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DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

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

#941

Post by ave_b_2011 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #469
thrance wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, that's basic class consciousness on Musk's part. The American people simply forgot that billionaires' interests are diametrically opposed to theirs, a fact they knew well in FDR's time. Hopefully this situation will act as a booster shot, and not slip into full-blow oligarchy.

He doesn't have "class consciousness." He has consciousness of his own interests. That is what pretty much everyone has.

The rich undoubtedly have class consciousness. They understand they gain when tax cuts are made and loans are given out.

Then they turn around and propagandize against class consciousness for the rest of us.

Unions need to make bigger a comeback before I can believe that the working class has class consciousness.

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

#942

Post by fzeroracer »

newzisgud wrote: post #908
fzeroracer wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers and employees are not burdened by corporate taxes and this can be shown by a simple equivalence. Savings and profits are not passed onto customers OR employees, they're pocketed by wealthy investors and the c-suite.

Who 'pockets' the profits is not relevant. Fact is corporations exist to generate profit, and they will do anything to protect those profits - including using any loophole, accounting process, business model, or pricing strategy to protect said profits. A simple/common form of this subversion is giving the c-suite ungodly salaries such that there are no profits, on the books at least, to be taxed. In that case, and b…

Who pockets the profit is absolutely relevant because you are arguing that companies externalize all costs and pass them onto the consumer/employee.

In a world you imagine where there are 0 taxes on corporations, how do you punish said corporation for malicious behavior or actions? Because by similar logic, any monetary punishment is useless and results in them simply passing it down. Do you punish the people working there? Who do you choose to punish, especially if the people responsible are gone and dead?

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

#943

Post by nobodyandproud »

newzisgud wrote: post #906
nobodyandproud wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do. Why should we burden our productive populous with tax on their income, tax on their workplace before they even get paid, inflation due to government spending, etc? I can answer this one: Corporations come with a veil, to shield risk takers from financial liability and ruin. That’s normally good, as we want to encourage business. But the corpor…

Most of the problems you call out here would be addressed by actually enforcing anti-trust laws, which is something we need to get way better at on both sides of the political isle.

And how do you expect enforcement of anti-trust laws to happen without headcount and money?

The Chicago school Republicans were responsible for dismantling and starving the institutions meant to enforce these laws; then every Republican did their part to help install judges hostile to said laws. This has been going on for 40 or more years.

The MAGA conservatives are actively allied with these pro-monopoly conservatives, willfully blind, and instead just blame “the other side”.

I agree bi-partisan work is needed here, but pretending this will happen when one party is actively undermining the effort is bad-faith smoke-and-mirrors.

Unless, of course, we take the dictatorship route and ignore rule-of-law and checks-and-balances… (for the record, which I’m very much opposed to).

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

#944

Post by frankish »

bitcoin_anon wrote: post #925
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. 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 the 1970s, with the main deviation in the past few years coming from the after-effects of the pandemic? [1] Why do you choose 1970 as a baseline? Federal spending is absolutely out of control when co…

Exactly this IMO. Federal government is way too big. I would be more sympathetic if we moved most of these concerns to a more local level of government. Trying to have a one-size-fits-all approach for the whole country is what causes so much polarization. Let the ideas be run as experiments more locally, so that people can more easily vote with their feet and wallets. I have never actually gotten a chance to vote how my tax dollars are used.

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

#945

Post by stouset »

caminante wrote: post #939
stouset wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.' This is such an unbelievably lazy response. Every single person in existence thinks there’s some amount of government waste that we wish were cut and either returned to the citizens or put to better use elsewhere. The interesting and important question which GP poijted out—and which you completely dod…

> The interesting and important question which GP poijted out—and which you completely dodged—is where and what should be cut. This is false on a substantive level. The parent challenged (1) the premise that federal spend should scale and with GDP and (2) whether current healthcare cost levels are justified. It's also notable that you redacted a key part of the parent's quote. Here's the full quote: > Given the compl…

All sorts of complex discussions are had here on a daily basis. This topic is no different.

Using that as an excuse to ignore the actual question which was asked so you can throw yourself the softest of softballs is what is unbelievably lazy.

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

#947

Post by ethagknight »

stouset wrote: post #692
cwalv wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, an…

> 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.' This is such an unbelievably lazy response. Every single person in existence thinks there’s some amount of government waste that we wish were cut and either returned to the citizens or put to better use elsewhere. The interesting and important question which GP poijted out—and which you completely dod…

“Cut all of it” is a serious response. Yes, cut a significant percentage of government spend across the board. Reduce my taxes. Let me decide how and where to reinvest my capital and how and where to give my charity.

The fact that DOGE is only focused on the items it has access to is not a logical critique of DOGE’s effort.

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

#948

Post by Barracoon »

cuuupid wrote: post #880
scintill76 wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up Palantir is funny to me. I don’t know enough gossip on Musk and Thiel’s relationship, but if I did I would bet it would solely determine the outcome of a hypothetical DOGE investigation into Palantir contracts. It seems from a sibling comment I’m not alone. If we’re right, DOGE isn’t going to eliminate government waste and corruption, just move it around. We’re not gaslit into thinking everything was fine…

I think for many people, this is the first exposure to audits and spending reduction in govt. So judging on an absolute scale, yeah DOGE is not doing a great job. Judging on a relative scale to past attempts and the existing 5(!) agencies with the sole purpose of auditing and reducing spending, DOGE looks amazing and has gotten farther in 1 month than everyone else combined over 20 years. It is an immensely difficult…

This assumes that DOGE has actually found something in their "audit", which seems dubious given TFA

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

#949

Post by rainsford »

cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

I don't think the complaint is that all government spending is good or that cutting waste would be bad. The objection is that they're not cutting the kinds of things you're talking about and their approach seems fundamentally unlikely to do so.

Finding things like solutions nobody is using or systems that are far more complicated than they need to be is worthwhile if you're goal is removing waste and increasing efficiency. But it also takes in-depth analysis by people who understand the context. You're definitely not finding it with just raw budget access and first principles from people with little relevant experience. Same goes for employees. There are definitely poor performers or people doing unnecessary things, but you're not dealing with those cases if your approach is just to fire all the new employees.

It's not that this approach is an imperfect solution to a legitimate problem, it's not a solution to the problem at all. Instead, it's basically about redefining a hard problem (identifying and addressing waste and inefficiency) into an easy problem (have less stuff) and then trying to solve that one. Which is great if your goal is to declare victory, but it doesn't actually address the original problem of efficiency.

I find it frustrating because I agree with you that the government is absolutely not perfectly efficient and it would be great if there was a concerted effort to improve the situation. But not only is that not what's happening, this approach seems likely to make things worse given that random chaos and disruption are generally the enemies of efficiency and it seems likely all this will make it harder for the government to attract or retain the best, most efficient employees.

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

#950

Post by achierius »

ethagknight wrote: post #947
stouset wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.' This is such an unbelievably lazy response. Every single person in existence thinks there’s some amount of government waste that we wish were cut and either returned to the citizens or put to better use elsewhere. The interesting and important question which GP poijted out—and which you completely dod…

“Cut all of it” is a serious response. Yes, cut a significant percentage of government spend across the board. Reduce my taxes. Let me decide how and where to reinvest my capital and how and where to give my charity. The fact that DOGE is only focused on the items it has access to is not a logical critique of DOGE’s effort.

But you know what effect that would have, yes? You (or rather the aggregate "you", i.e. the average American tax-payer) wouldn't give nearly as much to charity as you currently pay in taxes -- and that's even taking into account the fact that Americans are some of the most charitable people on the planet (in financial terms).

So people who are currently struggling, and rely on government assistance to get by? They will struggle more. People who fall on hard times, and need a bit of help to get back on their feet? Much less likely to get it.

We live in an era of unprecedented abundance. That we are unwilling, that our system is unable, to provide even a basic standard of living for all of our citizens -- that on its own is already a deep, deep, condemnation of how we do things. To go even further, to destroy the bits of aid we do give out, without even trying to replace or rebuild them?

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