It's amazing how the general public seems to think people involved with the bureaucracy would never support cuts and downsizing. They should get a moral compass and try working there for a while.
To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great), or you can keep your scope while improving your efficiency such that you don't need as much money, which is vastly preferable.
Those in the general public who thinks that government budgets should increase monotonically are a linear combination between total idiots and outright politically malicious.
Just wanting something that requires a significant overhaul of how you do things, is not enough.
The people working in the bureaucracy do not have the authority to overhaul it.
You're not going to find a lot of vegans working in a meat packing plant.
Your first link is the first-person account of a vegan who went undercover to document the abject cruelty that exists in slaughterhouses. The pragmatism was in service of a mission to protect animals by disseminating information on such cruelty rather than the “I need a job.” type of pragmatism. There’s a moral distinction here.
> Basically, I'm an animal lover. I don't take any pleasure in what we're doing, but if I can do it as quietly and professionally as possible, then I think we've achieved something.
I was not at all referring to 'the "I need a job" type of pragmatism' (which would not be moral pragmatism for a vegan); rather, doing a job that involves killing animals in such a way that your presence reduces the marginal harm could be seen as defensible to a vegan.
and thus be fired?
But if said bureaucrat makes its own process more efficient, they might get fired because they are not needed anymore.
So even if the DMV clerks want it to not suck, management want it to suck.
Plenty of dysfunctional bureaucratic organizations have high rates of occupational burnout and high employee churn due to the stress of repeatedly enforcing policies the employee knows full well are morally reprehensible.
So in real psychology, I claim there's plenty of incentive, even for the majority of people in the organizations.
Not for long.
> high rates of occupational burnout and high employee churn
See
It should and not even just linearily. If economy grows by roughly even percentage each year same should be true about government budgets. Otherwise you just leave money on the table for billionaires to scoop up and sit on. Of course it should be funded with taxes not debt and that's where the worst part of government spending is. That it's done by indebting itself to billionaires and letting them suck more and more government money each year through debt servicing.
Then the second half seems to be a complaint that increasing government spending has created a resource for billionaires to draw from to enrich themselves.
It seems that if you believe the first, the second is hard to complain about. There is a social contract that the billionaires must fund [yea much] government. They are. If they then pay a little extra tax and it goes in a circular loop back to them, which is weird but I'm not sure how you are arguing it to be a problem - clearly under this frame they are going to be worse off than when they started, so they have been taxed some amount. The question is whether that amount is reasonable or not, I suppose. But that has nothing to do with whether they have a custom of a ceremonial handing of some billionaire money to the government to be handed back to the billionaire on top of their taxes.
I don't think that's the contract. Government must be funded by citizens which all are consumers. What billionaires extract from consumers can't go towards funding the government. Unless it's borrowed directly from billionaires which is what got most governments in financial problems they are currently in.
> The question is whether that amount is reasonable or not
To asses that you only need to compare rate of growth of billionaires wealth to the rate of growth of the entire economy. Then you can see how much they suck out of non-billionaires.
I don't think you're articulating your point clearly here - what billionaires extract from consumers has to go towards funding the government in part, that is what they use to pay their taxes. Otherwise where does the wealth used to pay the taxes come from? Capital only generates a return in a context where there is someone to consume what it produces.
Just to put my view - I'm with you 100% that billionaires are sucking money out of the government. Look at any billionaire and a good chunk of their wealth seems to come from some combination of regulatory capture and government contracts. I'm just not seeing how you square that with "and therefore the government should grow at the same rate of the economy". It seems like a counter-intuitive position to take if you've identified that billionaire wealth is a key justification and the billionaires are very good at extracting money from the government. It seems likely to me that billionaire wealth would scale with the size of government.
The wealth of government is ultimately funded by the middle class. There aren't enough billionaires to carry the load. Eg, Elon Musk's net worth is estimated at $500 billion which isn't enough to cover 1 year of spending of the US military, for example. So he taps out after 1 year and then someone has to find funding for the 2nd year somewhere else. And you'd consume a few more billionaires (none of whom have Musk-level wealth) to cover the parts of the US government that aren't war-related. It wouldn't last long if billionaires have to fund it.
Consumers.
> Capital only generates a return in a context where there is someone to consume what it produces.
Exactly. If you don't tax the return sufficiently it amplifies the capital (lands in th pockets of billionaires in other words).
> It seems like a counter-intuitive position to take if you've identified that billionaire wealth is a key justification and the billionaires are very good at extracting money from the government. It seems likely to me that billionaire wealth would scale with the size of government.
What billionaires extract from the government in terms of subsidies and such is nothing compared to what they get as a result of tax cuts and being undertaxed in general.
Basically we should tax billionaires more. Government getting richer because of that is just a side effect.
Government growing with the size of the economy is not a goal. It's a gauge showing us that billionaires are adequately taxed.
I'm using term "billionaires" loosely. 10 hecto-millionaires are fine too as a replacement for one billionaire.
Again the goal is not to fund the government. It's to remove power from unelected oligarchs.
Government budgets should increase with inflation but there is zero reason for them to partake in the increase in productivity. Increases in productivity should, generally, also be applicable to government programs and, as such, they should get relatively cheaper over time, not more expensive.
If we want to _add_ programs, government budgets should increase in kind but the efficiency of government should rise over time as the things required to run government become cheaper. This rarely happens though because government programs don't have the same incentives that lead to increases in efficiency.
It's funny you're so against billionaires scooping up that money but want the government to scoop it up instead. Government is just big business with guns.
The reason is that government is ruled democratically which makes it less likely to successfully execute terrible decisions persistently. There's also some influence of the public on those decisions. In case of billionaires there's nothing to stop them to pursue idiotic, societally and economically harmful goals on a whim. There's also difference of transparency and availability of warning signs. Not to mention that I can change which government rules me by boarding a plane but Zuckerberg is influencing my life in every place on Earth.
Leaving the money with the populace is not an option. Citizens are weak, money will get scooped. The question is by whom. I'll pick democratic government over billionaires every day of the week.
> If economy grows by roughly even percentage each year same should be true about government budgets
Stupid. For the purposes of this discussion, the government exists to provide services. The cost of those services, in general, decreases with economic productivity.
> Otherwise you just leave money on the table for billionaires to scoop up and sit on.
Both stupid and malicious. Mind-bogglingly stupid, because that profit isn't just captured by the wealthy, but by all economic classes. Malicious, because you'd rather sabotage the economy than let some people take excess profits based on their wealth alone.
You can't with straight face claim that profit is not captured by billionaires but by everybody if economy grows 3% but billionaires wealth doubles in the same period. They not only capture the entire new profit of economy growth but also extract wealth from all other parties including government.
Yet again, factually incorrect. The government provides many services - social security, food stamps, military protection, utilities, research funding, pharmaceutical oversight, and many, many, many other things. You're just wrong.
> You provide the service of producing economic value.
Also wrong. That is not a "service" provided to the government - it's just something that people do, and they have the right to keep those rewards.
> You can't with straight face claim that profit is not captured by billionaires but by everybody if economy grows 3% but billionaires wealth doubles in the same period
Those things are unrelated.
Yet again - a mixture between stupidity and malice, driven by base greed, envy, and resentment of what others have that you don't.
Sorry for using a short-hand. Government doesn't provide services for your benefit. The only goal of providing those benefits is to best enable you to produce economic value that government and the rich can capture.
> That is not a "service" provided to the government - it's just something that people do, and they have the right to keep those rewards.
The only right of the physical world is might.
Why do you think anyone just lets people do what people "just" do? They let people do it because powerful benefit.
It's the same reasoning why a warlord lets peasants grow crops and raise animals and chases away neighboring warlord. Because then there's something he can take for himself. Political systems change but the basic mechanic never did. Democracy and capitalism are just a way better tool for exploitation than feudalism could ever be. Efficient. Stable. Didn't you ever notice that with development of new, more enlightened systems of power tax burden doesn't shrink but grows instead?
> Those things are unrelated.
We have one monetary system. It's all related.
> Yet again - a mixture between stupidity and malice, driven by base greed, envy, and resentment of what others have that you don't.
I have plenty, way more than I ever deserved. I'm at risk of being directly negatively financially affected by policies I advocate for. Drop the armchair moral psychoanalysis because you miss every time, on all counts.
Ok, you're just evil. No need to justify anything to an evil person.
Factually incorrect. "The only right of the physical world is might." is not a realist statement, because being a realist is when you look at the factual truth of the world - it's a cynical worldview, which is non-truthful and therefore non-realist, by definition.
It's always entertaining to watch evil people try to justify their actions and (lack of) morality.
It's absolutely correct. Familiarize yourself with concept of "monopoly on violence". That's the physical source of any other arrangements including rights.
You handwave about some vague morality a lot, even after your accusation of envy missed by a mile and you think it's a substitute for a robust argument. It's tiresome and boring.
Now you shifted the goalposts from "The only right of the physical world is might." - so you can't even be consistent with your own positions.
> You handwave about some vague morality a lot
It should be pretty obvious that an evil person or someone with a repellent ideology's claims on morality are invalid, and how that's relevant to assertions about the function of the government, for instance.
The "might is right" ideology means that you believe that every tyrant, like Mao and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini, was justified in their genocides and war crimes, because they were powerful enough to effect them, and therefore morally right by definition. That is, as any sane person would tell you, a perverse and evil morality.
I don't really need to go on further, because I know that I can't convince an evil and immoral person that they're evil. My only goal is to convince future HN readers that that idea is evil, and that therefore your assertions are invalid, and I think I've succeeded at that, given the downvotes on your other comments, and the general HN understanding that "might is right" is an abhorrent ideology.
So, my goal is fulfilled. Feel free to continue digging yourself a hole for future readers, if you wish :)
I was just trying to get through your confusion and reach thinking part of your brain. I repeatedly failed.
> It should be pretty obvious that an evil person or someone with a repellent ideology's claims on morality are invalid
You are so deep in your confused morality that you didn't even notice I made no moral claims except for "Being a realist doesn't make someone evil".
"The only right of the physical world is might." is not a moral claim same way "Acceleration due to gravity is indistinguishable from any other acceleration" is not. It's a factual claim. The fact that it's more vague and general and uses the word "right" doesn't turn it into a moral claim.
> The "might is right" ideology means that you believe that every tyrant, like Mao and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini, was justified in their genocides and war crimes, because they were powerful enough to effect them, and therefore morally right by definition.
Again you are so confused that you can't tell apart narrative from a factual state. Saying that Mao had was justified because he had might is a moral claim (a wrong one) and is of no interest to me.
What I'm saying is that the only reason Mao could have awarded any rights to himself, his enforcers or his victims was because he had might. In this aspect he doesn't differ from any post WWII president of US. If you don't have might you are not the one who can create and award rights. Not in the real world. It has nothing to do with morality. Morality comes later to evaluate how benevolently the entity with might used its right to create further rights for themselves and others.
> My only goal is to convince future HN readers that that idea is evil, and that therefore your assertions are invalid, and I think I've succeeded at that, given the downvotes on your other comments [...]
Sorry to interrupt your victory lap, but not a single of my comments, on the path between the first one I made and this one, has karma below 1 at this moment. Even in theory, all you did was basically use ad hominem "you are evil" to declare my points invalid.
I had no goal in this thread other than being understood by you and I failed. If that makes you a winner, I don't really care.
> Feel free to continue digging yourself a hole for future readers, if you wish
I think it's plain to see which side tried to make arguments and which started and ended by flinging accusations of immorality, greed, envy and resentment and pretty much avoided the point altogether.
Um, $11,000,000,000 for ICE is not a cut. $850 Billion for the department of war (an increase of $25 billion over last year) is not a cut.
But yes, CFPB's funding for 2025 which gets reduced from about $823 million to about $446 million is a cut. Which will be great for consumers because we can now start paying extra fees that will boost corporate profits.
Well, they should track population growth. You cannot effectively serve a larger population with the same resources, otherwise we would continue to have two lane freeways everywhere.
The converse being, of course, that sometimes transient events or large shifts (eg increase in costs of materials used to make some important good that the government procures) make things cost more, and so the budget should increase in proportion to those beyond population growth.
If the number of people who need to apply for id/license/passports keeps increasing, then the number of people servicing those requests also needs to increase (or we need to stop complaining about the dmv). No amount of technology is going to replace that need.
Really? That’s the exact opposite of my experience. How do you even contact Google?
I have had consistently great experiences with government agencies from my local utility to the IRS. With a government agency I call the clearly posted phone number and immediately get an actual person who solves the problem. With private companies I have to navigate byzantine phone trees or fight with brain dead chat bots.
Government work and corporate work are very much the same in that way, budgets are use it or lose it and everyone will use it this year so their budget isn't reduces next year.
That specific one is an unfortunate side-effect of needing to allocate budgets in advance. Large organizations working with a lot of money need to statically schedule their budgets in advance - and because they don't have crystal balls, they can't actually know in advance how much they'll need, and have to make educated guesses. If a department didn't use all of its allocated budget last year, sure that's a very weak signal that it was given too large of a budget - but it is a signal, and there aren't very many other good ones.
Its the way of the world now to aim for growing into a huge org, hiring as much as you can on the way up. Once those in charge know little more about a part of their company than the budget surplus at the end of the fiscal year the model just doesn't make sense.
And the budget-burning shows that this encourages making over-estimates and then spending the excess to make the actual numbers match the prediction. It's no different than research based on falsified data at that point.
The US federal government has taken a third route: increasing scale faster than resources. Before this administration, the # of federal employees sat roughly where it was in 1969 (there have been some fluctuations since then). In addition to the added tasks/departments/etc., there are 70% more Americans for which to administer government.
Scope has gone up quite a bit faster than headcount. I haven't done the analysis, but would be curious to see how this compares to given companies over similar timelines.
I don't think it's easy to design a firing process that would outperform random chance there. In any non-random process, office politicians would always be first in line with an excuse for why they specifically should not be fired. No matter what the criteria for not getting fired are - they'll do their damn best to make sure they meet them.
I do think there's a threshold of organizational dysfunction that justifies unleashing "random destruction" upon it. Or even "total destruction" - and building it all anew.
Perhaps the tree of efficiency needs to be watered with the blood of career bureaucrats.
Random destruction might be the best kind of destruction but that doesn’t mean destruction leads to efficiency. If politicians are inevitable why would what comes next be any less susceptible to political manipulation than what we already built?
What’s step two in the revolutionary underpants gnome playbook?
1) Burn it all down
2) ???
3) profit?
> Perhaps the tree of efficiency needs to be watered with the blood of career bureaucrats.
I assume this is a bad joke because otherwise it’s extremely dangerous and ignorant. In the current climate it translates to an actual call to violence.
Jefferson’s quote is about the necessity of violent revolution which ultimately led to the systems we have today. He had a specific grievance. He desired self-determination. He won. We have it. Why are you so eager to repeat the sacrifice and hard work of our ancestors to get back to where we already are? What benefit do you see in doing so?
Career bureaucrats aren’t politicians. Those are different things. I have had many positive experiences with “career bureaucrats”. They really only exist to help. It’s why we call them public servants.
It is a lot easier to call my public utility provider and solve a problem than it is to call Facebook, Disney, or Alaska Airlines. I have had nothing but positive experiences with the IRS.
It’s easy to break things. Children can do it. What’s your plan for building and operating something if you can’t even operate what we already have?
Government agencies rarely face anything like this. TSA exists without facing a risk of being destroyed for being worthless. There is a mechanism missing.
The "step two" is to rebuild it from the grounds up. If there is any need in rebuilding it at all. Never rehire any of the old people. It's how a lot of the post-Soviet countries ended up fixing their dysfunctional government institutions.
They had to thoroughly destroy what was there and build it anew to as much as make them sort of work. There are reasons to believe that the dysfunction would have survived lesser measures - and in some countries that shied away from destruction, it did.
How do you know what can be rebuilt better? If you can identify these systems why can’t you modify them? If destruction is constructive don’t you have to concede that whatever you build next also deserves destruction? And if so why build it at all?
If you can’t articulate specific failures and propose solutions now then why would you be able to post-destruction?
What properties make a post-Soviet system worthy of keeping? Why shouldn’t those systems also be constructively destroyed? Why should we apply constructive destruction to non-Soviet systems?
If your entire plan is to break things how do you ever build? What philosophy guides your rebuilding process?
Sometimes things fail so badly that a randomly initialized system outperforms them. Sometimes things fail so badly that no system at all outperforms them. The point is: recognize that and apply destruction.
Define egregious. Why would the next thing be any different than what it replaced?
> Sometimes things fail so badly that a randomly initialized system outperforms them.
Sometimes? When?
> The point is: recognize that and apply destruction.
How do we recognize what needs to be destroyed? What are the criteria?
What you’re describing here seems incredibly careless.
If you don't find yourself saying "destroying this was a mistake" every once in a while, you aren't destroying nearly enough.
I still don’t see why we should try to cut into the bone of our society. I see no benefit to careless destruction.
I know this seems so abstract it sounds like a truism and not actionable. Considering that incentive structures come in many guises (laws, morals, money etc.) the first thing we need to figure out which incentive structure is dominant in a given situation. An employee of a bureaucracy, for example, might share the presented moral disapproval about inefficiency but is it the dominant incentive structure? Probably not.
For example, DOGE toppled existing incentive structures, emphasising cost reduction vs. effectivity and privacy. People were (maybe are, nobody is reporting anything on this anymore) up in arms because they had to abandon incentive structures they knew to navigate. DOGE was a colossal failure because emphasising efficiency over effectivity is always like polishing a turd and many people said as much "back then" but look at the incentive structure of those who didn't and don't. Many of them have not prospered in the previous structures, so they support the new ones, even if they are insane to you and me. They act rationally.
> emphasising cost reduction
no.
DOGE attacked organizations investigating companies owned by Musk. Nothing else.
If you believe something along the lines of "the richest 1% of society, the ones who have > 10x more wealth each than a typical upper-middle-class person, have too much money and too much power and we should change that" -- which I think is the kind of thing Sanders believes -- then talking about "millionaires" was a reasonable way to express that 50 years ago; these days what we need is a word whose meaning is more like "person with $20M or more"; give it another 50 years and "billionaires" might express roughly the same meaning that "millionaires" did in 1975. (Or, of course, there might be a huge economic crash, or a currency devaluation, or a technological singularity, or something.)
So someone could switch from complaining about "millionaires" to complaining about "billionaires" just because the way the meanings of those words have shifted means that the best word for pointing at a particular social issue used to be "millionaires" and is now "billionaires".
Because we really only have "millionaire" and "billionaire" and, more generally, numbers spaced by powers of 1000, the sets of people you can talk about pithily change over time. So, at the moment, you can talk about "millionaires" and be referencing something like the top 15% of US households (so if you're wanting to engage in some hostile rhetoric, pointing it at "millionaires" is probably broader than you want for several reasons); or you can talk about "billionaires" and be referencing something more like the top 0.0003% (so if you're wanting to raise money by redistribution, "billionaires" is probably much narrower than you want).
I suspect there are a few good PhD theses to be written investigating questions like "do populist-leftist movements have more success in places/times where some handy term like 'millionaire' picks out roughly the top 0.3%-3% of the population than in places where there's no word that does that?".
(Note: numbers above are in the right ballpark but I make no claim that careful calculation wouldn't change them somewhat.)