U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio reaches 123%

Which ones were working?

> Demonstrably not today you aren't,

> Running out of even the wrong munitions for a fight against China, still means you've got nothing left even for other smaller conflicts where those weapons would have been useful.

That's not necessarily true and it's easy to demonstrate without getting in to specific numbers.

> Before munitions started to get depleted, the 2023 war games I've seen said the US would lose a significant number of ships almost immediately, including 2 aircraft carriers in the baseline. That's a scenario where Taiwan is still successfully defended.

Which war-games have you seen?

Separately, of course the US would lose significant amounts of military hardware if a conflict were to, unfortunately, unfold against China. Perhaps you and the Chinese now are under the childish delusion that they can bomb others and not be bombed back? What do you think will happen if China attacks, say, Kadena or Osan?

> But 2023 was before Ukraine scaled drones to the level of saturation attacks. Unless you've got a much better anti-drone defence solution than anyone knows about yet, you'd likely lose every ship you send, and China wouldn't even need to be at sea to perform the attacks.

What's the range on those drones? Talk to me about the US's anti-drone capabilities. Are you familiar with the specific weapons implemented on US naval ships? I think you're just making stuff up.

> All that said, "Circumstances are different" is both true and not hugely important to the argument I made: wars continue until one party reaches their pain threshold, and the US has a really low pain threshold compared to Iran.

I reject non-specific comparisons to Vietnam. I've already said as a matter of fact (not for debate) why those comparisons don't work.

You are right that the US has done a poor job of selling the importance of the war, but again you are mistaken in understanding the ability for the US to stomach higher gas prices versus the ability of people in Iran to not have an economy at all. It's only tolerable for so long.

> Nope, you're currently stuck there. You don't have to be, but you are.

We're not though we can just leave and give Iran control. We won't and shouldn't do that, but we can. So, factually you are wrong here.

> Stop them from what, exactly?

Supplying drones to Russia to bomb Ukrainians - that's reason enough in my mind. But stop them from building a nuclear bomb, stop them from increasing their missile and drone stockpiles even further so then we simply can't do anything when they decide to take over Hormuz, stop the funding of their proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen Syria, Lebanon, and other areas which are causing destabilization and death for no benefit. There are plenty of things.

The thing they only started doing in response to a coordinated strike from the US and Israel?

This is really either disingenuous or actively anti-historical in interpretation. Even if you wanted to discard every single event prior to 2022, you can look back at Iran's proxies and their attack on Israel as a continued chain of events. The war didn't just randomly happen in an isolated environment.

> Ukraine did this all by itself, you will notice.

Did what?

If you don’t care about those specific items, then why are you defending them as representing the broader point? They are not true, therefore they do not support your broader point. If you care about the government wasting money, you should care about whether the examples are true or not, and you should reject misleading and bad faith claims because they will cause people to label you as a political shill, and more importantly they might impede fixing any real actual spending waste.

If you want to reduce waste, it’s critically important that the list of waste be factually accurate. Otherwise, you’re adding to the waste and not reducing it. If you can’t make an honest and true list of waste, it calls into question whether there is any such waste, it directly challenges your broader point.

The list @bilsbie provided is a list that Elon Musk retweeted, and Elon Musk has at this point earned a reputation as a fabulist when it comes to government spending and efficiency, he has lost nearly all good will and has done damage and caused additional government waste without fixing any problems.

> Wasn’t one of those goat yoga? […] should the government sponsor such “scientific” research?

The government DID NOT sponsor goat yoga. It’s a fabricated false claim.

There is a 50+ year history of bogus political attacks on science funding, which is why I keep bringing up the Golden Goose Awards. The fact is, science funding is not wasting money. Unless there’s dishonesty involved, there are no small science grants you can point at that demonstrate government waste, you’re looking in the wrong place.

We do need to care about waste, but we need to care about the big waste first. The war in Iran has wasted more money this week than @bilsbie’s entire list (even if they were true, which they aren’t).

If we had congress enact a law to ban studying goat yoga with federal funds, what would we achieve? We would have spent several million dollars to battle a problem that does not exist. We would waste money.

FWIW your language about “waste” is coming off as being pretty naive. Your conception of the problem is too vague to be actionable. That’s why we need real examples. As I mentioned above, you seem to be focused purely on spending while completely ignoring any ROI.

You’re also failing to prioritize, as many people here are trying to point out. Fixing the small line items before the big ones would be a massive waste of tax dollars. We can’t fix the small ones until we fix the big ones.

The list Musk & @bilsbie forwarded is not actually a list of waste in the sense you’re talking about, it’s a politically motivated statement about our country’s goals. The actual intent behind that list and the many many such lists started by Proxmire and amplified by Fox News and Republicans over the years is to cut science funding. They have said so explicitly. It’s trying to sow public mistrust, and convey the idea that we need different goals, not that certain line items are inefficient.

It seems to be working, you clearly don’t trust that funds are scrutinized properly. But do you actually know how the funds are allocated, and what processes currently exist to minimize and prevent waste?

Yes, you did. You gave that impression when you said OP was right to point out the list of specific items.

People weren’t disagreeing that small items exist, they were pointing out that worrying about them doesn’t fix very much waste, which is true. So they were also right.

If you aren’t going to come up with true examples, and you aren’t interested in what’s true, what’s broken or how to actually fix the problem, what value is your opinion, right or wrong? If you don’t care what’s true, then why should anyone else care if you’re right about something? And why would I think you’re right when you refuse to bring any actual evidence?

I’m trying to invite you to do more than repeat yourself, and provide some more thoughtful ideas on how to improve government efficiency, and how to evaluate inefficiency. I do work for a company, and my company wastes some money. All companies do. As others pointed out, it’s not possible to avoid some amount of “waste”. This is why it’s important to understand the waste. Without understanding, you have nothing and can’t fix it.