531–540 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When have the corporations ever not had a short-termist "Fuck you, I got mine" mentality in America?
Ever heard of Bell Labs?
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 core question is less about the cuts themselves and more about if we the people are getting what we're paying for. 1) It kinda doesn't matter if it was caused by the pandemic or not, what matters is it needs to be fixed. Cherry-picking "since the 1970s" keeps us in difficult times energy-wise which we've attempted to correct for with more spending. If you go further back, our current ratio is what it was during W…
I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…
Even if you’re 100% correct, these aren’t the right people and these aren’t the right methods. Completely the opposite actually.
It's easy to just go online and say "this is wrong these people are idiots" but what is your alternative solution? We have exhausted pretty much every other method at this point, all the big consulting firms have also come in and tried to assist, and the last person to make headway here was Bill Clinton -- who proposed an even more callous approach to cuts.
Keeping Musk’s interests in mind helps clarify what’s going on. Scorching earth and constantly lying is the playbook for dismantling agencies with oversight into the companies he runs and agencies that promote potential growth of competitors (e.g. pulling the ladder up behind him after the DoE’s Tesla loan). The Canada/China tariffs will cripple other automakers who depend on trade while Tesla’s integrated manufactur…
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…
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…
Number 3 can’t be overstated. Healthcare costs for the exact same care are 2x-3x what they are in Europe. Global health insurance plans usually come in two flavors: 1. Global coverage 2. Global coverage excluding United States (for half the monthly premium of the first plan) The United States in an extreme outlier in terms of cost. This is separate from rationing care. This is separate from even population health (ex…
The ACA that we got instead cemented the separation of people from the price of their service and costs have ballooned even more than that were previously.
The economic approach is the only real way to fix things long term.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone who says federal spending has been out of control for the last 50 years point to a time period when it was _in_ control?
Non war times pre 1913, federal spending was such a low percent of gdp as to barely be noticeable, generally far below 5%. The 15%+ I pay now is painful, 2% would barely be noticed. Especially in the context I have to pay (state) taxes on all the new federally required stuff like air bags and emissions controls.
I guess I don't really think we can have fundamentally similar views on what it means to be "in control" of something, because I don't think something can be "out of control" for 100 years.
But, if you want to go back to pre-1913 levels of federal spending, you must mean to significantly cut or eliminate all federal entitlements?
If that is your view, do you think you're representative of others that would argue that federal spending is "out of control"? Do you think it would be fair of me to assume that most people who think federal spending is "out of control" also want to significantly cut or eliminate social security/medicare/medicaid? Or do you think your views are an outlier among those that think federal spending is "out of control"?
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…
> How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average...? Why should it scale linearly with GDP? I can see an argument that it should scale linearly with population (maybe), but if GDP per capita increases, you could also expect better tech/productivity to allow gov spending per capita to decrease. > What do you think should be cut, an…
A lot of government service does not scale that way. When a veteran needs help getting groceries, or getting to the VA, or has to go into long-term care, for example, there isn't technology to scale up a human being helping them with the groceries, or the transportation, or the nursing.
The government mostly serves human beings and the options for scaling that problem domain (which aren't dehumanizing) are limited.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Taxes on corporations, like tariffs, are just passed onto consumers Never heard this argument before - it sounds very implausible. Do you have any studies or source for that claim?