It's pretty easy to cut $2T from the federal budget • Hacker News Board

Re: It's pretty easy to cut $2T from the federal budget

#11

Post by fazeirony » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #10

Not like that

huh. reading the piece it seems pretty reasonable relatively (we clearly are living in an interesting moment...) speaking.

what exactly are you commenting 'not like that' about? or are you (e.g.,) a federal contractor yourself?

Re: It's pretty easy to cut $2T from the federal budget

#12

Post by Obscurity4340 » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 8:11 PM UTC

fazeirony wrote: post #11

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #10

Not like that

huh. reading the piece it seems pretty reasonable relatively (we clearly are living in an interesting moment...) speaking. what exactly are you commenting 'not like that' about? or are you (e.g.,) a federal contractor yourself?

Its that old trope where a powerful group lobbies something in a screeching way until discussion turns to the aspects of doing exactly that which actually affect those same powerful people and the joke is "we didnt mean like that"

Re: It's pretty easy to cut $2T from the federal budget

#13

Post by jfengel » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

fazeirony wrote: post #11

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #10

Not like that

huh. reading the piece it seems pretty reasonable relatively (we clearly are living in an interesting moment...) speaking. what exactly are you commenting 'not like that' about? or are you (e.g.,) a federal contractor yourself?

If you eliminate the contractors, the work doesn't get done. So either you give up on getting the things done (which is illegal, since the things are federal law) or you nationalize the contractors (which will save some money, but not the entire current budget).

We can definitely save some money if we stop demonizing federal employees, and imagining that we can improve it by creating a new layer of middle-men by privatizing the same work. But for that matter, we could save a lot of money by taking what the government does seriously, instead of as a combination football, whipping-boy, and trough.