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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

But they're still wastes of money, and based on the one-line description provided by the OP, they are rather absurd.

A few others I can think of:

  Government insurance/funding for homes destroyed by natural disasters - why am I bailing out Florida homeowners when their home is destroyed by a hurricane? At best you get the first one free and then you're on your own after that.

  Billions for highway construction that is not needed, which then costs more to maintain and results in more spending on cars, more deaths, higher costs for insurance, &c.

  Various improper payments, billions in subsidies handed out, COVID-19 bailouts and forgiveness

The broad point wasn't wrong. The government does waste money and frankly is pretty damn well-funded.

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I think it would be more wasteful overall to not give that bailout to florida home owners. A walking migrant crisis and maintaining the refugee camps for impovrished floridians after a hurricane sounds extremely expensive for a long time.

Sounds like an excuse for anyone to justify their spending, ergo American debt-to-GDP ratio continues to increase

The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic costs of the alternatives you’re suggesting.

Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt?

The point is that you could cut all those "wasteful" projects (and we probably should, just on priciple) but if the savings is millions or even a few billion you aren't even making a dent. The real money is entitlements and defense (and interest on the debt). That's where you have to look to make a difference, but one of those things is mandatory and the other two are basically untouchable.

I don’t want my tax dollars wasted. We do agree on that, right? The government does waste some money. We agree on that too, right?

I’m open to hearing why you think @bilsbie’s list is valid. I’m skeptical, and I’ll offer some reasons why, but please convince me, I will listen. Is there a credible source for the claim that money is being spent studying the effects of yoga on goats? I’ve looked a bunch already, and the consensus seems clear that the claim is simply not true.

The empty buildings claim seems mis-stated. The actual wording from the Office of Management and Budget is “empty or underutilized” (emphasis mine). The US government’s real estate portfolio is well over a trillion dollars in holdings, and half a trillion in yearly spending, so this “underutilized” concern amounts to in the neighborhood of less than one half of one percent of spending. If that’s true, I’m absolutely amazed it’s that efficient! Corporate real estate isn’t that efficient. The government manages almost a million military and civilian buildings. Hundreds of buildings come and go every single day. Is it possible this “empty or underutilized” claim is temporary and sometimes unavoidable due to move in/out times, shuffling, and planning? Does it count if the figure includes buildings that are listed for sale and not selling? What about buildings that are held as investment and sell for more than they would have if they’d sold the moment they went empty? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people managing the country’s real estate portfolio. Do you know what they need to do to get from the presumably 99.6% utilization to guaranteed 100% utilization at all times?

The smoking claim is real but dramatized for political effect - it’s simply an anti-smoking campaign & survey. Do you know the healthcare costs of smoking in the US? A quick google says direct economic costs in 2018 were ~$240 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering more than half of that. That’s taxpayer money, money you’re paying to cover the predictable effects of other people’s poor life choices, and that cost is literally fifty thousand times larger than the anti-smoking campaign @bilsbie complained about - five hundred of your dollars of medical care for every single penny of hipster music whatever.

If the ‘hipster’ anti-smoking campaign was covered purely by taxes on the sale of cigarettes, would that make it okay for you?

The $281 billion “managed to misplace” claim is a mis-characterization. This is the amount of money that didn’t have all proper paperwork, it was not all lost or misplaced. It is “payments that did not meet statutory or administrative criteria”.

The music and cows claim appears to be false. Google mentions the University of Leicester (not in the US) had a “Moosic Study” in 2001 (BTW, come on, that’s funny), and the University of Wisconsin Madison did some trials in 1930 that did not cost $1M.

The fish alcohol claim also appears to be false, an exaggerated carry over of a report from 1975 by Senator William Proxmire, who was the creator of the “Golden Fleece Awards”. Have you read the history of the Golden Goose Awards? It’s seriously worth the 2 minutes. https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history

> I don’t want my tax dollars wasted. We do agree on that, right? The government does waste some money. We agree on that too, right?

Yes, so why are you arguing with me? The specific claims aren't what matter (goat yoga) because you and I both know that there are small line items like these that are truly wasteful. I'm not defending the specific list, I'm arguing that we do waste small money on grants and such like what the OP wrote about and regardless of how small the dollar amount is, waste is waste.

You did defend the specific items, you said so explicitly, you used the word “specific” in your previous comment, your first sentence said you are now “more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items”. These specific items completely undermine your point, don’t you see that? Lies and exaggeration do not help make your case, they do damage to your cause, they suggest the problem isn’t real because you can’t come up with true examples. If there’s a real problem that matters, surely you can come up with something that’s true, and not a Gish Gallop of bad faith slop.

Please - if there are valid, good faith examples “like” the list @bilsbie wrote, why don’t you list them and provide sources?

Now, given that I agree with you that the government wastes money, your question why am I arguing with you is a good question, and it’s a question that you should think harder about; why do I agree with the existence of waste but disagree with your examples? You do realize that nodoby wants the government to waste money, right? Well maybe nobody but some of the contractors getting no-bid contracts. The fact that most people agree with you and I on the basic premise means you don’t need to prove that point, and what we need to do is: 1- decide what our goals are, 2- gather true, factual, and accurate information about what waste is occurring, and 3- elect officials that will do the right thing and enact policy that increases our efficiency.

Now again, science funding in the US runs a pretty decent return on investment, economists seem to agree. If you disagree with that, then please provide some sources or analysis. And that includes ALL science funding, whether it sounds silly, whether it fails to produce results, and whether it’s inefficient or even wasteful. The country is getting back more money than it spends on science R&D, therefore it’s difficult to make the case that any one grant is “waste” when it’s part of a portfolio that is performing well and giving returns.

Science funding runs on the very same investment concepts that venture capital does, and sure enough venture capitalists ‘waste’ money on bad investments literally all the time. That is the nature of investment, it comes with risk and it involves failure.

Did you read about the Golden Goose Awards yet?

> You did defend the specific items, you said so explicitly, you used the word “specific” in your previous comment, your first sentence said you are now “more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items”.

I said the OP was right to point those specific items out, I didn't say they were accurate. I haven't personally looked at each one, but it's certainly believable that the government might fund such things if for no other reason than we just fund a lot of things and some of them are unbelievably stupid.

The continued arguing about it is why I think they were right to point those specific items out. The more people protest "that didn't happen!1!!" the more I believe they probably did happen because if they didn't happen why are you spending so much time trying to convince me they didn't happen?

My point of view is this: yes the government sometimes wastes money on egregious things. While those things are typically relative small-dollar items, it still matters that such waste is stopped. If you disagree with that, I simply will never see eye to eye with you or anyone else. It's not about the specific items, they are either true or close to true in form, it's about the general point.

> Now again, science funding in the US runs a pretty decent return on investment, economists seem to agree. If you disagree with that, then please provide some sources or analysis.

I don't disagree with that. But that doesn't mean all "science" funding is created equal. I support science funding, generally speaking, but it's worth pointing out that supporting funding for science isn't necessarily the same thing as funding other academic pursuits.

You’re digging in your heels only because people here are trying to point out facts that you assume are challenging your broader point, and not because you believe the items are true? Why not actually find out if they’re true or not?

I have personally looked at each one of the items in @bilsbie’s list, as you can plainly see above. I totally recommend that you take some time to do the same, instead of just thinking it’s believable. You’ll either have real ammo for the thread, or more understanding of why people here are protesting. Either way you win, you get more real factual information.

By aligning yourself with these “specific items”, and by assuming that protest of them somehow makes them more believable, you’ve made it quite a bit harder to get your own general point across in this thread, speaking of waste.

> I support science funding

Yes! Me too. See, we agree on a lot of things. I just wanted to make sure it’s clear that doing science necessarily involves some failure, and it’s not possible to invest in science without expecting some of the grants to not work out. There’s no such thing as 100% efficiency when it comes to investment. Some waste will happen. The grants I would call waste are the ones that involve grift or scientific dishonesty, and not the grants that go to silly sounding things.

Science funding in the US is under fairly intense budget pressure, BTW. Many many (probably most) academics complain about the lack of funding. The people who tend to make lists like @bilsbie’s often seem to be somewhat ignorant of the process of applying for funding and how much scrutiny goes into every grant.

> it’s worth pointing out that supporting funding for science isn’t necessarily the same thing as funding other academic pursuits.

Great, let’s start there. Take all the science grants out of @bilsbie’s list, and let’s discuss the non-science academic funding that’s wasteful. Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste?

> Why not actually find out if they’re true or not?

Because I don't care about those specific items and whether those specific items are true or not. What does it matter? The broader point is the government wastes money, and sometimes those dollar figures are relatively small (few million here or there) but nonetheless we should stop wasting money.

> Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste?

Wasn't one of those goat yoga? I'm all for having folks do research on things like that if they'd like, but should the government sponsor such "scientific" research? Maybe there's a compelling case for it. I am not too sure which is why I continue to emphasize I'm not overly concerned with the specific items on the list that was shared - instead I was concerned with folks who seemed to think that just because it's a few million we don't need to care. You can read the responses for yourself. Here's a selection:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125445
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126154
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130720

It’s hard to have any serious discussion if you don’t care what’s true and simply have unsupported opinions. How do you actually know the government is wasting money? Do you have any first hand knowledge? How do you propose to fix the waste if you don’t know where it is exactly?

If you don’t care about those specific items, then why are you defending them as representing the broader point? They are not true, therefore they do not support your broader point. If you care about the government wasting money, you should care about whether the examples are true or not, and you should reject misleading and bad faith claims because they will cause people to label you as a political shill, and more importantly they might impede fixing any real actual spending waste.

If you want to reduce waste, it’s critically important that the list of waste be factually accurate. Otherwise, you’re adding to the waste and not reducing it. If you can’t make an honest and true list of waste, it calls into question whether there is any such waste, it directly challenges your broader point.

The list @bilsbie provided is a list that Elon Musk retweeted, and Elon Musk has at this point earned a reputation as a fabulist when it comes to government spending and efficiency, he has lost nearly all good will and has done damage and caused additional government waste without fixing any problems.

> Wasn’t one of those goat yoga? […] should the government sponsor such “scientific” research?

The government DID NOT sponsor goat yoga. It’s a fabricated false claim.

There is a 50+ year history of bogus political attacks on science funding, which is why I keep bringing up the Golden Goose Awards. The fact is, science funding is not wasting money. Unless there’s dishonesty involved, there are no small science grants you can point at that demonstrate government waste, you’re looking in the wrong place.

We do need to care about waste, but we need to care about the big waste first. The war in Iran has wasted more money this week than @bilsbie’s entire list (even if they were true, which they aren’t).

At the end of the day I've already stated my opinion here and I don't really have much else to say as I'm just repeating myself. I was never defending the specific claims (true or otherwise) and was defending the need to eliminate waste even if the elimination are small-potato line items.

What need is there? What small-potato line items are wasteful?

Well I can go dig up a few examples - and then what? Are you suggesting that the government doesn't waste money on small line items?

Then we can have a discussion about how to fix it. You can’t even start with a discussion about fixes until you have nailed down the exact problem… obviously. It would help immensely to find some factually valid examples.

If we had congress enact a law to ban studying goat yoga with federal funds, what would we achieve? We would have spent several million dollars to battle a problem that does not exist. We would waste money.

FWIW your language about “waste” is coming off as being pretty naive. Your conception of the problem is too vague to be actionable. That’s why we need real examples. As I mentioned above, you seem to be focused purely on spending while completely ignoring any ROI.

You’re also failing to prioritize, as many people here are trying to point out. Fixing the small line items before the big ones would be a massive waste of tax dollars. We can’t fix the small ones until we fix the big ones.

The list Musk & @bilsbie forwarded is not actually a list of waste in the sense you’re talking about, it’s a politically motivated statement about our country’s goals. The actual intent behind that list and the many many such lists started by Proxmire and amplified by Fox News and Republicans over the years is to cut science funding. They have said so explicitly. It’s trying to sow public mistrust, and convey the idea that we need different goals, not that certain line items are inefficient.

It seems to be working, you clearly don’t trust that funds are scrutinized properly. But do you actually know how the funds are allocated, and what processes currently exist to minimize and prevent waste?

> Then we can have a discussion about how to fix it.

Ok but I am not trying, nor have I given that impression, to find individual examples of government waste and specifically fix those.

As I’m repeating myself yet again… government waste exists, sometimes that waste is relatively small dollar line items, and when we find such waste we should eliminate it. That’s it. I already provided examples where folks were disagreeing with my comments about fixing small line items. The specific item isn’t relevant or of interest to me in the context of this conversation.

You can read the words I’ve written here and say yes Eric you are right (I am, of course), or you can say that the line items are too small to matter or don’t exist. That’s the only two options. That’s what any conversation about this topic involving me in this thread is about.

> You’re also failing to prioritize, as many people here are trying to point out. Fixing the small line items before the big ones would be a massive waste of tax dollars. We can’t fix the small ones until we fix the big ones.

Not every government agency handles the big ticket spend. The FDA can eliminate waste within its organization while Social Security or the DoD is reformed or whatever. Not a single tax dollar is “wasted”.

You can then extrapolate this to within agencies or Congress or the Executive itself. Do you work for a company? I bet they cut costs for projects big and small.

> nor have I given that impression, to find individual examples of government waste and specifically fix those

Yes, you did. You gave that impression when you said OP was right to point out the list of specific items.

People weren’t disagreeing that small items exist, they were pointing out that worrying about them doesn’t fix very much waste, which is true. So they were also right.

If you aren’t going to come up with true examples, and you aren’t interested in what’s true, what’s broken or how to actually fix the problem, what value is your opinion, right or wrong? If you don’t care what’s true, then why should anyone else care if you’re right about something? And why would I think you’re right when you refuse to bring any actual evidence?

I’m trying to invite you to do more than repeat yourself, and provide some more thoughtful ideas on how to improve government efficiency, and how to evaluate inefficiency. I do work for a company, and my company wastes some money. All companies do. As others pointed out, it’s not possible to avoid some amount of “waste”. This is why it’s important to understand the waste. Without understanding, you have nothing and can’t fix it.

They’re not right though because “don’t need to worry about them” doesn’t make sense. What do you mean worry? That sounds like “we don’t need to fix small line-item waste” which I simply reject for being dumb. If I make half a million/year and I have a $5 subscription I don’t “not worry about it” if it’s a waste of money. I cancel it. There is no major difference when that is scaled up to organizations besides lack of clear recognition of waste and dollar amounts.

> you aren’t going to come up with true examples, and you aren’t interested in what’s true, what’s broken or how to actually fix the problem, what value is your opinion, right or wrong? If you don’t care what’s true, then why should anyone else care if you’re right about something? And why would I think you’re right when you refuse to bring any actual evidence?

I’ve already explained this. I don’t have anything else to say. You’ll just have to accept what I wrote and stop talking about it, or make up arguments for yourself to debate with yourself as you are doing now.

I think you’ve made incorrect assumptions, you’re wrong about some things here. Nobody said small waste should not be fixed, they said it wouldn’t move the needle.

“We should stop waste” is a tautology. Nobody here has disagreed with that, and I don’t think you understand that yet. The only thing that matters is what the waste actually is, whether everyone agrees it’s waste, and what to do to fix it.

I honestly hoped for a more substantive discussion, and some real examples, but as you wish, I’m fine stopping here, even though giving up turns this conversation into somewhat of a waste.

I haven’t made any incorrect assumptions.

> Nobody said small waste should not be fixed, they said it wouldn’t move the needle.

Ok then we agree that we should pursue eliminating small dollar waste. Which is what I’ve already said quite a few times. If you are aligned with what I wrote, why do you keep arguing with me about it as you are about to do here yet again?

> someone points out wasteful expense

This is the very thing under question in this thread! You have drawn a conclusion and are using your conclusion as an argument in a circular manner rather than engaging with what other people are arguing.

"Other people disagree with me, therefore I am right" is the dumbest thing ever.

Name a huge organization that doesn’t waste money. I’ll give you as much time as you need.

"All organizations waste money, therefore organizations should keep wasting money and it's actually fine" doesn't sound very compelling to me.

the talk of waste is in service of thw question "is the government well funded enough?"

and so far it does not appear that reducing waste would properly fund the government? a couple patriot missiles worth is not the debt, and would not allow for much more efficient single payer health care - the single biggest opportunity the US government has to reduce waste in american society

Again you can do both - you can cut these wasteful programs, you can have a well-funded government that's already well-funded with trillions of dollars, and then also reform healthcare all without raising taxes. Use your imagination.

My imagination is indeed very capable of magical thinking.

However, if this was something that worked in the real world, we wouldn't be having this conversation because e.g. DOGE would have been successful.

That sounds nice in a perfectly spherical world but we live in reality.

Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Net discretionary spending is only 27% of the budget, social security, Medicare, and military spending make up the other 73%. If you eliminated all discretionary spending, we’d still be running a budget deficit.

> Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us.

Politicians? You're sitting here arguing about the line item spending instead of just admitting we should cut obviously bad spending. That's the division that's taking place and it's happening right here in this thread and it's your doing! lol

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