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On October 24 2021 01:22 LegalLord wrote:$200 billion a year on VA by 2019 as well - and rapidly growing (looking like $235B in 2021). Definitely one of the prime places to look for money being wasted, even more so than the "easy target" major defense contractors known for bloat.
I feel like either you are being cold hearted or having poor messaging. Calling healthcare bloat without specifying what you mean is laughable.
Is it bloat because we cant control costs? Or theres a better way to handle it (M4A)? I think you wont find disagreements there. Is it bloat because you dont think we should pay for health care of veterans? Then i think most would disagree.
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On October 23 2021 22:47 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2021 13:21 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2021 09:32 micronesia wrote:On October 23 2021 09:19 Gorsameth wrote:On October 23 2021 09:15 micronesia wrote:
Redirecting defense spending to domestic programs has the potential to do a lot of immediate-term good to social stability and the like. Externally, who else will benefit from such a dramatic shift? I'm fully aware of the plentiful terrible crap the U.S. has done overseas in the name of freedom and the like, but I shudder at the thought of what examples we will be able to come up with for certain other countries in the future when they fill the role the U.S. is largely playing at present. An organisation as big as the US military will have horrendous waste, especially when Congress keeps shoving them more money then they themselves are asking for. A reduction in defence spending does not have to impact the US's ability to project power at all. What was it, the US spends more on the military then the next 10 countries combined? Something tells me the US can do the same its been doing with less. I fully agree there is wasteful spending and ways where that can be reigned in while still fulfilling the mission are desirable. I got the sense from the recent discussion though that there's a near consensus here that it would be adequate to take an axe rather than a scalpel to the military budget. One issue is that's it's not actually easy to effectively trim that budget. The military cant keep adequate track of itself and, either axe or scalpel is going to need to remove an axe's worth of funding. Army, Navy, Marines, and the Air Force all failed their financial audit in 2019. These organizations can't keep track of their finances or their assets, until they start they should get serious budget cuts and have to re-justify all of the money they receive and actually bother to keep track of it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/sunday/pentagon-spending-audit-failed.html I can't read the article through the paywall but I don't agree with the part in red/bold for two reasons. First, their mission is important, and will suffer greatly with sudden severe budget cuts. Secondly, if they really can't keep track of their finances, that also means they can't distribute the budget decreases effectively and will do even more harm than necessary. As I suggested above, this problem needs to be solved carefully rather than suddenly and dramatically. I don't think enough has been done towards this effort, but that article suggests people are finally looking.
The military's mission is taking up three times what China spends, I have a very hard time believing they need more than MAYBE double what China spends, and even thats me being generous because why should the world's most theoretically advanced military need twice what China spends to compete with China? That'd indicate some serious, serious issues that no amount of money is going to solve.
I can't accept the line that they're so budgetarily incompetent that we cant give them too much less money because they're so budgetarily incompetent, they eventually succumbed to their auditing (the articles paywalled for me too now but they mentioned the military just kind of forgot it had like 19 blackhawk helicopters???) and I think that means we have enough of an idea to start slashing away at their budget. The military should have absolutely and precisely no part in any financial auditing of itself, it should be done by a third party because the military seems incentivized to bloat itself into oblivion.
I'm not saying to immediately reduce the military budget by 50%, but the military budget they probably should have passed should've been a ten year plan that shaves off good 30% over that ten years.
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United States24656 Posts
On October 24 2021 09:39 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2021 22:47 micronesia wrote:On October 23 2021 13:21 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2021 09:32 micronesia wrote:On October 23 2021 09:19 Gorsameth wrote:On October 23 2021 09:15 micronesia wrote:
Redirecting defense spending to domestic programs has the potential to do a lot of immediate-term good to social stability and the like. Externally, who else will benefit from such a dramatic shift? I'm fully aware of the plentiful terrible crap the U.S. has done overseas in the name of freedom and the like, but I shudder at the thought of what examples we will be able to come up with for certain other countries in the future when they fill the role the U.S. is largely playing at present. An organisation as big as the US military will have horrendous waste, especially when Congress keeps shoving them more money then they themselves are asking for. A reduction in defence spending does not have to impact the US's ability to project power at all. What was it, the US spends more on the military then the next 10 countries combined? Something tells me the US can do the same its been doing with less. I fully agree there is wasteful spending and ways where that can be reigned in while still fulfilling the mission are desirable. I got the sense from the recent discussion though that there's a near consensus here that it would be adequate to take an axe rather than a scalpel to the military budget. One issue is that's it's not actually easy to effectively trim that budget. The military cant keep adequate track of itself and, either axe or scalpel is going to need to remove an axe's worth of funding. Army, Navy, Marines, and the Air Force all failed their financial audit in 2019. These organizations can't keep track of their finances or their assets, until they start they should get serious budget cuts and have to re-justify all of the money they receive and actually bother to keep track of it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/sunday/pentagon-spending-audit-failed.html I can't read the article through the paywall but I don't agree with the part in red/bold for two reasons. First, their mission is important, and will suffer greatly with sudden severe budget cuts. Secondly, if they really can't keep track of their finances, that also means they can't distribute the budget decreases effectively and will do even more harm than necessary. As I suggested above, this problem needs to be solved carefully rather than suddenly and dramatically. I don't think enough has been done towards this effort, but that article suggests people are finally looking. The military's mission is taking up three times what China spends, I have a very hard time believing they need more than MAYBE double what China spends, and even thats me being generous because why should the world's most theoretically advanced military need twice what China spends to compete with China? That'd indicate some serious, serious issues that no amount of money is going to solve. Setting aside whether an advanced military is actually more financially efficient than a less advanced military, you may want to compare the mission of the U.S. military with the mission of the Chinese military. They are fairly different. If you think the mission should change, then a description of the change should accompany the discussion for budgetary changes.
I can't accept the line that they're so budgetarily incompetent that we cant give them too much less money because they're so budgetarily incompetent,
Then it's probably a good thing you are not the decision maker in this regard, because as I said before, the axe approach is going to harm the mission a lot more than you would expect when the dust settles. Often, when a dollar is cut improperly, and it is later identified, "oh, we actually need to keep spending that dollar for what it was used on," it ends up taking 10 dollars to stand that capability back up. These problems can be mostly avoided by carefully controlling rather than axing the budget (not that it has been adequately controlled in several areas either, as your article likely discussed).
they eventually succumbed to their auditing (the articles paywalled for me too now but they mentioned the military just kind of forgot it had like 19 blackhawk helicopters???) and I think that means we have enough of an idea to start slashing away at their budget. The military should have absolutely and precisely no part in any financial auditing of itself, it should be done by a third party because the military seems incentivized to bloat itself into oblivion.
I'm not saying to immediately reduce the military budget by 50%, but the military budget they probably should have passed should've been a ten year plan that shaves off good 30% over that ten years.
The military definitely should be financially auditing itself. I think your point is, there needs to be external auditing as well. As for shaving off 30% over ten years, it's very difficult to know what defense will cost in 5 or 10 years from now, so it won't be clear what to subtract 30% from. Anyway, there's definitely need for improvement, which I think we can agree on.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On October 24 2021 09:56 micronesia wrote:
Then it's probably a good thing you are not the decision maker in this regard, because as I said before, the axe approach is going to harm the mission a lot more than you would expect when the dust settles. Often, when a dollar is cut improperly, and it is later identified, "oh, we actually need to keep spending that dollar for what it was used on," it ends up taking 10 dollars to stand that capability back up. These problems can be mostly avoided by carefully controlling rather than axing the budget (not that it has been adequately controlled in several areas either, as your article likely discussed).
Indeed, it very much does feel like “taking the axe” to some really key things, then realizing it was a mistake and paying to undo the damage, is where a lot of the biggest cost overruns I’ve been involved in actually happened. If they did what people thought they did - watch the budget get exceeded by some nettlesome amount (10-30 percent) and just kind of accept it - things would have ended up a lot better in the long run. Might not always be the right answer to do that, but I’ve seen it be the case quite a lot.
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I should reiterate that I don’t want an axe approach, I want a scalpel approach that removes an axes worth of budget. Even past financial incompetence the military spends a lot of money that I don’t think they should be spending, stuff like 1.7t on the F-35 fighter jet.
But yeah, we likely agree that generally the military’s budget needs better management at least.
EDIT: for accurate money scaling
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Well, you won’t cut as much as you want with a scalpel. Either pick a couple programs to cut, or accept big budgets.
Fewer aircraft carriers is probably a good option. Though Virginia loves their carriers and it’s a pretty important state right now, so…
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I think the military has a ton of space for precise cuts. It probably has a ton of space for much larger cuts, too.
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You may want to compare the mission of the U.S. military with the mission of the Chinese military.
I'm not very interested in a discussion on the mission of the Chinese military in the US politics thread but I do think there's potential value in discussing what people think the mission of the US military is and how much it's worth/is necessary to spend on it.
I think there are some worthwhile insights along the same lines as people's misbeliefs about policing in the US.
stuff like 1.7m on the F-35 fighter jet.
That's not even a year of operating budget btw.
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On October 24 2021 13:38 GreenHorizons wrote:That's not even a year of operating budget btw.
Yeah, the F-35 cost 1.7 trillion, not 1.7 million.
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Accurate, its 1.7t spend over the lifetime of its development, not millions, my bad there
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I guess good enough of a time as any to check in on redistricting:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/
Overall the trend is to reduce competition in all districts, whether democrat or republican controlled. For example, New York and Washington are entrenching existing democratic advantages. Similarly, Texas has reduced competition in almost all districts, and has entrenched the solid blue/red areas, guaranteeing the democrats more seats than previously, but limiting them to a minority of government. Only states with independent commissions have more competitive seats.
Basically, always winning by 1 is better than sometimes winning by 10 when it comes to majority rule.
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Canada11343 Posts
I have a hunch the redistricting will never change to something sensible. It's controlled at the state level. Because you can only make changes state by state, it incentivizes gaming redistricting because you cannot dismantle your own advantage and hope the other side does the same- the stakes are seen as too high in the States. So it's an ever increasing armsrace where neither side can voluntarily afford to unilaterally disarm without shooting themselves in the foot when the other side refuses to do the same.
Maybe if a majority of governors recognized that the current trajectory is very bad, they could negotiate some sort of deal where all sides agree to a great redistricting by an independent body with some simple rules (We have Premiers Conferences with our prime-ministers- does the States have an equivalent?)
For instance, our criteria for Elections Canada:
+ Show Spoiler +What criteria are used to determine the new federal electoral boundaries?
The main criterion for electoral boundaries is population equality. The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act requires that the population of an electoral district in a given province be as close as is reasonably possible to the average population size of a district for that province (that is, the province's population divided by the number of House of Commons seats allocated to that province).
However, in addition to population equality, commissions must consider other social and geographic factors. They may choose to create electoral districts whose populations vary from the average, if they consider it necessary or desirable to do so in order to:
Respect communities of interest or identity (for example, communities based around language or shared culture and history),
Respect historical patterns of previous electoral boundaries, or
Maintain a manageable geographic size for districts in sparsely populated, rural or northern regions of the province
Commissions should make every effort to ensure that the population of a district is not more than 25 percent above or below the average district population. In extraordinary circumstances, however, commissions may create districts that vary from the average by more than 25 percent.
I'd say by and large the the boundaries make sense with quite a few districts up for grab. (Also regional politics can over-ride the sort of Left-Right split in the States where an entire region in Canada will throw everybody out and vote in some third party.)
But good luck getting all those States to the same table to agree to an independent commission to redistrict. Herding cats. And who gets appointed to the commission would become the same partisan fight that is the choosing of the SCOTUS judges.
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Yet another way we are being screwed by the two party system. Though there's still a possibility that the federal government (during a progressive era) could legislate redistricting rules that are more objective and fair.
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On October 26 2021 10:38 Starlightsun wrote:
Yet another way we are being screwed by the two party system. Though there's still a possibility that the federal government (during a progressive era) could legislate redistricting rules that are more objective and fair.
The "two party system" in the US is pretty much like Gap vs Old Navy.
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The entire Democratic Party is campaigning in Virginia, so they’re probably gonna lose
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On October 27 2021 09:35 Mohdoo wrote:
The entire Democratic Party is campaigning in Virginia, so they’re probably gonna lose
I mean, they won in CA by wide margins when the dem party turned out.
I know this is different but let's not act like dems can't get the vote out when they scare the shit out of their voter base
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Voting is on a work day for me, and McAuliffe is breaking my cardinal rule by filling every youtube video I watch with fucking ads, and its making me so much less likely to haul my exhausted ass to a poll after a day of labor.
Hope all of the Democrats help him win, though.
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One party actively screws you and the other passively screws you.
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Manchin saying a billionaire tax is "divisive", jesus christ lol. Ron Wyden and Manchin are a good example of how American politics are essentially an implied coalitions. There are various wings of the left/right, but we kind of cut to the chase by just forming a coalition ahead of time. Wyden and Manchin do not appear to be from the same political party from a European politics perspective.
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EPT
