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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

#641

Post by subharmonicon »

cuuupid wrote: post #84

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…

> But it is absolutely true that the federal government is endlessly wasteful; it’s insane watching everyone around me get gaslit into thinking the government is actually efficient.

It's also absolutely true that private companies are endlessly wasteful. I've worked for four large companies now, and the waste is mind boggling. I think what upsets people about government is that tax dollars are used to fund it, but I would claim from my own observation that beyond a certain size any kind of organization is filled with waste.

I'll point out, though, that there are areas of government that have been studied and found to be very efficient, and have high levels of satisfaction. It's been quite a while now, but I recall around ~2006-2007 an academic study came out which was originally intended to look only at private insurers. As they designed the study they realized that given the size of Medicare they should also include Medicare as part of the study.

What they found:

- A much much higher percentage of the money going into Medicare goes toward patient care than in any of the private insurers. Like low single digit percentages of overhead vs. 10-25% overhead in the case of the private insurers.

- Customer satisfaction from dealing with the bureaucracy (claim processing) of Medicare was much higher than customer satisfaction with the private insurers.

- Patient satisfaction with the care they were receiving from Medicare was as high or higher than the private insurers.

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

#642

Post by hobs »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #423
Uehreka wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given partisan polarisation, my guess is Democrats will take an axe to veteran benefits next cycle I highly doubt it. The Senate “Democrat” in charge of the VA is Bernie Sanders himself, and he’s been a stalwart supporter of improving veteran benefits his entire career. There’s also the whole “it would be political suicide” thing. Partisan polarization is a good way to predict a lot of things, but if you lean into…

> the whole “it would be political suicide” thing It was political suicide because the 18% of Americans who are veterans turn out to vote, are seen sympathetically by other voters [1] and were often swing voters. The last part was critical: veterans are already turning out, so offending them was less about turning out votes for your opponent than losing your own votes. But if they aren't voting for you [2], you aren'…

Or you could just not assume some random unsignaled shift in own goaling might not happen? What's your goal to argue this hypothetical with no evidence or reason so hard?

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

#643

Post by khana »

jfim wrote: post #608
stogot wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd much rather my money being spent on education, foreign assistance, scientific research, etc., even if there is some inefficiencies and waste, than being spent on the military (which, by the way means that the big defense contractors in the US are _subsidized by tax payers_). We all would, but given that Russia, Iran, China, and NK are aggressive states and all actively claim that the US is the enemy, and that t…

I fail to see how the cuts as being implemented actually make US citizens safer from Russia, Iran, China, and NK. Can you elaborate on how they do that?

[dead]

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

#644

Post by ipython »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #550
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 proposed Senate budget includes $150 billion increase in the defense budget, which already was 50% of all discretionary spending (that means after SS and Medicare as that is covered by a separate tax). This is much more than any DOGE savings, and shows that this isn't about reducing the federal budget, but about cutting services in order to fund two things: military, and corporate tax cuts (which largely benefit…

And don't worry, the House is ready to extend and expand tax cuts to more than extinguish any potential "savings" - to the tune of over $3 trillion in extra deficit spending. But don't worry, they've planned for that- just increase the debt limit by $4 trillion to cover the difference!

After all, now that the Democrats aren't in charge any longer, increasing the debt limit is no biggie - we'll just grow ourselves out of the hole! Once we enact those tax cuts, it'll be hard to justify even more debt spending on such silly things like "education" and "research". We've got to pay the interest on the money we borrowed to provide those tax cuts after all.

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

#646

Post by Glyptodon »

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 don't think a reasonable discussion is possible.

Congress is supposed to fund the government and say how money is spent.

The executive "cutting" things to "save money" is basically the executive assuming the power of the legislative branch.

That said, what we're witnessing doesn't actually seem to be about spending. It seems to be more about obtaining direct dominance over the whole branch so it can be run essentially free of any oversight or connection to legislation and law - IE to create a quasi-imperial executive branch narrowly focused on the priorities of it princely leaders. So most of the "firings" are basically to make a point, winnow things down to loyalists who will ignore the law, and keep the news so filled with surface reporting on each new small outrage that the big ones don't get noticed, not so save any money.

Anyone who truly believes that there's tons to cut and that government institutions need reform can't also think that getting rid of huge swaths of the institution without attempt to identify improvements, priorities, or waste, will actually create efficacy, unless their real goal is not reform and cutting waste, but rather to make the whole of the current form of government fail.

I've seen some wild social media posts that suggest that people have really absurd views on this, too - someone I went to high school with like 20 years ago is having some kind of issue with navigating the Social Security Administration for something via phone and he's cheering on what's going on like it will actually solve his issue.

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

#647

Post by refurb »

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…

> 4. Corporate tax receipts have been steadily falling as a percentage of GDP. [3] Why shouldn't corporations (that benefit from a healthy and educated workforce, a safe and secure environment, a working transportation system, etc.) be paying their fair share to keep the national debt in check?

I'd be incredibly careful assuming that lower tax receipt from corporate income is due to lower tax rates.

Why? Because lots of things impact corporate tax receipts beyond tax rate.

If you look at the graph since 1980, you can clearly see a correlation with economic downturns. In fact, they tend to lead downturns which makes sense as corporations see a drop in profits as the economy slows and heads into recession.

Corporate tax receipts would also drop as corporate investment increases. When Amazon spent billions on expanding their business, profits dropped and so did tax receipts.

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

#648

Post by dmix »

subharmonicon wrote: post #641
cuuupid wrote: post #84

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…

> But it is absolutely true that the federal government is endlessly wasteful; it’s insane watching everyone around me get gaslit into thinking the government is actually efficient. It's also absolutely true that private companies are endlessly wasteful. I've worked for four large companies now, and the waste is mind boggling. I think what upsets people about government is that tax dollars are used to fund it, but I…

It’s still worth looking and finding that stuff out (carefully and transparently). There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. GWB created a small version of DOGE with almost the same mandate that never really did anything notable because it was small and never ambitious (it also still exists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_Gene...).

Most large wasteful private organizations are often the ones who get comfortable in their existing market, employees get hardened in their ways, and eventually are threatened by changes in the market and competition and die off. There is no competitive pressure on gov agencies. It’s almost always a one way street after an agency gets formed that it continues as is indefinitely with only occasional changes in leadership. The number of agencies (>400 federally in US) only increases. Congress rarely looks backwards with spending, they only challenge demands for new spending plans to expand agencies. Otherwise budgets only go up with new line items as US tax revenue forever increases each year.

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

#649

Post by mp05 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #632
IAmGraydon wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but while I disagree with Musks actions, more than half of the 14 items don’t fit what’s currently happening.

Only meets HALF of the fascism warning signs you say? Nevermind then. Nothing to see here.

Surely there is some critical threshold that indicates that we can reject the hypothesis that fascism isn't happening?

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

#650

Post by seanp2k2 »

digitaltrees wrote: post #470
cwalv wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It scales linearly because the same ratio of services to people continues. There aren’t suddenly less kids to educate, less elderly that need health care or less cases in federal court as the population grows. —- As someone that has been in healthcare for 12 years it’s broken because of the corporate structure and administrative state of companies. The payors and providers share the same incentive to raise rates beca…

Don’t worry, RFK will be gone in 6mo once the pharma lobbyists get through to Congress members if he touches anything that affects their profits.
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