This. Americans are heavily propagandized that “Government is Inefficient and Evil”, with almost no attempt by anyone to convince them otherwise. Therefore most Americans take it as a matter of faith that government is inefficient and evil regardless of what the facts say.
It’s a viewpoint that’s been created by political propaganda in the first place, and is about government. It was always political.
You have to consider the time value of the extra money, and the lost opportunity cost of spending more now vs. spending more later. Let’s say a bridge costing $X dollars will last 35 years, and a bridge costing $2X will last 100. On the face of it, you’ll save money buying the more expensive bridge, but the more expensive bridge won’t put any money in your pocket for 35 years, by which time investing the money you saved by building the cheaper bridge will have made you enough to build a new bridge with money left over.
I run into the same kind of thing at work all the time. 254 SMO might last 20 years and cost 25% more than 317SS, which lasts 10 or twelve, and I can’t justify spending the higher amount, although I’d like to, because of the nuisance of executing projects every decade.
Exactly, there’s been a steady effort to undermine confidence in representative democracy for the last 30 years. When the President himself mouths nonsense like “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” that’s bound to have an effect over time.
Weakening confidence in government serves the interests of the rich and powerful since a strong, active government is the only effective counterweight to the predations of the strong on the weak. It’s no accident that income inequality has soared in parallel with anti-government rhetoric. Convincing the American public that government is inevitably inefficient and useless has been an extremely effective strategy for advancing the interests of the wealthy elites.
Yet it does seem to be a society that is strangely out of whack when recreational facilities supposedly for public enjoyment are gated and expected to operate “in the black”, when no such requirement is placed on the vastly more expensive defense budget.
Beyond that, I know government at any level can and does spend money on various projects and purposes in which I may see no value. Money is also spent on some items which I enthusiastically support. However, I neither ask nor expect to be consulted on every little thing. All I expect is that there is some fairness in the overall distribution of funds, scheduling of infrastructure projects, and so on.
Defense is a cost center, it can never operate in the black and it would be strange to expect it to do so.
Edit to add: Speaking in the modern sense. Back when your army could pillage and enslave a bunch of people for profit, I’d imagine operating in the black was the norm. I don’t see that happening due to the realities of modern society, though, and various international norms.
Sure, but is it too much to ask for some tangible evidence leading one to the conclusion it’s worth the blood and treasure? And that it cannot be done for less? Or is the last line of unlimited military spending ‘these funds save human lives (American soldiers of course who cares about anyone else)’
I’m impressed by everyone ignoring the stupid flamebait near the start of the thread. Kudos. 
It gets worse though - they don’t just pound this message in, they reinforce it. They fulfill their own prophecy by then turning around and making government services worse. I think the best example of this is FEMA - republicans broke it, democrats fixed it. Twice. When I say that I support public works and government spending to a lesser degree under republicans than under democrats, a lot of people think I’m just being partisan. No, I’m not. It’s because republicans can be relied on to cock it up on a constant basis, because their very philosophy demands that government doesn’t work.
This is a good post in general, but I think you’ve started with a lament about how the topic is depressingly politicised and then gone ahead and painted people who oppose excessive government spending with an overbroad brush. That’s not a great thing to do, even though you were probably not doing it intentionally. I’ll try and add some nuance to your point - I absolutely agree that people who think government shouldn’t do anything at all are misguided and don’t understand the issues. But there are a number of people who DO understand that there are some things that are better for government to do, and some things that are better for private industry to do, and simply disagree on where the line should be drawn.
The most reasonable definition according to me(and you seem to largely agree with this) is that of ‘public goods’ in economics. Goods that are non-rival and non-excludable (very closely related to the externalities concept) should be funded by taxes. Wandering beyond this remit creates distortionary effects on markets for private goods, weakens oversight and accountability for public goods, and it is not clear that there are any checks and balances (aside from those that kick in at very long time horizons) that would help keep governments from doing so. There is plenty of reason for people who do understand economics to dislike government spending on some things.
If you’re referring to Terr’s post, his response is perfectly correct - as long as he acknowledges that there are items for which it IS ok to tax. It’s just that those items should not be decided purely on the basis of how many people ‘like’ something. For instance, we probably agree that even if 60% of people vote that taxes should be increased on the remaining 40% so that the 60% can be given something they like, say a holiday at the spa, it shouldn’t be done. The question then becomes, how do we decide what is ok to tax for and what is not. And the answer to that, according to me, is that it is ok to tax for public goods, and not ok to tax for private goods.
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rival in that people cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others. Examples - pollution, knowledge, national defense, vaccination, law and order.
And that’s why it’s asinine. He makes no such acknowledgment (because to my knowledge he wouldn’t, because he disagrees with that statement) in a thread which is explicitly not about things like 60% voting for 40% to give them a spa treatment but rather about general public works - things like the Hoover Dam or the Brooklyn Bridge.
His answer to this question is the other asinine part.
Is it not fair to claim that those who oppose government spending on public works (he said nothing about “excessive”, mind you) are more likely to belong to the crowd that don’t quite “get” externalities? From my experience, stating this as a vague statistical generality is completely accurate - people who oppose public works are more likely than people who support them to not understand how many of the issues involved work. It’s like the statement that those who oppose fiscal stimulus in the wake of the 2008 crash don’t understand economics - sure, it’s politicizing, but it’s also correct.
Isn’t this an actual political tactic called “starving the beast”? Where you intentionally gimp a program so people think it’s useless and then they won’t complain (and may even be happy) if you cut it.
I would say it is ok to tax on federal level in order to finance foreign policy (state dept), the military and the politicians’ salaries. On local/state level you can tax for whatever you want, because voting with your feet is a lot easier.
I find it extremely difficult to muster outrage against public works projects when we have the NFL taking billions in public subsidies while claiming tax exempt status and large companies threatening to move, unless they get local tax exemptions. I’d rather have my public works projects, thank you very much.
I will let Terr expound on his own views, but to me at least, it is not at all clear that there is any particular specificity to the OP’s ‘government works’.
No, it’s not fair. He’s saying '“People who hate on government works”. This can include any government works.
So because some proportion of opponents, in your experience, may not understand the issues, and this proportion is larger, in your experience, than proponents, it becomes accurate to label all opponents as not understanding the issues? Funny, statistics didn’t used to work like this when I studied it.
Hmm. John Cochrane might be surprised to learn that he doesn’t understand economics. The stimulus issue is nowhere near as cut and dried as you seem to think. This is not to say that countercyclical government spending cannot be a good thing - it can, but there is considerable debate on stretching stimulus beyond that. If you want to explore some of the nuance, here’s a link.
It is extremely rare for someone to want that.
Currently, 78 percent of the US federal budget is non-defense. And Defense in my last link is extremely broadly defined, including both foreign aid and veterans programs.
If you consider that state and local spending is almost as much as federal, total military spending in the US is perhaps ten percent of total government spending.
So the people you are against must be calling for either a 500 percent increase in military spending, or an 80 percent decrease in all other spending, including social security, medicare, police and prisons. Although Terr in this thread may seem to come close to wanting that, I think you are giving a distorted picture of the extent of US military spending.
In 1946, no one would have imagined that 67 years later nuclear weapons would still have not devastated even one more city. For me, the successful nuclear deterrent behind that achievement is by itself worth the 4.4 percent of GDP the US spends on it’s military, broadly defined. But even if you don’t buy that the US military is on balance a plus for the world, it’s not as big an economic factor as you seem to think.
Just in the interests of truth, this reporter is very confused about the facts. The corporate entity known as the National Football League is on fact a non profit but it does not make “billions of dollars” in profit or get billion of dollars in subsidies from the taxpayer. The billions of dollars are made by the NFL’s 32 TEAMS, which are separate corporate entities. Mr. Boehm is, perhaps intentionally, confusing the “NFL” in the sense of the entire apparatus of the league and its 32 franchises with the corporation known as the “NFL” which serves the 32 separately incorporated franchises.
I can show you cement box culverts from the WPA. Heck I can show you canal structures that held up 150 years.
I could be wrong about today’s bridges. Concrete looks like concrete after-all. For all I know today’s bridges are built better so maybe an engineer in the business can shed some light.
Well the stadium in Cincinnati was built at taxpayer expense from a levy to the tune of $617 million. I assume it was voted for.
Because the American people (this is, to a large extent, a distinctively American phenomenon) have, for many years, been subjected a relentless barrage of propaganda from mass media controlled by private capital telling them that taxes are evil (especially as they affect rich people) and that things done by privately owned businesses and corporations, for profit, are always better, and better done, than anything done by government, with tax money, ostensibly for the public good. At best, people are told, government will do needful things incompetently and inefficiently; at worst it will do things that should not be done at all. (By contrast, the story goes, private, profit-making business is always competent and efficient, and, thanks to the miraculous “invisible hand” of the market, always provides what the people need.:rolleyes:)
It is a huge lie, that benefits only large corporations and the very wealthy, and hurts most people and degrades the quality of their lives, but it is large corporations and the very wealthy who control the almost all the U.S. media, so that is the message that most people mostly hear. Many end up believing it.
That is nice, it is still not the view of most experts.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/ideology-and-economics/