you’d get a lot of people who would be unable to work due to old age and yet would have no income. You can say that’s their problem, but I don’t think that’s a realistic view. It’s a problem that would affect the society we live in.
In every human endeavor there is going to be some waste. At a certain point it becomes more expensive to try and prevent than you would save by eliminating it. Asking the government not to lose track of a million dollars over the course of the year is somewhat akin to asking the average family not to lose track of a nickel. You’ve got to give the kids money for the ice-cream truck now and then.
Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of pork that in the best of all possible worlds would be eliminated. However, it’s stupid to cite anecdotal examples of tiny and seemingly wasteful programs and somehow extrapolate from that that there is any substantial savings, percentage-wise, to be found by eliminating such things from the federal budget. Citing such examples is perfect for O’Reilly, since it appeals to innumeracy and encourages the fuzzy-headed anti-government sentiment on which he trades. It’s like all the people who think that a substantial portion of their tax dollar is going to foreign aid, when in fact our foreign aid is fairly tiny, and most of it goes to a few favored nations as bribes for making foreign policy decisions that we like.
Also, people underestimate the “return” that money put into the Social Security system gets. It grows as fast as the economy as a whole. And, guess what, any retirement system that covers everone can’t grow any faster than that.
The only way a “privatized” Social Security could grow faster would be if the change in investment patterns actually allowed the economy to grow more swiftly. This is a more complex argument to make than “well, if you just put that money in a mutual fund it would grow faster” so usually the advocates of privatization just skip making it.
This is a more complex argument to make than “well, if you just put that money in a mutual fund it would grow faster” so usually the advocates of privatization just skip making it.
The other thing I like about mutual funds is how they always say: “The market has averaged 10% annual growth over the last X years.”, where X = Current Year - 1931.
Two-thirds of our elected representatives, you mean? Almost nothing in the federal government is done through direct democracy, except the electing of our representatives themselves. In fact, I can’t think of a single thing.
Rywill, that’s a non-sequitir. I said you’d kind of expect in a democracy (representative, whatever) for programs with 51% to stick around. Sure, its through the indirect nature of voting for candidates, but what difference does that make? What’s your objection here?
I mean, I think the Star Wars missile defense program is an asinine waste of money, but I’m kind of outvoted. Tough shit for me.
So the defense is, “Yeah there’s waste and misspent money, but its a big government, so what can ya’ do?”
I should not have brought up my concerns of government spending. I must have had a bad day at work. They are doing the best as can be expected. Its such a cumbersome budget and the few mistakes they make can be overlooked because they are really trying to do what’s right for the greater good. The ends justify the means.
Tyjenks, it’s not that anyone defends waste, its that some level of waste is inherent in anything - check to see how much money your employer blatantly wastes, lately?
I understand that. Cost of doing business and all, but to claim that dishonest politicians, backroom deals, “I scratch your back” bill voting does not go on and that the waste is not out of control is hard for me to swallow.
