DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by vkou » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

loanedempathy wrote: post #256

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.

Well, we either have a despot or mob rule--hard to have both. Congress has abdicated its role, and the rot is now so plain that even a 78 year old can get the idiot masses to vote him in to do something. The thing about power...it only stays with the people who have the balls to wield it. Congress needs to find their balls or we'll just be back here in another four years.

> Congress needs to find their balls

Some of the GOP tried to do that a few years ago, and went against Trump.

They were all destroyed.

There's no longer an escape hatch from this.

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

#342

Post by sroussey » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #170

JeremyNT wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) is questionable. Most of the budget is spent maintaining global hegemony through military dominance. Whatever inefficiencies that exist on the civil side are nearly irrelevant.

Without looking it up, what do you think is the military budget in comparison to the whole budget.

Europe has a problem trying to spend a minimum 2% of GDP. We easily to 10x that.

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

#343

Post by James_K » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

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…

2 is not a fact in the slightest. The American government is guilty of under-investment in perhaps every area outside of military. The notion of bipartisan climbing public debt is also false. Bill Clinton brought the government into running and Democrats have had consistently better budget responsibility than Republicans, though the reason for this is more that the Dems fund government through taxes where the Republicans fund government through debt to give out tax cuts. The actual levels of spending are not so much changed because it turns out that most of the money spent by government is quite important and you can't just get rid of it.

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

#344

Post by theli0nheart » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:44 PM UTC

Borealid wrote: post #270

theli0nheart wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> in debt (that we also can't pay for) "Can't" here is not a statement of fact. First off, the US government can and is paying the interest on the debt. Second, the debt is denominated in US dollars. If congress were to authorize it, the US government could print money and pay off one hundred percent of the debt in a single day. This would have negative side effects, but it's clear that "can't" is not the correct ter…

Given that, is there any amount of spending that, in your opinion, would constitute “too much”?

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

#345

Post by everdrive » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

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's also the case that even if you wanted to make the remaining few percent more efficient via spending cuts, randomly grepping through database entries and claiming success without any real understanding of what you're cutting is complete bullshit.

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

#346

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #335

anigbrowl wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 repl…

Can you not with these 'give me examples and we'll take a look at it' responses? You know as well as I do that there's a lot of driveby abuse accounts - anyone with Showdead turned on can see as much. Perhaps you could speak to the remedy I proposed instead.

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

#347

Post by balderdash » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

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 social security administration estimates ~$60b a year in fraud on ~$400b budget! [1] [2]. People can have a rational discussion as to where and how fraud and abuse are rooted out, but I have trouble understanding how people don’t think it’s an issue?

[1] https://blog.ssa.gov/medicare-fraud-prevention-week/ [2] https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function

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

#348

Post by rayiner » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

vharuck wrote: post #282

rayiner wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Who are the “right people” who would’ve flagged and stopped $29 million in usaid funds going to destabilized the government in Bangladesh, or DEI projects in Serbia? Congressional representatives. You can share what you know with your representative and ask they investigate. Congress regularly calls in bureaucrats to talk about budgets. If your case bears out, ask your members of Congress to propose amendments to th…

But Congress never voted on funding dissidents in Bangladesh or DEI in Serbia. The process you’re describing isn’t how these grants were made in the first pace. Congress passed broad appropriations bills, such as allocating $3 billion for implementing the foreign assistance act of 1961. Additionally, USAID got $5.7 billion in “untied” money last year: https://www.devex.com/news/money-matters-how-usaid-got-billi...

The specific grants Trump is freezing were determined by the executive itself. They can be cancelled by the executive too. At some point, of course, Trump will need to seek recession under the impoundment act if USAID isn’t going to use its full appropriation. But in the meantime it’s totally within his authority to cancel specific grants that were decided by the executive in the first place.

Like, here's an example: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2617... (search USAID)

> UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

> Funds Appropriated to the President

> operating expenses

> For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of section 667 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, $1,743,350,000

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

#349

Post by sxyuan » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

jimmar wrote: post #326

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…

1. US GDP estimated GDP in 2024 is $29 trillion. According to your first source, U.S. Federal Spending was 23% of GDP. If that were reduced to the 2014-2019 average of 20%, that would trim $870 billion from federal spending. That seems like good progress toward avoiding a potential debt crisis. 2. Reduce defense overall and make the process of getting money to the needy more efficient. 3. No comment. Healthcare is me…

1. I actually mostly agree with you (and the other reply that said something along the same lines). IMO, the debt situation isn't great, and it's getting worse. Bringing down spending as a percentage of GDP doesn't necessarily require trimming the budget, though - it could also be done by keeping the budget flat and letting GDP growth catch up.

2. Personally, I'm not opposed to trimming defense spending. However, how do we square that with the current security environment (an increasingly antagonistic Russia, China, etc.) and the fact that defense spending is also essentially a domestic jobs program?

4. The share that corporations have been paying has been falling over time. I'm not saying we should stick it to rich people - but what about making corporate taxes more in line with what they've paid in the past, instead of having employees (those same consumers you're talking about) pick up the slack?

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

#350

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC

secos wrote: post #327

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.

or raise taxes.

They are raising taxes.

Income tax on everyone earning g less than 360K is going up, plus tariffs which are regressive.

They're also cutting taxes for those earning more than that, the top 5%

https://itep.org/a-distributional-analysis-of-donald-trumps-...