Talk About Government Waste.........Wow!

[ladyliberal]

Well look. Here's the deal. Let me toss out a little hypothetical scenario. Let's say you have a good buddy; Joe we'll call him. Now Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." Ok well you are a good caring person, you know Joe has a wife and kids at home. So you say "sure, here's $100. Go pay your bill."

Now the next day Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." So you look at Joe and say "I gave you $100 yesterday" and he says "yeah well I took that to the track and lost it on the five horse. I need $100 more." Ok well you realize it's not the fault of the wife and kids that Joe pissed away the money so you give him another $100 and say "now go pay your damned bill."

The next day Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." So you say "dude, I gave you $100 twice already. Where did the money I gave you yesterday go?" and Joes says "well you know it struck me that I hadn't taken my wife on a nice date for a while so I took her out for dinner and a movie. I need $100 more."

Ok now how long until you say to Joe "look mother fucker....I am not giving you another damned dime until you quit pissing away what I give you"? Well if you are a Democrat, apparently never. You never get to that point. You just keep ponying up over and over until you realize "well shit...Joe had a nice day at the track, he had a nice meal, had a good date with his lady, probably got laid...and shit...I don't have enough money to pay my own damned electric bill now."

This is liberal logic.

I know from your other posts that you are capable of very nuanced thinking. However, I still fail to comprehend the logic of your position in this thread. Your logic seems to go like this:

- If 100% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud we should discontinue expenditures entirely

- More than 0% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud

- Therefore we should discontinue expenditures entirely

That is, you still don't seem to draw any distinction between a finite waste and fraud rate and a total waste and fraud rate.

 

[ladyliberal]

How much fraud and waste is practical?

That is a very good question. I have no idea.

Regarding fraud, I would attempt to separate out different areas of government activity since I assume medicaid fraud and military procurement fraud differ in many practical ways. From there, I would attempt to study modes of existing fraud and methods of fraud prevention and examine their relative costs.

Waste, however, is even more difficult. There are in my mind two types of waste:

1) Inefficiency, where money is not spent in furtherance of a goal. For example, the government might buy some software that ends up not getting used.

2) Goals which are themselves not socially valuable. For example, the "bridge to nowhere" would have provided less social value than its cost.

The first of these is often difficult to identify, even with the benefit of hindsight. The second is highly debatable. Some of Coburn's "wasteful" spending seems entirely reasonable to me. How wasteful a given expenditure is then goes to what we value as a society. Since values vary from person to person, it is impossible to agree objectively on how "wasteful" a given expenditure is in this sense.

 

[ladyliberal]

We're not really talking about fraud in this thread as much as wasteful spending.

Are there any expenditures in that list you support?

Absolutely. I haven't read through the whole report yet, but the grant to study the use of social media in college students seems socially worthwhile to me. There might be problems that aren't apparent to me with some of the expenditures, but many of them don't seem wasteful on their face. Others do, of course.

 

[BluePhantom]

I know from your other posts that you are capable of very nuanced thinking.

Thank you.

However, I still fail to comprehend the logic of your position in this thread. Your logic seems to go like this:

- If 100% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud we should discontinue expenditures entirely

- More than 0% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud

- Therefore we should discontinue expenditures entirely

That is, you still don't seem to draw any distinction between a finite waste and fraud rate and a total waste and fraud rate.

ok....it's a reasonable request for clarification, so i will attempt to clarify. I agree that we will never get fraud and waste down to 0%. I will cede that point. But what we have with our government isn't even close that. We hemorrhage money like we have an endless supply and I will concede that both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of this. We can debate who is the worst offender but I don't think that's the point of this discussion. Regardless of who is to blame, I simply can't see how anyone can state that the government has been a good steward of the taxpayer's money.

In an earlier post I made the point of just how many people could receive legitimate and needed unemployment assistance simply by addressing one element of Coburn's report. Over 65,000 people on one issue alone.

Now as I said earlier, if we got the bleeding to stop..hell at least to slow...and the government opened the books and said "ok here's our situation, here's what we need to accomplish this set of goals, and waste is at a minimum" I think you would see Republicans look at that and say "ok well let's discuss raising taxes to meet our needs."

But when the government is pissing away billions on bridges to nowhere, holes in Nevada, and turtle tunnels I think we have a responsibility to do as i said with the "Joe scenario" and say to government "look assholes, quit pissing away our money, because it's OUR money, we broke sweat for it, we sacrificed for it, and you are throwing it away on stupid bullshit and until you can show us that you are going to use the money we give you wisely, we aint giving a penny more."

Now is that so terribly unreasonable? I don't ask that to be a smart ass. I mean that sincerely....is it so terribly unreasonable to say "before you take more out of my pocket, I demand that you demonstrate that you are going to use it properly, efficiently, and effectively"?

 

[daveman]

Well look. Here's the deal. Let me toss out a little hypothetical scenario. Let's say you have a good buddy; Joe we'll call him. Now Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." Ok well you are a good caring person, you know Joe has a wife and kids at home. So you say "sure, here's $100. Go pay your bill."

Now the next day Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." So you look at Joe and say "I gave you $100 yesterday" and he says "yeah well I took that to the track and lost it on the five horse. I need $100 more." Ok well you realize it's not the fault of the wife and kids that Joe pissed away the money so you give him another $100 and say "now go pay your damned bill."

The next day Joe comes to you and says "hey I need $100 to pay my electric bill." So you say "dude, I gave you $100 twice already. Where did the money I gave you yesterday go?" and Joes says "well you know it struck me that I hadn't taken my wife on a nice date for a while so I took her out for dinner and a movie. I need $100 more."

Ok now how long until you say to Joe "look mother fucker....I am not giving you another damned dime until you quit pissing away what I give you"? Well if you are a Democrat, apparently never. You never get to that point. You just keep ponying up over and over until you realize "well shit...Joe had a nice day at the track, he had a nice meal, had a good date with his lady, probably got laid...and shit...I don't have enough money to pay my own damned electric bill now."

This is liberal logic.

I am a Democrat because I believe everyone deserves a chance. And if necessary, a second chance. And if, by the eighth or ninth chance, this guy needs another chance, I mean, come on. This guy is due.

 

[daveman]

We're not really talking about fraud in this thread as much as wasteful spending.

Are there any expenditures in that list you support?

Absolutely. I haven't read through the whole report yet, but the grant to study the use of social media in college students seems socially worthwhile to me. There might be problems that aren't apparent to me with some of the expenditures, but many of them don't seem wasteful on their face. Others do, of course.

What business does the government have funding a study like that? What good does it do Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer?

 

[ladyliberal]

I know from your other posts that you are capable of very nuanced thinking.

Thank you.

However, I still fail to comprehend the logic of your position in this thread. Your logic seems to go like this:

- If 100% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud we should discontinue expenditures entirely

- More than 0% of expenditures are lost to waste and fraud

- Therefore we should discontinue expenditures entirely

That is, you still don't seem to draw any distinction between a finite waste and fraud rate and a total waste and fraud rate.

ok....it's a reasonable request for clarification, so i will attempt to clarify. I agree that we will never get fraud and waste down to 0%. I will cede that point. But what we have with our government isn't even close that. We hemorrhage money like we have an endless supply and I will concede that both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of this. We can debate who is the worst offender but I don't think that's the point of this discussion. Regardless of who is to blame, I simply can't see how anyone can state that the government has been a good steward of the taxpayer's money.

In an earlier post I made the point of just how many people could receive legitimate and needed unemployment assistance simply by addressing one element of Coburn's report. Over 65,000 people on one issue alone.

Now as I said earlier, if we got the bleeding to stop..hell at least to slow...and the government opened the books and said "ok here's our situation, here's what we need to accomplish this set of goals, and waste is at a minimum" I think you would see Republicans look at that and say "ok well let's discuss raising taxes to meet our needs."

But when the government is pissing away billions on bridges to nowhere, holes in Nevada, and turtle tunnels I think we have a responsibility to do as i said with the "Joe scenario" and say to government "look assholes, quit pissing away our money, because it's OUR money, we broke sweat for it, we sacrificed for it, and you are throwing it away on stupid bullshit and until you can show us that you are going to use the money we give you wisely, we aint giving a penny more."

Now is that so terribly unreasonable? I don't ask that to be a smart ass. I mean that sincerely....is it so terribly unreasonable to say "before you take more out of my pocket, I demand that you demonstrate that you are going to use it properly, efficiently, and effectively"?

No, I don't find that unreasonable at all. I agree that the government should be accountable to the taxpayer, and that many of the projects undertaken with public funds are not worthwhile.

While I do agree that those misuses of government funds which do occur reduce the benefit derived from taxation, I do not find that it follows that current tax revenues should not rise unless misuse falls.

 

[ladyliberal]

We're not really talking about fraud in this thread as much as wasteful spending.

Are there any expenditures in that list you support?

Absolutely. I haven't read through the whole report yet, but the grant to study the use of social media in college students seems socially worthwhile to me. There might be problems that aren't apparent to me with some of the expenditures, but many of them don't seem wasteful on their face. Others do, of course.

What business does the government have funding a study like that? What good does it do Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer?

As Coburn concedes (http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public...&File_id=2dccf06d-65fe-4087-b58d-b43ff68987fa) the NSF has a mandate to support all non-medical research. Their merit review process (O/D Dear Colleague Letter - NSF Merit Review Criteria) does not require an immediately-identifiable benefit to the taxpayer. Nor should it-- scientific research simply cannot operate that way and our society overwhelmingly recognizes the benefit of scientific research.

That's what I would say if I were defending a grant to study some obscure astronomical topic that had few plausible practical implications. However, as I alluded to in my earlier post, I think that it is quite possible that this research could lead to more concrete benefits. I don't know whether it will, since I don't know the results of the research (or even precisely what will be studied), but here's some speculation about benefits that may come from social media research:

1) Information about how the participants make purchases online could lead to more efficient online selling.

2) Information about how participants share information and manage privacy could lead to more efficient means of protecting privacy.

3) Information about how participants make use of social networks to find professional opportunities could lead to more efficient means of hiring

 

[ClosedCaption]

Wait? Govt isn't perfect? Oh noes! Lets scrap it for something without waste like imaginary things that don't exist!

 

[daveman]

Absolutely. I haven't read through the whole report yet, but the grant to study the use of social media in college students seems socially worthwhile to me. There might be problems that aren't apparent to me with some of the expenditures, but many of them don't seem wasteful on their face. Others do, of course.

What business does the government have funding a study like that? What good does it do Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer?

As Coburn concedes (http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public...&File_id=2dccf06d-65fe-4087-b58d-b43ff68987fa) the NSF has a mandate to support all non-medical research. Their merit review process (O/D Dear Colleague Letter - NSF Merit Review Criteria) does not require an immediately-identifiable benefit to the taxpayer. Nor should it-- scientific research simply cannot operate that way and our society overwhelmingly recognizes the benefit of scientific research.

That's what I would say if I were defending a grant to study some obscure astronomical topic that had few plausible practical implications. However, as I alluded to in my earlier post, I think that it is quite possible that this research could lead to more concrete benefits. I don't know whether it will, since I don't know the results of the research (or even precisely what will be studied), but here's some speculation about benefits that may come from social media research:

1) Information about how the participants make purchases online could lead to more efficient online selling.

2) Information about how participants share information and manage privacy could lead to more efficient means of protecting privacy.

3) Information about how participants make use of social networks to find professional opportunities could lead to more efficient means of hiring

Perhaps the NSF needs a less-broad mandate.

If the social networking sites want research done, they should fund it.

 

[daveman]

Wait? Govt isn't perfect? Oh noes! Lets scrap it for something without waste like imaginary things that don't exist!

Chicks really dig it when a guy knocks down strawmen. No, really.