[HN Gopher] The government information crisis is bigger than you...
___________________________________________________________________
The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 246 points
Date : 2025-02-01 03:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freegovinfo.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (freegovinfo.info)
| johnneville wrote:
| site returns a db error for me
|
| edit: working now - https://archive.today/Ly7Jv
| basementcat wrote:
| Try refreshing; loaded ok for me.
| jf wrote:
| Here is an archived version, if needed:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250201043959/https://freegovin...
| tbrownaw wrote:
| It's, um, _interesting_ how they decided to make the site logo
| stick in the top corner. Kinda like a phone screen notch, but
| worse.
| Cerium wrote:
| That's not the worst I saw this week. I saw a floating dialog
| box that cannot be closed, that was on the right hand side
| obscuring the form that it was hassling you to complete. You
| had to only scroll down a third of a page at a time in order to
| complete the form.
| al_borland wrote:
| If we keep fighting about the same issues, we can't move on to
| solve new problems. We're in political purgatory and have been
| for quite some time.
| basementcat wrote:
| It is because we haven't achieved consensus on these issues or
| there is a faction that believes they can get a better deal by
| holding out and continuing to fight.
| conception wrote:
| Or it's because factions believe that not solving issues
| benefits them more than solving them or reaching consensus.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Consensus is bad for business, so we stick to platforms
| designed keep it at bay.
| righthand wrote:
| It's more futile than this, my parents are big Trumpers. My
| father watches a ton of Fox News and rants about how
| immigrants are flooding the cities. When shown data and
| statistics and pointing out Trumps blatant lying and the
| hysteria about it, my father will move the goal post, change
| the subject and say things like "I don't like Trump but Biden
| is too old."
|
| Okay I said, if Biden is too old who is chosen when he steps
| down? Kamala, who while qualified was chosen to gain vote. Is
| that the alternative you want? Silence. Trump is also too old
| and definitely showing his age but it doesn't matter anymore
| because the goal post moves again.
|
| It's pure radicalization and anything that can be labeled as
| a negative is rationalized to avoid regret.
|
| My mother remains 100% silent about politics. Which is
| equally as hard to have a conversation.
|
| So when you have people so radicalized they only put ear
| plugs in their ear, because they've been trained to want a
| war at home. They are too deep, what do we do? Wait until
| they die? What about the generations they're radicalizing
| after them?
|
| These are tough questions in a world where people can't be
| proud we even have any kind of infrastructure. People feel
| they deserve better when we already have the best
| circumstances to be alive.
|
| There is no consensus because there is very little left to
| strive for in the eyes of the average citizen.
|
| This is why we can't have single payer healthcare, because
| our populations are too busy fighting for their radicalized
| ideas.
| 0xy wrote:
| Obama had a super majority and could've done single payer,
| but he let the insurance companies write the ACA while
| letting Citibank choose his cabinet. Such is life when you
| give Democrats the power they need to make change.
|
| They'll fight back against the power structures by ceding
| control to them, and taking massive bribes. Every time.
|
| Even Bernie Sanders is a Big Pharma lackey, accepting
| millions.
| righthand wrote:
| There isn't a universe where insurance companies didn't
| write the ACA under Obama. The lobbied to hell Congress
| and Senate write the laws, Obama pushes through the best
| we get from them.
|
| The ACA as a single payer totally supportive law would
| maybe have passed back in the early 1800s when communists
| headed West.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Accepting millions from whom? When you run for president,
| people who happen to work in medicine might donate, that
| doesn't make you crooked.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Obama did not have a supermajority. He didn't even have
| 60 Democrat votes, hence having to compromise heavily on
| ACA, which passed in the 6 months (out of 8 years) that
| Obama had enough votes with a few independent Senators.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Obama had a super majority and could've done single
| payer, but he let the insurance companies write the ACA
|
| Ah, a low-information voter, I see.
|
| _Obama_ didn't write the ACA. It was written in Congress,
| and it passed only because Democrats had a once-in-a-
| lifetime filibuster-proof majority. Not a single
| Republican Senator voted for the ACA.
|
| In particular, Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) blocked the
| public option. Obama tried to push for it behind the
| doors, but the ACA was as far as the Blue Dog Democrats
| were willing to be pushed.
|
| And then, of course, Mitch McConnell happened and the
| Senate ground to a halt. ACA basically has not been
| amended since its passing.
| danans wrote:
| > They are too deep, what do we do? Wait until they die?
|
| Yeah, you tried. Any more is probably energy wasted.
|
| > What about the generations they're radicalizing after
| them?
|
| Explain to them how oligarchs are burning the younger
| generation's security and quality of life to amass ever
| more wealth and power for themselves.
|
| Help them see how this is happening to both them and the
| people of their generation on the opposite side of the
| surface political divide.
| righthand wrote:
| I don't disagree but do you have a hypothetical or real
| example of what that looks like? I am stumped from trying
| over the last 20 years. It is important to realize that
| there is a mythos to your parents. My Trump voting father
| also voted for Obama because he hated Bush for the wars.
| I originally thought he saw the Hope. Stuff like that
| keeps you seeking the non-existent Hope person. You're
| negotiating with the subliminal-y terrorized.
| roenxi wrote:
| FWIW, the algorithm people use in politics is usually to
| find someone who is on the same emotional wavelength as
| they are, then copy their actions. Trying to reason with
| people about political matters is generally futile because
| they don't take a particularly close interest in real
| politics and rationally don't make decisions based on
| arguments because they don't understand or remember any of
| the issues in detail. Although arguing is a lot of fun if
| you like arguing; and it can help sharpen the mind.
|
| Your arguments are going to be wildly unpersuasive because
| your parents don't understand why they're voting the way
| they vote. They just know that their emotional state is
| represented at Fox & Fox suggests voting for Trump. The
| same dynamic is true for pretty much everyone except the
| rare souls who like to actually look up how & why
| politicians vote in practice (which most people don't have
| time to do).
|
| Try figuring out what emotions your parents are feeling and
| why. Even if you don't change their minds you'll probably
| get to a better spot in the relationship than if you're
| trying to convince them Kamala was a strong candidate
| (which, given her record, tough sell - how does a strong
| candidate lose to Hitler, we might ask to annoy everyone).
| Eextra953 wrote:
| What we have to do is offer a hopeful vision of the future
| that rings true to a majority of people. This starts with
| breaking away from the current party lines that deny what
| most people know to be true. For example, almost everyone
| can agree that health care is too expensive, corporations
| have too much power, housing is unaffordable, Trump is too
| extreme, Biden was too old etc. yet neither party is
| willing to state the obvious. If we can get a major party
| to do this, or to at least support candidates that do, we
| can get out of this hole.
|
| Edited first response since it was too reactionary on my
| part.
| feoren wrote:
| > hopeful vision of the future that rings true to a
| majority of people
|
| 77+ million Americans _don 't want_ a "hopeful vision of
| the future". They want to be angry. They're addicted to
| the anger. They want to hurt people. Present them any
| vision you want; they are not ever going to pay attention
| to it.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I think your right for some. I think there is also some
| aspect of identity. "I identify with <these set of
| ideals> and that's just what we do" kind of thing.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| They want populism. That requires an enemy. It doesn't,
| however, require hurting anyone. If you're doing
| populism, you can either identify a set of scapegoats to
| slaughter or identify the actual impediments to solving
| the problems people experience in their lives. No party
| will identify such impediments, though. It would be very
| bad for business.
| bruce511 wrote:
| >> For example, almost everyone can agree that health
| care is too expensive, corporations have too much power,
| housing is unaffordable
|
| I would argue that most people don't agree on this.
| Firstly housing;
|
| For decades Americans were told that owning your own
| house was an investment. To keep home owners happy prices
| have to go up. Clearly the message was flawed, but no
| home owner wants to see that number go down. The
| arguments that rely on "this will reduce of home value"
| us a strong one thst gets lots of support.
|
| If you ask folk they'll tell you Health Care is too
| expensive. But equally they'll push back on any approach
| to make it cheaper. Obamacare made it cheaper, the public
| voted dems out of office. Biden put price caps on pharma,
| and got voted out of office. In both cases Trump (with
| massive support) tried to, or did, wind it back.
|
| Many states didn't take up expended Medicare. Now, we
| could argue that doesn't make health care cheaper
| (overall) it just moves it to a different payer. But
| apparently folk dont want that.
|
| Corporations having power is completely because we give
| them power. If we truly believed in that excess we'd
| behave differently.
|
| Truth is we mostly like our corporate overlords. We rail
| against Musk and Zuck, but we carry on using their
| platforms. Fox has power because they amplify people's
| fears and gives them a scapegoat.
|
| Currently DEI is under the spotlight. It's a very
| convenient scapegoat to every unsuccessful white male. As
| long as we have someone to blame, we can avoid our own
| failings.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| > If we can get a major party to do this
|
| The parties aren't going to change unless the incentives
| change. You need to get something like the anti
| corruption act through on the state level:
|
| https://youtu.be/TfQij4aQq1k?si=DQlWV0u-YmSKqTnn
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| No, the parties aren't going to change until the voting
| system changes.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't understand the underlying presumption that data and
| statistics are how you deradicalize people. People become
| radical when they really want something they feel they
| can't get, and the most effective way to fight that is to
| offer some of what they want. There's no argument that can
| prove your father isn't _allowed_ to want less immigration,
| even if you and I might prefer more.
|
| It's a genuinely hard problem, of course, because there are
| lots of people in the Democratic coalition who are
| radicalized the other direction. They feel - equally
| genuinely, and equally strongly - that excluding or
| deporting an immigrant is a grievous moral wrong which we
| can't tolerate for mere political expediency. That's what
| it means to say that there's not a consensus on
| immigration.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| I don't buy it. Nazis don't get less radical if you
| change your laws to get more in line with their thoughts,
| they get emboldened and want even more.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| What makes you think the original commenter's dad is a
| Nazi?
| dmvdoug wrote:
| That's kind of sweet that you think radicalization is
| about policy preferences. Like the GP, my elderly parents
| have turned into Trump partisans. They listen to Fox News
| all day and night. It's constant exposure to and
| participation in Two Minutes of Hate. My dad's actually a
| sweet guy, and when I can address some of the crazy shit
| he's clearly hearing from somewhere else, and ask him to
| take a step back and talk _to_ me, not _at_ me, we often
| get to a place where he'll acknowledge that what he said
| /repeated really doesn't reflect his own thoughts or
| feelings about something, but then it's just right back
| into the vortex of propaganda, lies, and hatred spewing
| out of the TV, and it's like we never talked at all.
| Eextra953 wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if Fox goes beyond extreme
| partisanship and into a sort of pavlovian training of
| their audience. I've watched Fox before and whenever
| there is a negative or scary story they follow it up with
| a story about Democrats. At what point does that
| association get burned into the audience so that Dem\Prog
| = bad?
| tstrimple wrote:
| The issue is it's not just Fox News. It's all right wing
| media from almost 24/7 AM radio (which is what
| radicalized my dad) to basically all organized social
| media pipelines to local broadcast television and even
| YouTube. Spotify drives you to Joe Rogan who drives
| people to right wing radicals. It's pervasive. You have
| to literally insulate yourself from it or it creeps in
| from every direction.
|
| It's no surprise that our county is where it is. There is
| far more profit in driving right wing propaganda
| (including liberals) than there is left wing propaganda
| because left wing propaganda is anti-capital by
| definition. And capital owns everything.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I wasn't there and I don't know your parents, so I can't
| claim to know for sure what was going on.
|
| I've been on the other side of a similar conversation
| with my parents. I was a big Andrew Yang booster, going
| around ranting about how we obviously ought to establish
| a UBI immediately and anyone who says otherwise is a
| fool. As my parents correctly identified, I didn't
| _really_ believe that, because I knew there were serious
| practical problems with funding such a program. But that
| doesn 't mean that I was logically compelled to become a
| deficit hawk, or that I was brainwashed for not doing so.
| I was embracing the hyperbolic form of a problem I did
| (and do) see as quite important: we have enough resources
| to ensure that everyone in the US can live a decent life
| and ought to use them accordingly.
| sweeter wrote:
| > There is no consensus because there is very little left
| to strive for in the eyes of the average citizen.
|
| I heavily agree on this, people have nothing to look
| forward to, and nothing to be proud of. In fact, the state
| of the US is more embarrassing than anything. Every other
| country has free healthcare, high speed rail, free
| education etc... On top of that, there is no upwards social
| mobility. I know a lot of people my age are literally
| gambling everything on crypto and hustle culture because
| they have _no_ future prospects or hope.
|
| > This is why we can't have single payer healthcare,
| because our populations are too busy fighting for their
| radicalized ideas.
|
| but I have to say that this is beyond naive. A single payer
| healthcare system is broadly popular, it has had the
| majority of support for decades at this point. We can't
| have it because it goes against the profit motive of the
| people running that industry. We already pay more than we
| would in taxpayer money than we would if healthcare was
| free across the board. Its as simple as that. Blatant
| corruption.
|
| And this circles back to the last point, people see this,
| they realize this... and they don't believe that they can
| change this. This is exactly why, across the world, Luigi
| Mangione is hailed as a Saint. Thats _exactly_ why the
| response was, "I get it." and people should try to examine
| that more. Its honestly not very complicated.
|
| Fox News and such, are the only ones providing answers and
| giving people a place to channel this anger. But it is at
| the expense of marginalized groups, and truthfully,
| everyone. The Neo-Liberal order has failed everyone, and
| the Democrats have nothing to offer. I mean, we have
| corruption and oligarchs controlling the government. People
| feel hopeless, and powerless.
| chanakya wrote:
| > People feel hopeless, and powerless.
|
| Some people, I guess. Looks like more than half the
| people approve of what he's doing.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/politics/trump-
| approva...
| righthand wrote:
| The blatant corruption keeps people putting healthcare at
| priority 2 (or 10 really) by making them believe
| immigrants are coming for their sovereignty.
|
| I disagree that people feel powerless to get healthcare,
| they are distracted. If you look at either party it is
| the one singular commonality between the two. Really it
| should be the flag ship of a 3rd party with the
| radicalized ideas second.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I do think you can change the corruption situation
| though, if that became the major topic of discussion. I
| liked this plan, although the presentation doesn't feel
| bipartisan enough:
|
| https://youtu.be/TfQij4aQq1k?si=DQlWV0u-YmSKqTnn
| LastTrain wrote:
| Name the faction to which you refer and what they are holding
| out for. Come on, be brave now.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _If we keep fighting about the same issues, we can't move on
| to solve new problems._
|
| Why? I wouldn't think that _everything_ new has a hard
| dependency on things that are stuck.
| al_borland wrote:
| It's more of an issue of time and focus, not dependencies.
| nradov wrote:
| Have we ever _not_ been in political purgatory? Some
| fundamental political issues such as federalism have been
| fought over since the founding of the republic. And that 's not
| necessarily a bad thing.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| I don't think it's crazy to say politics now is different and
| more disfunctional than the past. Congress can't pass
| anything substantive and needed to change their own rules to
| even appoint judges, the Supreme Court has overturned many
| precedents, and it seems like a lot of the actual policy is
| executive orders (and also what the executive branch chooses
| to enforce or not). And that ignores things like accusations
| of election fraud and a million other different points of
| nonsense that are shockingly mainstream.
|
| The fact it's always been a mess doesn't mean it's not
| significantly more of a mess now than many times in the past
| (not that right now is the worst ever, it's hard to beat a
| civil war, but it's pretty bad).
| bagels wrote:
| We get to solve new problems, the ones that are currently being
| created.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _But librarians and archivists and citizens should use this
| current crisis to demand more than short-term solutions. A new
| distributed digital preservation infrastructure is needed for
| digital government information._
|
| Probably the library of Congress is the right place for it to go?
| ghewgill wrote:
| Do you believe that the Library of Congress is immune from the
| current administration's information purge?
| lukas099 wrote:
| Well, it is called the Library of _Congress_ ; is it not
| under the control of the Legislative?
| borski wrote:
| The library's functions are overseen by the librarian of
| Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the architect
| of the Capitol. The librarian of Congress is the head of
| the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the
| United States with the advice and consent of the United
| States Senate, for a term of ten years.
|
| So yeah, Trump could fire the librarian.
|
| Interestingly, the head of the Architect of the Capitol is
| appointed by a vote of a congressional commission for a
| ten-year term. Prior to 2024, the president of the United
| States appointed the Architect upon confirmation vote by
| the United States Senate, and was accountable to the
| president.
| froh wrote:
| the fuhrer doesn't care about ten year terms. if they
| deem the librarian illoyal they fire the librarian.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| I think that the answer is yes, but, it seems like the
| current administration is trying to push against the
| boundaries of what they are and aren't allowed to do, and
| it's not clear where they will and won't find pushback.
| nxobject wrote:
| You're right - we'll see what the Republican majorities in
| Congress decide to do. You'd hope they wouldn't trample
| over the Congressional Research Service (of the LoC), but
| given the level of political debate I think it was getting
| short shrift already.
| dataflow wrote:
| Does it matter?
|
| Hypothetical question: imagine the president ordered troops
| to evacuate the library and then burn it down. Who exactly
| would be held accountable, and how?
| pstuart wrote:
| All three branches of the Federal Government are now owned
| by one man.
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| They really aren't owned by anyone. That language is
| advance capitulation.
| blastonico wrote:
| Where are the guys announcing projects rewritten in Rust, please
| comeback... US politics suck hard!
| seydor wrote:
| Totally depends on the kind of information. Personal information
| hoarding happens in fascist states
| prpl wrote:
| It's hard to use words like "unprecedented" to describe what has
| happened this last week, but the disarray the government
| currently in has no precedent to my knowledge.
|
| The current disarray moves well beyond the precedented events
| like government shutdowns and rapidly screw things up across the
| board.
| silisili wrote:
| Certainly.
|
| I for one am curious how this turns out. I give it an 80%
| chance of failing spectacularly, 20% chance of 'wow, we were
| wasting that much money?'
|
| The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend
| without any limit or regard to logic. It doesn't -feel- like
| much has ever been done to address it.
|
| Well, now someone decided to just sledgehammer the whole thing.
| I'm both horrified and hopeful at what comes from that.
| chii wrote:
| but with sledgehammer comes the risk of throwing the baby out
| with the bathwater.
|
| I mean, i understand the need to remove unnecessary costs
| like DEI etc, but actual productive output like science
| fundings etc are important in nation building.
|
| What i dont like is how trump is looking to (or is being
| manipulated to) move a lot of public spending into private
| entities. For example, the recent ai stargate announcements.
| How is the public spending meant to benefit all americans,
| rather than the few that own those companies?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| > but actual productive output like science fundings etc
| are important in nation building.
|
| But it seems to me that DEI has so pervasively infiltrated
| the academy and scientific community, that excising them is
| extremely hard without drastic measures.
|
| There was an open letter in 2020 summer from a lot of
| "prominent scientists" that claimed that suddenly social
| distancing didn't matter because BLM. I think that any such
| people that are viewing the world trough this lenses
| shouldn't touch federal money on account of being
| idiotically political or egregiously stupid.
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| > I mean, i understand the need to remove unnecessary costs
| like DEI etc, but actual productive output like science
| fundings etc are important in nation building.
|
| So you don't believe there should be an attempt to reckon
| with the structural forces in play since the beginning of
| the country that have systematically lowered the wealth for
| Black Americans, trans and queer Americans, disabled
| Americans, neurodiverse Americans, and immigrant Americans?
| voxl wrote:
| Anyone who thinks the government should be "run like a
| business" does not deserve to be given an ounce of serious
| consideration in any sphere of intellectual discourse. A
| business does not get to print profit.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Most of my interactions with government take place with
| state and local governments and they are definitely not
| allowed to print profit as far as I recall.
|
| Public schools, police departments, parks, streets - I
| interact with these more than any other government service
| and no of them can print their own money and most of them
| work really hard to be run like businesses that care deeply
| about budgets and managing costs.
| voxl wrote:
| This is what we call a strawman in the business, as I'm
| clearly referring to the federal government. Yet, none of
| your examples should be run as a business either. They
| should be run as nonprofits. Not many nonprofit CEO
| oligarchs wreaking havoc in the government these days are
| there?
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| What part of the federal government is "printing profit,"
| as you say?
| pstuart wrote:
| And they've clearly never worked for a large business. Any
| organization comprising large numbers of people are going
| to be inefficient and unwieldy.
| pgodzin wrote:
| > The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend
| without any limit or regard to logic. It doesn't -feel- like
| much has ever been done to address it.
|
| In terms of "growth", the number of federal civilian
| government employees has basically never been lower as a
| percentage of the population.
|
| https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/report_580_h.
| ..
| silisili wrote:
| OK, now do spending?
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| It's all consumed by the military industrial complex,
| which no doubt will have a continual budget increase as
| it does every year regardless of the administration.
| honzabe wrote:
| Military analyst Ryan McBeth argues the military
| industrial complex is nowadays a lot smaller and less
| influential than people think - he even uses a mental
| shortcut "military industrial complex does not exist" [1]
| - make of it what you will. His arguments seem pretty
| convincing to me.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2gIId1dpDs
| idle_zealot wrote:
| Is it not mostly social security and military spending?
| I.e. not bureaucracy, but what is essentially a savings
| program and massive wealth transfer to the MIC, neither
| of which are being affected so far. All this, plus
| reckless tariffs starting trade wars with the US's
| closest allies do not inspire confidence that this will
| have good outcomes.
| stevage wrote:
| The thing is, clumsy attempts to save money by randomly
| shutting down departments or firing staff can easily end up
| costing much more, by creating expensive problems that the
| departments were in charge of preventing. Or when a couple of
| years later it turns out you needed those things, and it's
| very expensive to try to start up a thing again, replace all
| the lost knowledge and institutional experience etc.
| pstuart wrote:
| It's not an accident. The whole point is to destroy these
| institutions, they've made no secret of that.
|
| I get that there's plenty to not like about the Federal
| Government (and by plenty I mean a lot), but the answer to
| addressing that is to fix the problems rather than burn
| everything to the ground.
| roenxi wrote:
| The US Federal government is 36 trillion in debt and
| trending deeper; with ratios to GDP reminiscent of WWII
| where the US established the global not-an-Empire that it
| currently enjoys. I'm not sure "this could be expensive"
| rises to the level of anyone caring. The situation is
| already well beyond the limits of what anyone who cares
| about cost could cope with.
|
| "failing spectacularly" to me looks more like collapses of
| the international monetary system or generalised large
| scale riots. Which could easily happen, the US government
| is responsible for about half the US economy; look at the
| USSR for what can happen when that sort of system gets
| dismantled too quickly. Mere large monetary amounts are not
| a factor these days.
| anovikov wrote:
| >The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend
| without any limit or regard to logic.
|
| That's not the case really. In the last 50 years there was no
| trend in federal spending vs GDP, with widest movements being
| a growth from ~19% in FY2001 (which ended with 09/11) to
| almost 25% in 2009, with subsequent decline to the same
| average as before. Nothing catastrophic. In the immediate
| postwar era of course, the spending has been much lower at
| around 15% but that was when the population was 9 years
| younger and no Medicare or Medicaid existed, i.e. old or poor
| sick people were just left to fend for themselves.
|
| In 2024 out of 6.8T in federal spending, Medicare and
| Medicaid was 1.9T. Remove that and you are back to a typical
| 1950s level of 16-17% federal spending to GDP.
| silisili wrote:
| Two points.
|
| First, that's not true. Ignoring COVID, it keeps going up,
| slowly but surely.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
|
| Secondly, why does the government need to spend to match
| GDP? The more productive we are, the more the government
| spends?
| anovikov wrote:
| In theory, it should grow faster than GDP. Because
| government spending is inefficient but it is able to do
| things that the free market can't, so poor/less developed
| country should try to minimise it to enable fast,
| efficient growth, while a rich country should try to
| achieve the best results for everyone and that is done
| through government spending (fast growth is impossible
| anyway because it's done by adopting someone else'
| technology and when you are already the richest it's not
| possible as yours is the best one - fast growth is a
| catch-up growth).
|
| In addition, it becomes inevitable because with high per
| capita GDP there is a lot of excess income which people
| want to invest because their needs are covered, and
| varying outcomes of those investments (even if purely
| random, by chance), tend to compound, which results in
| entrenched, systemic inequality, that might even
| crystallise into caste system. Only way to counteract it
| is more taxes and more government spending, so that
| there's less excess income left to invest, and outcomes
| of those less lucky are compensated by gov spending.
| root_axis wrote:
| Using a sledgehammer is reckless and dangerous.
| metamet wrote:
| Musk et al.'s plan has been out in the open for a while. Lots
| of interviews and opinions from them the last few years, so I
| wouldn't even consider it an open secret.
|
| This video is probably the most succinct summary of it I've
| seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
|
| It was made two months ago and has been right on the nose so
| far in terms of the phases in their process.
| phonon wrote:
| Federal discretionary (non military) spending in 2023 was
| around $900 Billion. Total US GDP in 2023 was $27.3
| Trillion...so a bit over 3% of total GDP.
|
| GDP grows (inflation adjusted) around 2.3% per year.
|
| US Health Care is 17-18% of US GDP.
|
| So while discretionary spending is important, it's not nearly
| as important as keeping growth up, and getting a handle on
| health costs.
| gniv wrote:
| I give it a higher chance of succeeding in saving money while
| at the same time destroying a lot of things and creating
| problems that will take decades to fix.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Even if they managed to find 100% savings in the spending
| they are targeting, they will not make a dent in the budget.
| Doing that and cutting all military spending would not
| balance the budget. Most Federal discretional spending is on
| Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
|
| I'm all for cutting this, reducing benefits to _current_
| recipients to bring spending to sustainable levels, but to
| date I haven 't found a politician to vote for who endorsed
| this position.
| silisili wrote:
| I'm sure I've already made tons of not so friendlies in
| this thread, why not more.
|
| Why not just cut and run on social security? I've paid in
| my whole life and probably won't even take a cent from it.
| We realize it's a mostly unsustainable ponzi scheme
| dependent on huge population growth that nobody wants, why
| not just tell us 'sorry, your money is gone, we're ending
| the program'?
|
| Single payer I'm all for. Just in case you thought I was
| picking a side :).
| Volundr wrote:
| > Why not just cut and run on social security?
|
| There's no appetite for this for the exact same reason
| social security was created in the first place. Without
| it you have a bunch of senior citizens out on the street
| unable to work and unable to afford basic necessities.
|
| For all the gnashing of teeth on "entitlement spending"
| the reality without it is pretty unpalatable to most.
| nxobject wrote:
| That's certainly the country (or at least the stock markets)
| as a whole. I'm not sure whether individual agencies - like
| the FBI(*) or the Inspector Generals - will ever get what
| integrity they had back.
|
| (*) I say this as someone who thinks COINTELPRO was a key
| example of a law enforcement agency getting high off its
| fumes and shredding human rights.
| me_again wrote:
| I don't believe there is really any interest in balancing the
| Federal budget or saving money. It's a flimsy pretext for
| purging every person and program not ideologically aligned
| with the incoming administration.
|
| Would anyone like to bet whether the national debt will be
| lower in 2029?
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| How much do you think the deficit will be reduced by the
| digital information-scrubbing described in the post?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's hard to use words like "unprecedented" to describe what
| has happened this last week, but the disarray the government
| currently in has no precedent to my knowledge.
|
| Certainly, there is no precedent in US history for an
| authoritarian, law-flouting executive takeover centering
| illegal purges of the executive branch as a whole (and a
| particular focus on illegally purging federal law enforcement
| and internal government accountability officials), racial
| scapegoating, and massive "deportation" efforts that rapidly
| encompassing setting up massive concentration camps, almost all
| done by executive fiat, with the tacit support of a
| Congressional majority that is ideologically aligned with both
| the policies of the executive and the decision to execute them
| without regard to existing law rather than through legislation.
|
| There are a history of similar things one might point to in
| other countries, but it's a first for the USA.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| The hyperbole is a bit much for me. It shouldn't amaze me,
| but here we are. Partisans are able to construe spending cuts
| and shrinking the purview of the state, with
| authoritarianism.
|
| Although I am not inclined to agree, it is fair to dispute
| specific funding cuts or firings. It would also be reasonable
| to temper those arguments against the futility of general
| cut-backs without specific cuts.
|
| Consider a few hypotheticals:
|
| If we accept that special interest groups exist for spending,
| then it would also be reasonable to accept that these groups
| would protest cuts in the most hyperbolic way imaginable.
|
| If we accept that the Federal gov. is not free from
| corruption, selective enforcement, what is in effect
| "legislation from unelected bureaucrats", or entrenched
| bureaucracies which oppose the will of the people - If we
| accept that any of this exists or is possible, it is not
| unreasonable to accept that some of these bureaus would be
| cut or eliminated.
|
| It is reasonable to expect that these bureaus and special
| interest groups would stand in solidarity. They have every
| incentive to join together and expand the largess of the
| central government. It makes sense that partisan media groups
| would paint any criticism or cuts in the most hyperbolic and
| odious terms.
|
| All of these things are easy to reason about. It is also easy
| to take cursory glance at the historical record. It is easy
| to examine the economic and political ideologies of the
| odious authoritarians which the partisans are so quick to
| invoke. Where did these odious authoritarians cut spending?
| Where did they reduce the purview of the state? If we examine
| this, we will find that cuts and reductions are entirely
| antithetical to the authoritarian platform. It is a
| contradiction in terms. For these reasons, I regard the
| comparisons as ridiculous hyperbole.
| mentalpiracy wrote:
| > The hyperbole is a bit much for me. It shouldn't amaze
| me, but here we are. Partisans are able to construe
| spending cuts and shrinking the purview of the state, with
| authoritarianism.
|
| It is easy to construe blatantly illegal and facially
| unconstitutional acts as authoritarian, actually.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > the disarray the government currently in has no precedent to
| my knowledge
|
| I would like to refer you to what happened slightly more than 8
| years ago when a new president took office.
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