Double :rolleyes: . News flash: The U.S. Constitution is not the first and last word on what is or is not a legitimate government function. It’s not even a word anywhere in the middle. (Remember, when you frame the debate in those terms, as you have, you are speaking of the scope of legitimate functions of all government – national, state and local.) The Founders did not know/think of everything, and the Census is an essential government function for many reasons that would never have occurred to them. And so is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The concept of labor statistics hardly existed in 1787. But in the modern world, our public decisionmakers need a lot more reliable information than they did then.
No, it isn’t, Renob.
BTW, check out this new thread – “Correlation between education funding and performance?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362355
Brain, you claimed that collecting labor statistics is a government function in the same way the Census is. Since the Census is explicitly authorized by the Constitution and we base our House of Representatives on it, I think my point about the Constitution is completely valid.
The right to petition for a redress of grievances. That’s 18th century-speak for lobbying.
You misconstrued my point. It is almost irrelevant that the Census is explicitly authorized by the Constitution. What matters is, we need a Census, and taking a census is something no reasonable person would characterize as “not a legitimate government function.” And the same with collection of labor statistics, or economic information and statistics of any kind.
No it isn’t Renob. Keeping a paid staff of professional political consultants (and/or former officeholders) in the capital full-time for the express purpose of collaring/entertaining/influencing legislators? No, I don’t think that has any slightest thing to do with what the drafters of the 1st Amendment in mind.
So you are saying I’m not a “reasonable person”? Obviously if it were so cut-and-dried, then we wouldn’t be having this debate, would we?
I can think of no legitimate need for the government to collect statistical information, except for the composition of the House of Representatives.
Yes, it does. Since the average citizen cannot be in DC full-time, it makes sense for him/her to pay someone to be there to look after his/her interests. It’s simply a more advanced way to petition for a redress of grievances.
The problem nowadays is that goverment has much more power than it did then, so there is more money to be made from lobbying government. The growth of all these agencies is why we have a lobbying crisis.
Um, why exactly? If we want to increase education spending, and we want to cut military spending, why not do both at once? Doesn’t it make more sense to say “We’re going to get the money to spend on education from X,” rather then “Let’s spend more money on education! How are we gonna pay for it? That’s what deficits are for!”
More seriously, I think the idea is that if you just propose a big spending bill for education and other social causes, it probably won’t pass. But if you show people the money is already in the budget, arguably going to waste . . . well, it probably won’t pass anyway, but I think it makes a stronger case.
So what are these reasons? Labor statistics are not gathered from door to door surveys, like the national census. They’re not vital to a government function, like apportionment in the House. I dispute that we actually “need” labor statistics in any meaningful way, but even if we do, the government isn’t tasked with satisfying all of our “needs.” We need food, but the provision of food to citizens isn’t a government function.
Why is tracking the labor market more governmental in nature than tracking the stock market? See, e.g., S&P 500, Russell 2000, etc. Why is the gathering of information about the labor market more governmental than gathering information about the mood of consumers and the electorate? See, e.g., Gallup, Zogby, etc.
Why are labor statistics an essential government function? Why can’t it be performed by private entities? In fact, isn’t the function also performed by private entities?
No, its not impossible for the government to do ANYTHING successful. It does quite a bit successfully…if not optimally efficiently.
You don’t seem to get the point I was making. Essentially you (and others who support this) wish to take the money (supposedly) being inefficiently used in defense and put it into a series of equally (or IMHO more) inefficient social programs. I don’t see how $60 billion would be ‘an enormous shot in the arm’ to the programs mentioned…THEIR budget is quite a bit more than that. Not to mention the fact that they ALREADY have very large budgets and aren’t really giving us a good return on our collective investment…which I have to say our military IS, for all its inefficiencies.
Oh, it has the power to help people alright. I’m not denying that. Its just not the optimal INSTRUMENT to help in all cases…nor do I see it as the reason to have a government. I don’t want the government to HELP me, except in emergencies or in the case of foreign invasion etc. Thats not what I see as the proper role for the government. Obviously YMMV but understand that not everyone sees it that way…so in future keep the sarcasm to a minimum. 
-XT
Because by linking two seperate ideas together, you make it twice as difficult to get the bill enacted. There might be pro-defense congressmen who would have voted for an education bill but won’t support a cut in military spending. There might be budget hawk congressmen who would have voted to cut military spending but wouldn’t support seeing the money just get redistributed to another program.
Actually, their budget isn’t quite a bit more than that. $60 billion dollars is an enormous amount of money for pretty much any federal program except the military. Only the military (with its $442 billion budget) is so massive that it could conceivably waste $60 billion dollars.
Lets break that money down. According to the page I linked to in the OP, the federal government currently spends $49 billion on children’s healthcare. The bill would increase that funding by $10 billion, or 20.4%. According to that same page, the federal government spends $39 billion on K-12 education. The bill would increase that funding by $10 billion, or 25.6%. It would increase humanitarian foreign aid funding from $10 billion to $23 billion, an increase of 130%. IT would increase funding for job training programs from $7 billion to $12 billion, an increase of 71.4%. It would increase funding for the effort to increase our energy efficiency, develop renewable energy alternatives and reduce our dependence on foreign oil from $2 billion to $12 billion, an increase of 500%. I’m not sure what our current budget for homeland security is, but $5 billion dollars extra is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is an extra $2 billion for medical research. Nor $5 billion for deficit reduction.
Even if you argue that these programs are very inefficient (which I don’t think is true, at least not for all of them, and I’ve seen no cites to back up that claim), to suggest that such massive increases in funding wouldn’t bring about meaningful improvement is ludicrous. The fact that you’re comparing these programs with their less than $50 billion dollar budgets to the military with its $442 billion budget and saying the military is the only one that gives a good return on investment is ridiculous. Could it possibly be that the military is overfunded, and these other programs are underfunded? Maybe the reason they don’t seem to be as effectual is that their funding is spread far too thin, whereas the military can afford to waste $60 billion dollars on programs that have little to do with its current global objectives.
If you think that a bunch of Congressmen could just get up and ask for $60 billion dollars for some programs they consider important, and expect to get it, then you must have no idea how much money $60 billion dollars is. The only way they could hope to increase funding for these programs by that great an amount is by showing that that funding could come from somewhere where it isn’t currently being put to good use. I admit it’s an enormous longshot given the attitude of the Republican party leadership that currently controls both the Congress and the Presidency. But they would have zero chance if they were to just ask for $60 billion. At least this way, the idea that some of this military funding could be reallocated to other programs without hurting national security is on the table. Even if it fails, I could see it coming up again in a couple years if the Dems regain power.
Do you have any stats on private school attendance? It could be that all of the good students have simply been siphoned away during that time.
You mean little kids? Where do you think they’re going to get that kind of money?
This is getting a bit off topic, but the right to petition the government is seperate from the right to pay other people to petition the government. In fact, you could even say it contradicts that right: if someone pays you to petition the government on behalf of a certain entity, does that take away your (constitutionally protected) right to petition against that entity?
Which is why they invented the telephone…
Perhaps you can’t, but since every government on Earth performs this function, and a lot of the other functions you condemn if it can afford them, there seem to be a whole lot of highly sophisticated people from widely different cultures who can think of reasons you can’t.
What makes you think DC lobbyists work for “average citizens”?!
If it is, so much the better. Different perspectives provide a check, reveal if anyone is making a mistake. But I wouldn’t our Congresscritters to be relying entirely on, say, labor statistics collected by Standard & Poor, or the National Association of Manufacturers. For obvious reasons.
To say labor statistics are not an essential government function is as much as to say it is none of the government’s business or concern what the jobless rate is, or how many people are working in what industries or occupational sectors; and if you wanted to defend that position, you definitely would not be part of the reality-based community.
NOPE!
I pay taxes for it. 
I must admit, I was surprised to hear that there are 50 federal schools in the US. I didn’t think there were any. Every military person I have ever met (who is a parent) has their kids in either public or private schools.
Impact Aid may or may not be a good thing. Certainly it helps those districts that receive it. But to argue that children of military personnel don’t go to existing non-federal schools seems silly to me. It certainly isn’t the case with anyone I know in the military.
I don’t believe the real evidence exists to determine whether funding has any effect on education. It seems obvious to me but I could be wrong.
I would like to ask one question about this post: what evidence exists that the doubling of spending on education didn’t prevent a decline in test scores? Perhaps education responds to the market just like any over economic activity-and the market is only willing to pay for the status quo. Which it got, according to your statement. Just a thought.
It needs tweaking. Here are the tweaks I propose:
Instead of taking $60 billion from the defense budget, take $441 billion.
And then, instead of throwing that money down into the black holes of the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security…how about just (shocking idea coming) not spending it. How about they just give the money back in the form of tax cuts.
That’s a plan I could get behind.
Will
That would leave the wealth undistributed. Therefore, it is a plan worse than no plan at all.