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Comment by hunterb123 | Hacker News Reader

I'm against both parties funneling tax payer money to defense contractors in never-ending wars, but more government programs to give them more options to funnel money is not the solution.

Totally for high speed rail depending on if the money gets to it. Japan has shown a private/public transportation system is possible. That being said, it'll probably go to a politicians friend's company and it'll end up like the $90 billion California train.

The current K-12 public school system is a joke, lets fix that first. I'd rather see school of choice. You can already qualify for preschool if you need it. For college, let's lower tuition before making the tax payer pay off the current tuition debt and then paying for free college for even more. (but really lets not pay people's debt)

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> I'm against both parties funneling tax payer money to defense contractors in never-ending wars, but more government programs to give them more options to funnel money is not the solution.

I get what you're saying, but consider this. If you explicitly funnel money to these people for the purpose of warfare, they will only make weapons and train people to engage in warfare and supporting activities.

Best case scenario, you got some specialists who are "also" proficient in adjacent technical skills, related to warfare (e.g. cybersecurity), and a bunch of military hardware sitting on parking lots (or falling into the hands of the Taliban).

But if you engage them for education or high speed rail, sure, they pad their pockets, sure, but at the end of the day you at least got some infrastructure for schools, rail engineers and supporting roles for those fields. You don't have to deal with depreciating military machines, who are only fit for destruction.

I don't mean to say I have the ultimate truth regarding this, but personally, I will pick the $90 billion California train over 300 days in Afghanistan every single time.

I’m not saying it has to be spent, or that it has to be spent on what I said. The scale is the thing. Austerity since 2008 seems like it leads to much worse outcomes.

I understand, my point was, the never ending war gave them the opportunity to funnel to Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc.

Making "universal" programs is the same thing as Afghanistan, you won't get anything out of it in the end and it'll end up costing you trillions.

The best government program is near to no program. Don't print more, let it hold it's value, don't steal from the people. Then you'll have oodles of wealth to help the true people in need, either through private companies or through limited government programs with oversight.

Stop giving them tax payer fund spigots, they can't be trusted.

Governments around the world are able to provide more services to all of their citizens, being less rich than us. I think the “government is always the problem” mindset ignores the downsides of the alternative that we’re living through now, with the only proscribed thing to do being a zero example “doubling down” on less government.

If you want your country to have healthcare, at the very minimum you do the Swiss system.

My point was OUR government can't be trusted with the money. You think the same people playing games with lives over seas just to funnel money to defense contractors is going to truly implement the system promised?

That being said, no I don't believe in socialist programs, Sweden was a pretty good example they aren't feasible, it crushed their economy and they are slowly reversing course. I think there should be safety nets, but the government should not be in charge of your life.

There's a reason America is the economic powerhouse it is today, limited programs, less taxes. Our private healthcare system is expensive but leads the world in innovation (cancer treatments, experimental drugs, vaccines, etc.) The American people pay for that R&D while the world gets it basically for free. I don't have an issue with universal healthcare, but we should lower costs first, not throw more tax payer money to hospitals and pharma.

I don’t think American government is special compared to a lot of other places that provide more services. Often we have less corruption. What we do have is a lot of corporate de facto control of government IE the pharmaceutical industry - this comes out of a desire to have minimal government.

The American healthcare system is not better because we spend more money, it’s better because we have good universities and lots of immigrants.

Agree we should lower costs - deregulation does not lower costs in this case.

> The best government program is near to no program.

1000x no! We need government to work - that's not negotiable - the question is not whether it works well enough to make you happy, it's what it should work on. The US didn't go to the moon or build the interstate highway system by saying, "Politicians suck, I hope the private sector solves this."

While the space programs gave us a lot of technology early on and were definitely needed, private sector entities such as SpaceX have shown they can do it more efficiently. I'd say NASA was a massive outlier in terms of government program effectiveness. I wish they would get more funding tbh, instead they get cuts :(

I'm all for R&D spending, defense spending, infrastructure spending, etc. But time and time again OUR recent government has shown they cannot be trusted with the funds and programs they suggest. They make these massive bills and none of the money makes it to anything meaningful.

I'm for SPECIFIC programs, not UNIVERSAL slush funds.

Name the bridges you want to repair, repair them. Don't try to steal $5 trillion while funneling it to "green companies" without fixing a single pothole.

> Making "universal" programs is the same thing as Afghanistan, you won't get anything out of it in the end and it'll end up costing you trillions.

You will get.. infrastructure, healthcare, education. How is this nothing?

The US should only spend money on rail infrastructure if it’s willing to pay the Japanese or Europeans all that money to build the infrastructure with no American involvement whatsoever.

Otherwise they’re better off burning the money.

School choice doesn't work. The "success stories" are just funneling the smart kids into other schools while letting others fail while charter corporations make millions. The problem isn't the "school", it's poverty and the home situation.

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