USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources • Hacker News Board

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#271

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #261

Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

I think there are players who expressly want the U.S. government not to have a surplus, due to the political connections/ramifictions/control debt can bring.

That's not only true now, it's been true all the way back to Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton (although the goals weren't entirely the same at that time, obviously).

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#272

Post by hackuser » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

dandare wrote: post #70

Dear USA Facts team, we would like to offer you few hints for public spending visualizations based on our experience. We are the creators of https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016 . - Government spending is only a small part of the public finance. People need to see all public organisations: states and cities, departments, offices, bureaus and agencies, schools, hospital and prisons and obviously all…

I don't think this comment is particularly helpful. Sure there different ways to slice and dice this but the data set was previously unavailable anywhere . Let's just be happy that you can get some of this information today without having to drive around scanning paper documents.

> Let's just be happy that you can get some of this information today ...

When else have HN users adopted that approach?: 'Let's just be happy with what we have, and not criticize.'

These are constructive, very informative points; in fact, they may be the most informative in this discussion.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#273

Post by sytelus » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

_pastel wrote: post #208

Can anyone give me some intuition into why 77k people are employed by the Social Security Administration? [1] That's bigger than Google, and I didn't think their scope was that wide. [1] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/employment?compariso... under "Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity". The combined count is "n/a" - maybe that's because the State & Local count has some overlap with…

More wonderful fact: Government employes 24 million people. This include state and federal and all jobs paid for by government such as teachers. So about 1 in every 6 person works for government.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#274

Post by tunesmith » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:07 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #248

tunesmith wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of seeing what you want to see. According to the Trustees Report, SS is only in deficit if you don't factor in interest income. [1] It's projected to deplete its trust fund in 2034. Please resist the urge to argue that the trust fund doesn't exist. That 2034 date can easily be extended through minor tweaks, check out any of the ideas from the late Robert M. Ball. The flat tax is regressive. Reg…

>Please resist the urge to argue that the trust fund doesn't exist. Except it doesn't. The only way to for SS to collect from the trust fund is from the general fund. That means that in order for SS to get $1 from the general fund: A) Raise non-SS taxes $1 to go into the general fund. B) Cut $1 of other spending from the general fund. C) Increase the deficit by $1

For the benefit of those who actually don't know, the reason this doesn't hold water is because:

A) The trust fund is in surplus from payroll (FICA) taxes.

B) The general fund is in deficit from income tax cuts.

C) Most income tax cut benefits go to richer people.

So if someone argues that trust fund doesn't exist, they are arguing that revenue from payroll taxes should finance tax cuts for those richer than them. Effectively transferring money from poor to rich.

Keep this in mind as the Social Security caterwauling starts to increase around 2019 (when SS is expected to start needing money from the trust fund). People will argue that Social Security needs to be cut because of that deficit. Most of those people know better and are being intellectually dishonest.

2034 is the actual challenge, but again, there are reasonable fixes to that - for instance, gradually raising the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security, or creating a new residual estate tax and dedicating it to Social Security. Democrats also like the idea of raising the upper limit, which will also work and is an easier sell but less defensible philosophically.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#275

Post by tunesmith » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #201

tunesmith wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of seeing what you want to see. According to the Trustees Report, SS is only in deficit if you don't factor in interest income. [1] It's projected to deplete its trust fund in 2034. Please resist the urge to argue that the trust fund doesn't exist. That 2034 date can easily be extended through minor tweaks, check out any of the ideas from the late Robert M. Ball. The flat tax is regressive. Reg…

> The flat tax is regressive. Strictly speaking, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation and is neither progressive nor regressive.

It is regressive when compared to the idea that the value of money is roughly logarithmic as it increases.

$5000 means more to a working class person than a billionaire. If taxation should take an equal amount of value from each, then a flat percentage is comparatively regressive.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#276

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:12 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #90

logfromblammo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more precisely, by the lack of census data in years where no actual enumeration is performed. The big jumps on census years indicate that the census department does not estimate accurately when working with 9-year-old data.

What you're saying doesn't match the reality of what is actually shown in the graph at http://usafacts.org/metrics/12966 They aren't jumps suddenly correcting a bad estimate with new data. They are gigantic 25% spikes which are then immediately undone. There is no way to explain this chart by just saying that estimates worsen over time.

Depending on the estimate, the most recent census data might not be fully incorporated into the model until several years following the census?

I can't look at your link at the moment because the corporate firewall is currently blocking the domain.

But there really isn't any way to get around the fact that real census data are only collected once every 10 years (and the 1890 census was burned, so that point is missing).

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#277

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #272

ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this comment is particularly helpful. Sure there different ways to slice and dice this but the data set was previously unavailable anywhere . Let's just be happy that you can get some of this information today without having to drive around scanning paper documents.

> Let's just be happy that you can get some of this information today ... When else have HN users adopted that approach?: 'Let's just be happy with what we have, and not criticize.' These are constructive, very informative points; in fact, they may be the most informative in this discussion.

In the context of public spending data available anywhere, perhaps. As commentary on someone who just took $10M of their own money and created availability of data that didn't exist before? Not as useful.

In re-reading both the USAFacts.org page and dandare's comment I really don't see how dandare's criticisms of what data USAFacts made available, what reports they made out of as _demonstrators_ of the data set, and its lack of data outside the US (it is 'USAfacts.org' not 'WorldFacts.org' after all) to be at all helpful or relevant to the USAFacts.org announcement.

That said, I would love to see a 'Show HN:' page where the Wikibudgets folks took the USAFacts.org data and added wonderful visualizations and tools to provide additional insights into the data set.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#278

Post by brianberns » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #159

brianberns wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a pretty good analogy to be made between legislation and software. The Constitution is the "operating system" of the US government, and the laws are "applications" that run on that OS. If an application attempts to do something not permitted by the OS, it should be an error.

So, the system is full of users, each of whom want different features to be supported by the OS. And some features are needed to protect subsets of the users, while other users not so much. What seems to be happening is, some of the users don't want certain features implemented. In order to stop these features, they are claiming that the OS design specifically forbids these features. But the OS is software. And the u…

Changing the OS is fine, but there's only one way to do it: via constitutional amendment. Merely wanting it to say something different is not sufficient. The users have to follow the official enhancement process.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#279

Post by computerphage » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #273

_pastel wrote: post #208

Can anyone give me some intuition into why 77k people are employed by the Social Security Administration? [1] That's bigger than Google, and I didn't think their scope was that wide. [1] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/employment?compariso... under "Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity". The combined count is "n/a" - maybe that's because the State & Local count has some overlap with…

More wonderful fact: Government employes 24 million people. This include state and federal and all jobs paid for by government such as teachers. So about 1 in every 6 person works for government.

Number of "people" in the us: 318.9 million (2014) => more like 1 in 13. Also, I'm pretty sure that 24 million figure includes the military.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#280

Post by dragontamer » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

> My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclusion. The way Social Security works is not sustainable. Period. Something has to give. A $405 B shortfall on SS in 2015. If that was at least half, we would actually not be running a deficit. We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept.

We've literally spent the last 30 years building up the Social Security Trust Fund.

We have just under $3 TRILLION saved up for the expected social security shortfall. People are living a bit longer than expected, so we're a bit short on money.

But the USA has run a social security SURPLUS from between 1980 through 2014. Believe it or not, the US Government is actually very long-term thinking and we are somewhat prepared for the future.

------------

Yes, so thank Jimmy Carter in 1977 for coming up with the idea to save money for 2010+. The "Baby Boomers" are now retiring, so its natural for us to lose money until the Baby Boomers die out. The question is if the Trust Fund can last long enough (ie: until enough Boomers die)