DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by ncallaway » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:50 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #313

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…

FWIW many people who believe that federal spending is out of control would say the same about 1970s.

Can someone who says federal spending has been out of control for the last 50 years point to a time period when it was _in_ control?

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

#422

Post by Jedd » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:50 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #400

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 US population is aging, which means that 36% slice is going to naturally grow. What do you think should be cut, and how? Old people [1], veterans [2], high earners and homeowners [3] turn out to vote. The only demographic we can cut benefits to are the poor. That's what's happening. (Given partisan polarisation, my guess is Democrats will take an axe to veteran benefits next cycle.) > Why shouldn't the health i…

> Health insurance is orthogonal to federal spending.

As an Australian looking at the USA - I'm not sure how you make that claim sincerely.

Perhaps you're constraining it specifically to 'insurance', rather than the only slightly broader question of private health coverage. It still feels like a tenuous claim, given parent's valid point about health costs at the federal level, and intimation around the poor comparison to almost all the other advanced nation states on the planet.

> Be honest and say why shouldn't corporations pay more. The answer to that is it's an inefficient way of taxing the wealthy ...

You seem to be conflating corporations with wealthy people.

Taxing corporations more has been shown - in your country, albeit some decades ago - to be both eminently achievable and effective.

Taxing corporations less has, in recent years, demonstrated clearly how poor a decision that is.

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

#423

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:50 PM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #414

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US population is aging, which means that 36% slice is going to naturally grow. What do you think should be cut, and how? Old people [1], veterans [2], high earners and homeowners [3] turn out to vote. The only demographic we can cut benefits to are the poor. That's what's happening. (Given partisan polarisation, my guess is Democrats will take an axe to veteran benefits next cycle.) > Why shouldn't the health i…

> 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't losing anything by them. Meanwhile, the resources they're getting could help you gain votes (or turnouts) with others.

[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1363-7.html

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/30/military-...

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

#424

Post by oezi » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:51 PM UTC

sbochins wrote: post #195

MisterKent wrote: post #29

Two points that are often missed: 1. Perfectly tracking every dollar is more expensive than having some slack in the system. There's an optimal amount, at least from an overall value perspective. 2. We spend too much, and both sides of the aisle repeatedly blocked attempts to curb spending for literal decades while our debt got higher. That's how someone doing something coming in with a hatchet and no plan to build g…

This is a silly charade. To actually cut the debt, it requires congress. Not just saving a couple millions dollars and posting on twitter about it. We’ll need to cut Medicare, Medicaid, social security, the military, etc. All the popular stuff that was never easy and will never be easy to cut. We’re not spending 2 trillion per year on condoms.

What I don't understand is why they want to cut the debt or the budget. Previous terms have shown that increasing spending and racking up debts isn't leading to loss of polls. Why are Trump and Elon going on this cutting spree instead of doling out tax cuts and increasing pork to their constituents on borrowed money?

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

#425

Post by mlsu » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

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…

Corporate income tax is a bad idea. It should be cut to zero.

If you run a corporation, and a larger tax bill comes, you will keep your own salary (hence, wealth) and either pass the tax onto your employees or cut employee benefits/jobs to afford the tax.

With corporate tax in effect what you are doing is handing the responsibility of allocating obligations to the owners/controllers of the corporation. They will definitely choose to pay the tax in a regressive manner.

Instead what must be done is a progressive income tax, enforced evenly, even for owners of corporations. Unsurprisingly, what we are seeing today is an immense tax cut for high earners.

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

#426

Post by cwalv » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

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…

> 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, and how?

Given the complexity in the details, I don't think a 'serious discussion' about this is even possible in this forum. But if the question is 'do you think an effort should be made to look for things to cut', I'd say 'yes, of course.'

> Why shouldn't the health insurance industry be the first item on the chopping block?

Absolutely, it should be looked at! I don't think it's a trivial problem to solve, but as RFK was confirmed as the secretary of HHS we should expect a lot of scrutiny on big pharma and insurers.

> Why shouldn't corporations .. be paying their fair share to keep the national debt in check?

By definition of 'fair', they should. But again, tax receipts falling as a % of GDP isn't evidence that they're not.

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

#427

Post by ncallaway » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

xdavidliu wrote: post #320

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…

> Why shouldn't the health insurance industry be the first item on the chopping block? I don't understand this question: how can the private companies in the industry be placed on the chopping block? By outlawing them?

If the government offered a public option for medicare at rates that were sustainable for the government, but significantly below market prices for health insurance companies, that could be a real danger to health insurance companies.

So that's what I'd like to see happen.

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

#428

Post by oezi » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

James_K wrote: post #343

MisterKent wrote: post #29

Two points that are often missed: 1. Perfectly tracking every dollar is more expensive than having some slack in the system. There's an optimal amount, at least from an overall value perspective. 2. We spend too much, and both sides of the aisle repeatedly blocked attempts to curb spending for literal decades while our debt got higher. That's how someone doing something coming in with a hatchet and no plan to build g…

2 is not a fact in the slightest. The American government is guilty of under-investment in perhaps every area outside of military. The notion of bipartisan climbing public debt is also false. Bill Clinton brought the government into running and Democrats have had consistently better budget responsibility than Republicans, though the reason for this is more that the Dems fund government through taxes where the Republi…

So why are the Republicans now trying to reign-in the spending? It worked well for them in the past to rely on debt. Why should they care now?

Is it about funneling this money into their tax cut? Why not just run up more debt?

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

#429

Post by oezi » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:53 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #329

MisterKent wrote: post #29

Two points that are often missed: 1. Perfectly tracking every dollar is more expensive than having some slack in the system. There's an optimal amount, at least from an overall value perspective. 2. We spend too much, and both sides of the aisle repeatedly blocked attempts to curb spending for literal decades while our debt got higher. That's how someone doing something coming in with a hatchet and no plan to build g…

The people coming in with a hatchet are not planning to reduce spending. They’re planning to use any money saved to fund an enormous tax cut that will primarily benefit the very rich. https://www.courant.com/2025/02/12/congress-budget-tax-cuts/

They didn't need to cut so aggressively the first time around when they did the previous tax cuts, didn't they?

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

#430

Post by naasking » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:57 PM UTC

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?

1. Aren't shareholders already taxed? Maybe revise how they are directly taxed instead of indirectly taxing them again which they can compensate for (see point 2).

2. Aren't corporate taxes simply passed on as costs to customers and employees as lower pay and benefits? Maybe that's the opposite of what should happen, see point 1.

One loop hole that I think is more important to close is taking loans against volatile assets. This lets the very wealthy live lavish lifestyles without apparent income on any balance sheet, and so no tax owed. ProPublica documented this a few years ago IIRC.