Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. The patchouli bunch is perfectly willing to use whataboutism. They just refuse to admit that’s what they’re doing, as exampled by Banquet Bear above.
I believe this great post is getting buried under debates of “whataboutism”. Would any of the several conservative folks like to take a stab at challenging this post? We are already paying more for healthcare in the US than most countries with universal healthcare. Wouldn’t it make sense to try out one of these less expensive models? I know there will be the “death boards” and “one year wait to get a wart removed” topics thrown out, but you also support doing away with coverage of pre-existing conditions. There must be a way to improve our immensely over-expensive system.
I’d say I know a thing or two about the governemtn budget – and all of this is just nonsense. I’m not saying it’s impossible that DoD hides things from Congress, I’m saying that this is all doubletalk nonsense – like if someone tried to explain the workings of the Internet as a bunch of tubes.
First, of course DoD doesn’t spend all the money given to it in a single year. Nobody thinks it should - literally nobody. For example, when Congress provides money for a ship, it allows up to five years for the funds to be put on a contract, and in some cases, the money put on contract isn’t actually expended for several years after that.
Second, one year money does not get shifted into five year money in any way near the manner that’s explained here. It’s just not an accurate description of the issue (would be happy to explain more, but it’s ultra-nerdy). In the same vein, there was a reference in the article to M accounts, which were disestablished like 25 years ago.
Third, literally everyone knows that plugs are used. It’s not a secret, and its not nefarious, but it is a sign of the level of inefficiency. What generally happens is that computer system A that is 30 years old can’t talk to computer system B that’s 20 years old. So financial managers essentially end up with the equivalent of a big shoebox of receipts that have to be entered manually, and often times that means cutting corners by using plugs. That’s a material weakness for audit purposes, but it doesn’t mean that money is invented in the process.
Fourth, I have no idea what the hell it means to “keep one’s job as a lobbyist in the Pentagon,” but here’s where the reporter shows that he didn’t do a very thorough job for his article. I can only assume that “nippering” is actually MIPRing, as in military interdepartmental purchase request, which is THE means of transferring funds from one agency to another. MIPRs are completely normal business, and the reporter (or perhaps the source) again seem to intentionally conflate the issue of the tracing of funds through the system with the issue of somehow inventing money during the process of it being transferred. So, if you’re concerned about HOW MUCH the Pentagon spends, it really doesn’t matter how many times $1 passes through someone else’s hands, because it is the same dollar just moving around. If you’re concerned about auditability and efficiency, it does matter how many times the dollar moves around, because for audit purposes you need a paper trail for each move, and for efficiency, it’s a waste of people’s time to have to move dollars around so much.
Finally, the article conspicuously ignores that spending money not approved by Congress is a crime. Each year, there are a handful of times that the Pentagon overspends funds, which triggers reports to watchdogs like the GAO. Virtually always the culprit is the poor accounting system at the root of so many problems: someone thought they had $9.58 million in their account to pay for some cost, but they only had $8.87 million. Now, nobody ever gets prosecuted for these errors, but once in a while someone gets fired, and always there’s a reprimand of some sort. But the article’s contention that billions of dollars are being spent that were not approved by Congress is totally fucking cockamamie.
ETA: I see that the reporter has a talent for sensationalism, such as his article “predicting” that Trump was about to start a war with Iran in October. That puts him in the Sy Hersh “I’ve predicted 7 of the last 0 wars against Iran” category, as far as I’m concerned.
So if cutting the cost of something will increase the deficit, does that mean that the best way to decrease the deficit is to increase the cost of stuff? Call up the Air Force, let them know they’re not paying enough for hammers?
Are we going to end up decreasing the costs of things $2T at a time until we’re bankrupt?
BRB, need to go yell at my SO for decreasing our cable bill. That kind of thing will put us in the poorhouse.“How dare you reduce our cable bill by $10/month!”
Anyway, you should post more about how difficult it is to find a way to finance a 2 trillion dollar cost reduction.
Fun fact, from Wiki
Isn’t it amazing how, in your analysis, if we successfully drive down costs by a dramatic amount…that causes a bad financial outcome. Like, we end up worse off financially than if we hadn’t decreased costs.
What an unusual outcome that is.
If by “affirming” you mean “pointing out” then you are correct.
I don’t think you have anything to worry about there.
Look, I get it - you have nothing beyond the AOC defense of “no fair criticizing POC when they say something preposterously stupid racismracism” but this cybercrush you have on me is more creepy than touching. It is rather like a developmentally disabled student who develops a crush on his teacher, and expresses it with letters finger-painted in his own feces. I suppose I should recognize the effort, and I am sure you are doing the best you can, but just so you know.
Regards,
Shodan
So you’re saying, the white man is the teacher and the black man is the retard?
I know it’s a side-track at this point, but I’d just like to add that calling her the “lovely Ms.” Ocasio-Cortez is sexist old-man shit that minimizes her because she’s a woman.
Remind myself to liquidate all my holdings in Revlon, Clairol, or any such business that depends on women wanting to Look Good. Because they won’t any more, and all that stuff won’t be bought. Gee. Swell. Can hardly wait.
For one of the major, if not the largest, business patrons and propaganda creators of his party, IOW the insurance companies, yes, it would be. All those private sector rent-seeking parasites would suddenly no longer have their bonuses made from their *preventing *care, why, they might not even have jobs. Oh, well, if they’re really all that good, they’ll find work somewhere else and all that private sector prowess would be unleashed upon the rest of the world.
My thoughts:
- Hey, that “Regards, Shodan” guy reads Vox.
- God, she really bothers these people, doesn’t she? They seem really invested in disparaging her, but never people like Louis Gohmert (brain) or Steve King (heart/soul). Eh, typical.
… snoe reads the Vox article
- Well, if AOC meant that Pentagon dark money would pay for M4A all by itself, she was wrong. (Though far less wrong than, say, Devin Nunes when he speaks about the Trump/Russia thing.)
If she was trying to make a rhetorical point about how vast sums of money are spent by our country on bullshit stuff for the Pentagon, and maybe we could divert some of that to helping people instead of building cool shit we won’t use, and stuffing the pockets of already rich men? Then I say, right on, sister, and fuck the haters.
Your clever old hippy shtick wears really fucking thin when you keep dropping these piece of shit comments everywhere that make you no different from the Republican conservatives you pretend to fight against. It’s the same misogyny, just set to a drum circle beat.
She tried to make that point earlier, but again, she doesn’t seem to know how to count.
Regards,
Shodan
I think that what gets lost in the shuffle is that any studies about what a Medicare-for-all or single payer system would cost the average, gainfully employed middle class person, aren’t well publicized, and neither are what they’d actually get in terms of care. And more importantly, something like 80-85% people in the US are insured through their employers and satisfied with what they have.
That’s the issue- people aren’t liable to vote for things that might decrease their standard of care or choice, and possibly cost them more for the privilege. And berating them about that other uninsured 15-20% is just liable to annoy them.
I’ll admit, I’m no fan of AOC, but Louie Gohmert is worse; he’s as dumb as a stump and is too stupid to realize it.
Okay, I thought it was “Mallard Fillmore”, but let’s go with Vox.
Do you honestly think that the fact that women [and most of us] care about their appearance is a relevant response/rebuttal to the point I raised?
55% have it through their employers. Some smaller percentage is satisfied with it.
Should be a feature and not a bug for Trump supporters.
From your site, it doesn’t quite say that. 55% of the 91% of people who are covered is employment based. So about 50% of Americans are on employees insurance.