> 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 dodged—is where and what should be cut. DOGE is looking at the set of government spending that accounts for less than 9% in aggregate of the entire federal budget. At best if they found that 10% of this money was abuse, it would account to less than 1% of the overall federal budget.
This isn’t about reducing government spending. If it was, they’d be going after larger targets. It’s about fulfilling their long-stated wet dream of finally drowning the government in a bathtub.
As I recall, the reasons are to: "form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"
Whether all that was sincere or not is not the question: that was the promise I learned. 'Common defense' is well taken care of ... unlike 'general welfare' and/or liberty, particularly for 'our posterity'
Good point! I’m not a constitutional scholar but I think basically all of those except “general welfare” are related to defense and peacekeeping.
I’d forgotten about “general welfare” and now I wonder how that got in there considering it didn’t really make it anywhere else in the founding vision.
Maybe they didn’t intend it like our modern reading at all?
“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?
Meh. It’s provable over and over that excess government creates a charity trap for the vulnerable. it is my direct and repeated experience working with various charities, an unwillingness to leave government programs is what holds so many people in poverty.
I am more than happy to discuss a re-written Social Security net for American citizens who are truly struggling, but not those looking for lifelong paycheck for nothing. Today we have a grossly abused, wildly expensive, and unbudgetable aid program. And it’s all by design.
We can by all means cut fraud written systems today with plans to add back the necessary functions later. Rewrite and consolidate for the modern era.
“Cut all of it” is a lazy and exceptionally dangerous response.
There are an enormous number of government services for which the benefit to society is straight multiples of the cost. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is an phenomenally efficient way to make sure we all suddenly start paying more.
For a blindingly obvious example, see universal healthcare (or more specifically, our country’s lack of it). As the one developed economy without it, we pay multiples of what other people do for worse results. Consider me not particularly enthusiastic about finding out what else we can start paying more for to receive worse results.
> The fact that DOGE is only focused on the items it has access to is not a logical critique of DOGE’s effort.
Of course it fucking is. Just like it is, was, and continues to be a valid critique that California asking residents to cut back on water use when the aggregate of all urban use counts for about 8% of the water is a pointless waste of time, resources, and political energy.
Instead of actually tackling deficits and government spending, they’re putting on a show while cutting to the bone extremely valuable services we rely on. NOAA and FAA are critical for air travel. NASA, the NSF, and scientific research funding in general are critical for our continued technological dominance and for attracting the best and brightest to our country. The CFPB has done incredible work in protecting individual consumers from the worst of banking practices. The parks service, USFS, and everything else under the department of the interior protect our remaining natural spaces which can never be reclaimed once lost.
This is just a microscopic fraction of what’s being dismantled in front of our eyes, and all for the “benefit” of pointlessly saving relative pennies.
For fuck’s sake, as a high-earning, wealthy taxpayer: tax me more. And anyone who’s in the upper echelons of our economy that isn’t saying this while seeing the conditions the rest of our country and world live in is unbelievably narrow-minded, ignorant, selfish, straight up evil, or more likely a combination of all the above.
This is the ideological divide, and I voted one way, you voted the other way. The divide: you believe more taxes is the solution, despite today's taxes being hire than any point in US history. Taxes per capita have ballooned over the US's history. I believe today's government is in the business of self justification, that if we take $1 away from some program, society as we know it grinds to a halt.
The switch in your argument to "it's just a drop in the bucket" is odd to me. For one, I hope the same sentiment carries over to other components of government. Massive rein-in of spend. FAA has not been canceled; instead, its unchecked spending is being challenged. Same for the rest of these programs. FAA's 2025 budget is nearly 4x the 1995 budget, despite serving roughly the same number of airports. There may be 30% more flights today than in 1995, with all those occurring at the same airports we had back in 1995. How do you explain a 4x mission scope creep? Inflation address a bit, but ATC should be getting more efficient with technology, not more complicated.
The real answer, theres a lot of misappropriated funding and spending that needs to be reeled in. It is ok to disagree, I nonetheless adjure you to voluntarily pay more taxes.
This is quite an attack, to say if I dont agree with you, then I am a combination of these things:
>>anyone who’s in the upper echelons of our economy that isn’t saying this while seeing the conditions the rest of our country and world live in is unbelievably narrow-minded, ignorant, selfish, straight up evil, or more likely a combination of all the above.
1. Taxes are not charity. That isn't a legitimate position and saying that will rightfully get you laughed at. You rely on taxes HEAVILY. The Interstate system alone cost us 25 Trillion dollars and I know you drive a car.
2. Your taxes will not be lower. If that's your goal I don't know what to tell you.
> 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 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.'
If this type of opinion is getting eviscerated in the comments, maybe the problem is with the opinion itself and not the forum on which it's being expressed.
If your goal is to 'eviscerate' an opinion, you shouldn't be surprised when people don't engage. If the objective of a debater is to get the other side to simply shut up, they're missing the real value of debate. They might think they've 'won the debate' by getting others to stop talking, but in reality they'll keep thinking the way they do, and just exclude you from the conversation.
You'll only learn how they really think when you see election outcomes, or which side they're standing on when it's 'ok' to dissent, and by then it's too late.
I’m sorry that you feel that shallow and uninformed opinions need to be coddled.
As an analogy, if someone comes in and says global warming isn’t happening, the goal isn’t to eviscerate that opinion. That is the outcome of the opinion being wholly inconsistent with the corpus of scientific data collected up to this point.
Bad takes get the respect they deserve. If getting hammered with difficult questions in response is too much to handle, maybe it’s time to reevaluate them. If you aren’t the type to reconsider opinions in the face of difficult questions, you’re sadly correct that an open forum for discourse probably isn’t the right place for you to be.
The stakes are too high at this point. We’re diving headfirst into a climate crisis, the U.S. government is possibly irreversibly on the path to a complete authoritarian takeover, we’re on the verge of allowing the destruction of our remaining natural heritage, and crucial functions of our government are being dismantled without any scrutiny while being egged on by the least well-informed half of the electorate. I am done pulling my punches on those who champion this shit.
> I’m sorry that you feel that shallow and uninformed opinions need to be coddled
I'm not saying any opinions need to be coddled. I'm saying that while you may interpret your interactions as 'eviscerating', I doubt if others interpret it that way.
> the goal isn’t to eviscerate that opinion. That is the outcome
Are you sure that's the outcome?
> If getting hammered with difficult questions in response is too much to handle, maybe it’s time to reevaluate them
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 dodged—is where and what should be cut. DOGE is looking at the set of government spending that accounts for less than 9% in aggregate of the entire federal budget. At best if they found that 10% of this money was abuse, it would account to less than 1% of the overall federal budget.
This isn’t about reducing government spending. If it was, they’d be going after larger targets. It’s about fulfilling their long-stated wet dream of finally drowning the government in a bathtub.