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DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

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Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#301

Post by TOMDM »

e40 wrote: post #257
sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

The reason these questions are not front and center is that the people with money don’t want to talk about them. And, the ensure we are kept busy with cheap gadgets, entertaining tv and movies and enough controversies that don’t matter to last a lifetime. Alsr, the population is less educated and able to actually think critically about these issues than they used to be.

You don't need their permission to have these conversations.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#302

Post by rayiner »

anigbrowl wrote: post #212
rayiner wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Congress is well within its rights to delegate such authority. That would of course never make it through Congress. Counselor, you know better than to beg the question like that. It's disappointing to see such an intelligent person resort to such fallacious arguments.

> Congress is well within its rights to delegate such authority.

Right, Congress told the executive “here’s three billion dollars, spend it on foreign development.” That means the executive decides how that money will be spent. It is entirely within its rights to cancel particular grants. Though eventually it will have to seek rescission as to the $3 billion if it doesn’t use all the money. That’s a long ways away.

And I’m quite confident I’m not going out on a limb when I say line items for “DEI in Serbia” would never make it through congress.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#303

Post by seivan »

dang wrote: post #166
scottmcdoge wrote: post #9

[flagged]

HN has had NYT articles from the beginning: Spam stock tips work - for spammers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26 - Oct 2006 You aren't going to get far with this community arguing that we should ban nytimes.com. What you (i.e. anyone who cares about this) should do instead is find more substantive, more interesting, and hopefully more neutral articles analyzing the same things, and submit them to HN instead.…

[flagged]

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#304

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #244
dang wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I just recently asked you to stop posting unsubstantive flamebait and you've continued to do it non-stop, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. I suppose I'd better add that (1) no, this has nothing to do with your political views, and (2) yes, we ban accounts who are doing the same thing with different politics. Oh…

Most of that user's comments seem substantive to me, even if they're not always agreeable. Maybe you should be focusing more effort on users like this one, who has been posing nothing but abuse for a month : https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=13_9_7_7_5_18 Sure their posts are hidden now, but why are they able to post at all? Why is anyone able to post like this? It's not good for the site, but it's endemic. Equ…

Can I add: being disagreeable is a bigger problem on threads like these than it is on threads with less volatile subjects.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#305

Post by generalizations »

sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

It doesn't look good for the quality of discussion here if the most substantive response to your questions was flagged & killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43143579

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#306

Post by istjohn »

MisterKent wrote: post #29

Two points that are often missed: 1. Perfectly tracking every dollar is more expensive than having some slack in the system. There's an optimal amount, at least from an overall value perspective. 2. We spend too much, and both sides of the aisle repeatedly blocked attempts to curb spending for literal decades while our debt got higher. That's how someone doing something coming in with a hatchet and no plan to build g…

That's one way to frame it. Alternatively, one could argue we don't tax enough, and that's due to large tax cuts, first under Bush and then under Trump. Now Trump wants more tax cuts.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#307

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

anoxor wrote: post #31
phh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally wouldn't want my government run by unchecked people who get the value of something off by three orders of magnitude. In a meritocracy private company someone confusing 8M with 8B is at best put in a closet job. More likely getting fired, and probably getting sued. When Jerome Kerviel was off by 5B he went to prison.

[flagged]

Are you seeing evidence that scrutiny is making DOGE more accountable?

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#308

Post by sxyuan »

sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

Y'all, original poster here - please don't downvote or flag kill responses to this that are good-faith attempts to discuss the issue, even if the response seems misinformed to you. I don't think anyone will change their minds when that happens.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#309

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #211
munchler wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.

It’s quite debatable what the founders intended here. Congress has the power to appropriate funds, it’s not clear as a constitutional matter it has the power to compel the executive to use all the appropriated funds. Even as a legal matter, the impoundment act only requires rescission notification once it’s clear that the executive won’t use all the money appropriated for a “program.” When Congress is appropriating s…

This is tantamount to saying that the executive not only has a line-item veto, but that it's non-overridable. Seems wrong.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#310

Post by sxyuan »

generalizations wrote: post #305
sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

It doesn't look good for the quality of discussion here if the most substantive response to your questions was flagged & killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43143579

I agree. I actually typed up a whole response to that post (which I vehemently disagreed with, but appreciated nonetheless) but by the time I hit submit it was already dead. Vouching wasn't enough to bring it back. I understand the temperature is running hot, but I hope that at least on HN we can strive to have civil discussions about these issues. I say this even though I am personally quite distraught about the current state of affairs.
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