Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 1001 posts

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

#681

Post by dcow »

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 this is hard to discuss because if you disagree with the premise that the cuts are targeting “fraud waste and abuse” then you’re already talking past the other side. In order to have a productive discussion you need to defend the specific spend being cut, not argue about the ideal spend pie chart.

Trump’s administration believes they are cutting legitimately outrageous spending across every piece of the pie. We can ra ra all day about how an effective and ethical government shall include some layer of social welfare, but cutting out pieces of the pie is not specifically what DOGE is doing or was tasked to do.

So we should spend on elderly: why must it be 36%? What makes up the 36% and is it legitimate? Are there portions of that percentage deployed in a way that does not serve taxpayers’ interests? Is the workforce tasked to manage the “give money to the elderly” program performing to expectations? Are there redundancies? Why are any of those type of questions bad to ask especially when you’re asking them unilaterally (across all gov’t programs)?

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

#682

Post by carom »

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. I do not really care about any historical precedent, they take 40% of my money and there is clearly a ton of waste, if not grift.

2. All of those things can be done more efficiently. Drug prices, crappy mega defense contractors, welfare work traps, etc.

3. People eat themselves to death. RFK is going after this problem.

4. I'm in favor of simplifying the tax code and charging a flat tax to corporations, ending tax havens. We should end the tyranny of the shareholder and start rebuilding the American worker.

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

#683

Post by jjk166 »

cwalv wrote: post #486
Terr_ wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should it scale linearly with GDP? I GDP per se , maybe not, however we should still expect it to scale with the costs of services and goods that are correlated. Ex: If the dollar price of rent doubles, then dollar expenditures to keep the elderly from dying in ditches will likewise double, even with no change in population.

GDP increases are generally measured in real (i.e. inflation adjusted) terms, so a doubling of rent costs don't imply a larger GDP. If we're talking nominal GDP, then I'd agree we should expect gov expense to increase as well.

Inflation refers to the money supply and is one number applied to everything in the economy. It does not account for things getting legitimately more expensive. Rent can go up faster than inflation, indeed we'd expect it to as presumably buildings are built or improved to higher standards and the surrounding neighborhoods have improvements which make the local real estate more valuable. Likewise for many other goods and services.

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

#686

Post by ted_dunning »

brightball wrote: post #536
qgin wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 way to attack the problem economically would have involved giving everyone in the USA an HSA that was funded to allow them to directly consume healthcare services with price exposure. It would naturally force competition on price. 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…

This is just silly talk.

Are you going to shop around different pathology labs when they snip a bit out of your colon during a colonoscopy where you are under general anesthesia? Are you going to be googling for reviews of different neurologists when you get taken to the emergency room with a bad concussion or a stroke?

I don't think so.

So how is your market-driven medical system going to work? This isn't like picking a restaurant.

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

#687

Post by insane_dreamer »

ipython wrote: post #644
insane_dreamer wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wait, I thought the GOP was the party of fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit? Shouldn't they be reducing the debt ceiling rather than raising it?

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

#688

Post by BurningFrog »

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. The simplest answer is that federal spending has always been out of control.

2. This assumes a 100% effective government. If it's only 70% effective, you can cut spending by 30% without affecting the noble goals you list.

3. This is the Luigi argument. Get rid of health insurance and we'll all be happy! What exactly to replace it with is TBD.

4. The main argument against high corporate taxes is that it leads to companies moving to countries with lower taxes. The US still has higher such taxes than most and suffers from that, but the optics of lowering further are too bad, so we live with it.

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

#689

Post by insane_dreamer »

stogot wrote: post #604
insane_dreamer wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

you could cut the US military budget substantially and it would still be the largest military power in the world and well able to defend itself

it might not longer be able to be the "undisputed global power" but, as someone who has lived abroad most of my life and seen American foreign policy from the other side, I don't know that's a bad thing

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

#690

Post by ted_dunning »

firejake308 wrote: post #298
qgin wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know of at least one source arguing that in fact, population health (mainly obesity and gun violence) explain upwards of 70% of the difference in healthcare spending between the US and other developed nations.[1] To me, this seems like the most likely explanation because I believe we have pretty similar diagnostics and treatments to other developed countries, and I don't feel like a British doctor would give me any…

I have an apples to apples comparison here.

I had almost identical cases of cellulitis, one in the US and one in the UK. In the UK, I opted for private hospitalization in one of the fancier hospitals in London. The care was noticeably superior in the UK hospital. The attending doctor was available for a case summary on a few minutes notice, the sterilization and cleaning of the room was vastly better and the nursing staff could recite my case notes and recent test results and vitals at any time. None of these applied for the US hospital.

The bill in the UK was about half what it was in the US and the walk-in price in the US if I hadn't had local insurance would have been nearly double the price I did pay.

The kicker was that the UK hospital was run by HCA, an American corporation.

Post reply on HN