They are worse than spending if targeted to people who have more money than they know what to do with. And don’t give me the “they encourage investment” crap until you explain why the piles of money companies are sitting on aren’t being invested now.
So, you agree with one side of a heated debate (without access to classified materials that might be useful) and you call it waste. Disagreeing with spending decisions don’t make them wasteful.
Pushed through by that old Republican waste hater Ted Stevens, I see. Why don’t you suggest a method by which all spending will be immune from influence by elected representatives who get votes by bringing money and jobs to their districts? You think cutting the budget will eliminate this kind of thing? Peace in the Middle East is trivial by comparison.
Seems to me the one screaming about cutting the waste should be the one to define waste and propose specific wasteful things to be cut. Why do you insist on making everyone else do your homework for you? The ones who want the thing should be the ones defining and making the proposal for the thing, don’t you think? Why is it up to us do define waste for you? It seems like you think almost everything the government does is wasteful, so pardon us for asking you for specific proposals on what exactly to cut.
Yes wasteful spending is bad, but what exactly are you proposing, a bill that reads simply “cut waste”? Legislation needs to be specific to accomplish anything. Making it seem like we are all fans of wasteful spending isn’t helpful, we just aren’t fans of indiscriminate cuts just for cuttings sake. So do you think any cuts are good as long as spending goes down? What wouldn’t you want to cut for example? Is there anything off limits?
Meanwhile the White House pushed through loans for Solyndra even when told the company would fold 6 months later. Which it did. I think we could play the meanwhile game in perpetuity.
Lots of waste. This is a political game that nobody wins at except the 500+ people in Washington who use our money for their personal career goals. It’s time we stopped looking at this as a sporting event where we choose teams and root for them. The collective “they” are sitting in rooms laughing at how stupid we are for falling it for. When they can’t get their own work done they invent some new windmill to chase to divert our attention and then send their minions out to fight imaginary battles.
The waste needs to go and they need to budget the money available.
You should probably talk to the state governors (like my own) who are giving sweetheart tax breaks to Marcellus Shale exploiters, or the Republicans who weep huge crocodile tears at the thought of trimming down the military.
ITR Champion: Here’s my definition of waste.
Airbeck: Your definition of waste is too subjective.
ITR Champion: Okay, then what’s your definition of waste?
Airbeck: You should give us a definition of waste.
I already gave you a definition of waste and you’re clearly aware of that fact since you quoted it.
Have I and others not already provided a large number of specific proposals on what exactly to cut in this very thread? And many more in other threads?
A list of anecdotes does not make good policy.
Again, those demanding cuts cuts cuts are the ones that need to propose specifics. What do you think just screaming for cuts is going to do? What is your policy proposal? I’ll I’m hearing is OMG we need to cut all waste NOW! Is that something that can be voted on? You still haven’t specified who will be making all of the determinations listed in your ‘definition’. No suggestions for who that would be yet? Can you take your definition and produce from it a specific list of things to cut? If not, then what good is that definition?
If you have no specific policy to propose, other than repeating the words waste and cut, then what is the point of all of this hysteria about cuts. What is going to come of it? All you seem to be doing so far is convincing yourself how much everyone else just loves wasteful spending.
This kind of statement is exactly what I was talking about. Us verses Them. Did it occur to you that there are democratic politicians who went after money for military projects in their state?
Democrats vs Republicans is a board game played by politicians and we’re the pieces they play with. We’re paying them to take our money to play the game.
No, they’re a list of the obvious. Nobody is going to go through an entire budget to make the point. The point has been made with real projects that used real money.
It’s not a new concept to spend money wisely so if you’re hearing it as NOW you haven’t been listening. And yes, a balanced budget is something that can be voted on. It’s not hard to look at a budget and prioritize items. That’s their job. They’re paid a good salary to do this and they get to hire other people to grind numbers.
This is not a valid argument on your part. Poster’s have listed obvious examples of waste that can be cut. Unless you wish to claim that these are the sole examples then it’s upon you to explain why you think we shouldn’t eliminate waste. There is no hysteria in any of this. It’s simple math that a 3rd grader could perform. Politicians get X number of dollars to spend and are charged with making a budget that fits.
Magiver is the arbiter of the validity of arguments now?
We can’t even agree on a useful definition of waste in this particular thread, so making it sound like 3rd grade work is just as invalid of an argument, and also a bit condescending IMO. If its that easy, then why can’t we even agree in this thread on what constitutes waste, and just listing a few examples doesn’t count unless you want to propose only those specific things be cut. Again, anecdotes in a list is not a budget policy proposal.
Also, I never said that we shouldn’t eliminate waste. I’m simply saying that we shouldn’t pass widespread cuts to eliminate waste when we can’t even pin down a useful definition of what constitutes waste aside from a few examples that are obvious.
So to summarize:
You asked me for “specific proposals on what exactly to cut”.
I responded by pointing out that I and others have already given you exactly what you’re asking for.
You responded by dismissing it as “a list of anecdotes”.
Is that really the best you can do?
Do you think cutting one or two specific things is going to do very much to help the overall budget issues you are complaining about? What’s the total savings of your examples so far? Compare that to the overall deficit. What percent does your list of examples actually cut that by? Your rhetoric implies cuts across all of government, not just a few handpicked examples. I want you to explain how you propose to cut waste across all of the government, not just your couple of hand picked pet examples. So to say that you’ve given what I’ve asked for, and what your rhetoric needs to support it, is a gross oversimplification of this debate.
A specific proposal is something that can be passed in congress to address the problem that you are so concerned about. Do you really think just listing a couple of things you found on google researching government waste is enough to do anything to actually address the problem? Is that really the best you can do?
:rolleyes:
you’re trying to parse an argument with a definition.
Waste doesn’t require a definition to deal with. It just takes people to acknowledge their “team” wastes money. It’s done on a universal basis through the process of pork-barreling.
Now we’re on common ground for a discussion. I don’t keep a list in my head but I constantly see waste. Some of it is in fraud. We had a local minister steal a couple hundred thousand dollars that was earmarked for (I believe) a battered woman’s home. None of the money saw a single paint chip worth’s of use. It was discovered after the fact. We sentbillions of dollars in cash to Iraq for various projects and it just disappeared. These are examples of oversight waste. Welfare fraud , bad government loans fall into this category. I listed just a couple of stupid items in the stimulus plan but there are more. My state actually turned away high speed rail money. It would have cost the state money to maintain it and it really wasn’t much of a high speed system. It was a “sorta little faster passenger service” where none existed. It didn’t exist in the first place because nobody used the train service we had and it was discontinued. But fear not, the money was turned over to another state who will beat a dead horse with it.
The politicians know what is waste. They know every time they slip in an unrelated item into a bill. It’s nothing but back-scratching pork to buy votes.
You seem to have missed the point of the entire thread.
Doubtlessly you’re familiar with things like this:
Thanks to a powerful Kentucky congressman who has steered tens of millions of federal dollars to his district, the Army has bought about $6.5 million worth of the “leakproof” drip pans in the last three years to catch transmission fluid on Black Hawk helicopters. And it might want more from the Kentucky company that makes the pans, even though a similar pan from another company costs a small fraction of the price. … The company’s owners are political contributors to the congressman.
This is an example of what’s commonly called “pork-barrel spending”, which is a euphemism for corruption, which is a euphemism for bribery. I’d like it if all such shenanigans stopped, but failing that I’ll take whatever reductions I can get.
You respond by pointing out that the total savings from this and all the other things that I’ve listed in this thread don’t amount to a whole lot, compared to the federal deficit, and that’s true. The federal budget is so large and complicated that no person could identify all the waste, or even a decent chunk of it, in one lifetime. And since I’m just a humble internet user who has a job and a family life, I can’t devote as much time to it as others can.
So naturally what I do in order to assess the existence of government waste is to turn to summaries compiled by other people, such as this one. As you can see the Federal Government itself has found that a vast sum, larger than the total amount being cut in the sequester this year, could be saved annually merely by eliminating duplicate government programs or parts of programs that do the same jobs as other programs and by other similar, common sense means. So if the President and Congress wished to do so, they could pass a bill that eliminated all this waste which the government itself has identified, took the saved money and used it to avoid the sequester cuts, and still had some leftover for any other purpose they chose. But they did not do so.
Moreover, in the entire time that I’ve followed politics, I’ve never seen Congress do anything which suggests it was truly interested in cutting waste and corruption. The sequester is an imperfect tool, since it cuts all programs rather than focusing on the most wasteful programs, but clearly I’ll never see Congress pass a broad spending cut aimed at the most wasteful programs. The sequester is the best thing that I’m likely to see in my lifetime, so I support it.
So if you ask me what cuts to the federal budget I support, my answer is that I support the sequester.
I see who’s balanced the budget in recent memory and who has vastly inflated it while whimpering about tax cuts (for rich people) and starving the beast (as long as the military still gets full funding) , and from that it’s pretty easy to decide who’s actually interested in balancing things and who is now.
Oh there you go, bringing facts into the argument. No one has room for any stupid facts. Besides, we all know that reality has a liberal bias. :rolleyes:
Every politician wastes money. If we are two congresspeople, waste to you is jobs in my district to me (and donations) and waste to me is jobs in your district and donations to you. We can either really eliminate pork, and both lose, or wink at the pork (while loudly condemning it) and both win. It’s been that way since Rome at least.
Theft does happen - the problem is that controlling it takes more paperwork and more government workers to check the paperwork, and how the money is spent. Then people complain about big government and red tape. Iraq was pure incompetence. There was plenty there that didn’t cost money but cost lives - and no one is accountable. They just write books. And I’m sure that some stimulus money was wasted. Given the speed it needed to be spent, it is amazing that more wasn’t. The money spent near me was not - it improves the commutes of thousands of Silicon Valley workers every day.
We could probably eliminate a lot of waste with a purely professional civil service and a legislature that just votes for high level direction on spending, not details. Not likely to happen. Any manufacturing process has built in spare capacity and some degree of waste. The optimal process is not the perfect one.
Yes, you did define waste. Thank you for responding directly to my question. I paraphrased your definition and you believe that I have given a “blatant untruth”. I can accept that. Please identify where that “blatant untruth” lies.
To recap, let’s look at the plain, direct definition of waste that you offered:
[QUOTE=ITR champion]
Waste is government spending that accomplishes nothing, that goes to things the government shouldn’t be involved in, that accomplishes only a very little and could be done more cheaply, or that is redundant.
[/QUOTE]
“Accomplishes nothing”: There are really very few endeavors in this world that truly accomplish absolutely nothing. Right now, I’m kind of wasting a little time before I do some paperwork I need to get done. However, I am accomplishing something, even if it isn’t exactly Earth shaking. So, what is “accomplishes nothing”? Who decides?
“Goes to things the government shouldn’t be involved in”: Who decides this? Perhaps we could establish some sort of deliberative body who could decide this issue. We wouldn’t want the President to simply appoint this body because he/she would just appoint people who will do his/her bidding. So, we need to have some sort of election. How would these representatives be elected? I suppose we could carve our states into some sort of districts and have each district elect a representative. Don’t we have something like this already?
“Accomplishes very little”: Kind of a rehash of “accomplishes nothing”, but at least acknowledges that some sort of work is being done.
“Done more cheaply”: Perhaps government agencies could employ some sort of a bidding process to help make sure that they get the best possible deal on goods and services.
“Or that is redundant”: Okay. Got me there. Just south of me sits Interstate Highway 10. It runs across the entire continent from Florida to California. It never should have been built. Sitting right next to most of the highway through Texas is a train track. Talk about redundant. That highway carries goods and passengers, just like that train track. And, the train track is privately owned! Government came along and tried to take over transportation when the private sector already had that need covered. Socialists!
Look, your definition of waste is meaningless. It requires some deliberative body to decide what is wasteful and what is not. As this thread shows, that really isn’t as easy as it sounds. Since you and others have provided a few anecdotes, but no clear meaningful definition of waste, or an overarching policy that would address it, I revert back to my own definition.
Waste is simply stuff I don’t care about. Responsible spending is stuff I do care about.
At least my definition is honest.
If you can’t control it then the program shouldn’t exist. Getting a grant for hundreds of thousands of dollars requires oversight. Period. There shouldn’t be any question about this let.
We could probably eliminate a lot of waste with a purely professional civil service and a legislature that just votes for high level direction on spending, not details. Not likely to happen. Any manufacturing process has built in spare capacity and some degree of waste. The optimal process is not the perfect one.
[/QUOTE]
If it doesn’t happen we will eventually implode under the debt.
It’s hard to take you seriously when you wax hyperbolic like that.