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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

#331

Post by JoshTko »

largbae wrote: post #294
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…

I think these are good reasons why our fiscal picture is not hopeless, but not good arguments agains improving our efficiency: 1. Thank you for linking that graph, it seems to show that our spending is 25% higher than it was in the 1970s as a % of GDP (23 vs 18). But our level of _debt_ is approx 375% higher (as a % of GDP) than it was in the 70s (120% now vs 32% then). That doesn't sound like we are sustaining it we…

We all know what efficient healthcare systems should look like, there are a dozen countries with lower overall healthcare spend per capita than US with better outcomes. What specific skillset of RFK do you find as compelling evidence they they will be extract higher efficiency similar to these other nations?

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

#332

Post by sroussey »

xdavidliu wrote: post #320
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…

> Why shouldn't the health insurance industry be the first item on the chopping block? I don't understand this question: how can the private companies in the industry be placed on the chopping block? By outlawing them?

Medicare?

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

#333

Post by neilyio »

alecco wrote: post #258
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…

I hope all this is not taking a toll on you. Stay healthy, Dang. You are doing a very good job. You can't make everybody happy.

This whole place only stands up because of dang. Someday (too) soon, AI moderators will be all we have to keep the peace in our forums... and dang is our most precious training resource. I'm grateful he's so transparent in explaining his process.

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

#334

Post by latexr »

TOMDM wrote: post #301
e40 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GP is not talking about permission. It doesn't matter that people can have these conversations if they won’t.

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

#335

Post by dang »

anigbrowl wrote: post #221
dang wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been posting a lot about this lately. Here are some recent posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43130700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43130063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43093299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43051836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011 If you (or anyone) will read some of those and follow some of the links i…

I'd be glad if you'd do something about the influx of trolls, like maybe requiring a few submissions before allowing comments. Right now it's easy to create an account and then just post slurs on 30 or 40 threads before getting shadow banned (and those of us who have showdead turned on still get to see it).

Who posted slurs on 30 or 40 threads before getting banned?

If you're talking about the account you mentioned at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43143257, that account was banned from the day they started posting, and not one of their comments was ever publicly visible.

Yes, 'showdead' means you're signing up to see, among other things, the worst that the internet has to offer. I explained that in my other reply to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43143611.

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

#336

Post by thrance »

TOMDM wrote: post #301
e40 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes you do, leftist talking point are systematically downranked on X.

If you don't believe me, open a new X account, navigate to the "for me" page and count the number of left-leaning tweets. The expected number is zero.

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

#337

Post by rawgabbit »

softwaredoug wrote: post #254
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…

Do we spend too much? Or do we not take in sufficient revenue? All these things BTW do have some limited ability to be controlled by the executive (Clinton did layoffs in the 90s, but kept supporting the same federal services). But ultimately most of this stuff is the mandate of congress and can’t just be canceled by executive order.

It is more we believe in magic. We hand out tax breaks like they are candy, cripple the government, and believe some DOGE waving a chainsaw will fix the budget. Extending the Trump tax cuts is estimated to cost $4.6 trillion over ten years.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tax-cuts-extension-republ...

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

#338

Post by bobmcnamara »

int_19h wrote: post #313
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…

FWIW many people who believe that federal spending is out of control would say the same about 1970s.

Where I grew up, federal spending has been out of control since the Spanish American War.

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

#339

Post by sroussey »

bamboozled wrote: post #273
sbochins wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a silly charade. To actually cut the debt, it requires congress. Not just saving a couple millions dollars and posting on twitter about it. We’ll need to cut Medicare, Medicaid, social security, the military, etc. All the popular stuff that was never easy and will never be easy to cut. We’re not spending 2 trillion per year on condoms.

Won’t wiping all this stuff just lead us into a Great Depression anyway ? I’m not an expert on the topic but my basic understanding was that we (government) just decided we didn’t have any money, so everything just stopped. Like shutting all this stuff down or radically cutting it back will surely have some dire economic impacts?

The government can just print money. So much so that inflation goes crazy and the national debt is pennies. Same with your savings. We have a lot of savers that are old. Wait until they are gone.

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

#340

Post by largbae »

JoshTko wrote: post #331
largbae wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are good reasons why our fiscal picture is not hopeless, but not good arguments agains improving our efficiency: 1. Thank you for linking that graph, it seems to show that our spending is 25% higher than it was in the 1970s as a % of GDP (23 vs 18). But our level of _debt_ is approx 375% higher (as a % of GDP) than it was in the 70s (120% now vs 32% then). That doesn't sound like we are sustaining it we…

We all know what efficient healthcare systems should look like, there are a dozen countries with lower overall healthcare spend per capita than US with better outcomes. What specific skillset of RFK do you find as compelling evidence they they will be extract higher efficiency similar to these other nations?

I'm not sure I meant to take a mantle as RFK's personal champion, but my _hope_ comes from hearing his points on prevention and improving the quality of the food supply. The incentives of both the healthcare and food industries in the US seem to be misaligned with a healthy population, much moreso in the US than in other countries in the West.
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