I mean I think the tougher claim would be "there is no competent public spending in the US". The US across the Federal, State, and local governments alone spends a lot. It's pretty likely that some of it is competent.

But separately, what does "competent" mean? Is it a measure of waste, as in we could've done what the DoD does for less? Is it a measure of useless spending, as in we shouldn't have spent money on X because X doesn't work? I don't think the (narrowing to the federal government here) the US has a monopoly on wasteful or misguided spending. I think anyone here who's worked for a company can come up with plenty of examples of incompetent spending by their employer.

I think "the US is bad at spending money so it should spend as little money as possible" argument is really weird framing, because it implies that there's some entity out there that's actually good at spending money. But if anyone can find one at a large scale, or even define what "good" means, I'm interested.

Or, I'm sympathetic to a "large entities are necessarily bad at spending" argument, but then I think we need to assail big corporations with the same zeal we assail big government.

> because it implies that there's some entity out there that's actually good at spending money

No, this is the weird framing. As if the money has to go to some entity other than the individual that earned it. The government is taking money from individuals for their supposed benefit.

Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument?

Society (that's us) want things for society and it turns out they cost money. We would love to pay for these things with razor-like efficiency but we live in an imperfect world. (The "waste" however still goes into someone's wallet and can be in turn spent at a local restaurant or on groceries.)

The only real issue I see is how we balance the tax burden in a fair and equitable way that also benefits society. (And here the increasing wealth disparity we have been seeing is almost certainly bad for societies health.)

> Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument?

I don't have property. The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires.

> The only real issue I see is how we balance the tax burden in a fair and equitable way that also benefits society

Yeah this post is about some billionaire dodging taxes. Billionaires are the obvious scapegoat but the fact is tax increases on billionaires are not enough to fund the multi trillion dollar ambitions of the government. The real tax base of our society is generated by the middle and upper middle class and they will be the ones that will bear the largest brunt of tax increases.

>The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires.

No, it wasn't.

Someone made that claim and the original poster seems to believe that "government waste" is a myth.

Someone did make a claim approximately to that effect, but not a parent of this comment. And the you're mischaracterizing the comment about government waste as well.

No, please don't generalize like that. It is not clear which "original poster" you mean, but all of the ones in this chain seem to be arguing that there is waste, but that there is no evidence that the government is not inherently more wasteful in its spending than other large organizations.

It is a common refrain in parts of the Republican Party that government spending is inherently wasteful, and we should make government more like companies, or alternately "small enough to drown in a bathtub". And this is the myth that is being addressed.

I didn't understand the OP to have said that all people that say that are paid shills. To be sure though, people who do complain about wasteful government spending are in fact playing into the interests of the wealthy who want to keep more of their billions.

I know it sounds naive, but we are the government. Don't like what services are elected leaders are spending tax dollars on? Replace them. Bernie Sanders as you probably know requested a 10% cut in the military budget — elect more people like him if this is what you want.

> The real tax base of our society is generated by the middle and upper middle class and they will be the ones that will bear the largest brunt of tax increases.

I am much more sympathetic to people who call for, "Lower taxes for the working class!" When you include the billionaire-class as also-victims of high taxation (and they would of course disproportionately benefit from lower taxes) then it sounds to me like you're essentially carrying water for them to the detriment of society at large.

It seems when most people I hear talk about cutting government "waste" they really mean cutting out government services they disagree with — not really streamlining those services.

Sure they are, we just need a wealth tax. Done and dusted.

> (The "waste" however still goes into someone's wallet and can be in turn spent at a local restaurant or on groceries.)

It could equally well be spent by me if left in my wallet rather than taxed away and wasted.

Sure, but what about the billionaires. When they get a huge tax break do they go down to the local diner and give the waitress a $1,000,000 tip? Probably not -- they invest it into making more money -- consolidating more wealth for themselves.

> Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children?

Because you have to deal with and eventually depend upon other people's kids.

The government is the people. Time and time again people vote for services even if it means higher taxes (especially on the rich and on corporations). This is because some things don't really work if they're only funded by individuals. For example, none of the infrastructure investments in the IRA, the Medicare block grants in the ACA, etc. Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

To turn your point around, can you point to any large nation with low taxes and good outcomes? Is your argument that corporate services would outperform government services? I think it's pretty clear that most of those are predatory and enshittified. Are you arguing that corporations that are in no way beholden to us voters would be more responsive to our needs than a democratic government?

Maybe my tone is coming across as too incredulous, but most libertarians I get in front of tend to shut down when I challenge their ideology, so I'm earnestly curious here.

> The government is the people

The government is the majority.

> Time and time again people vote for services even if it means higher taxes (especially on the rich and on corporations). This is because some things don't really work if they're only funded by individuals.

Uh, I have a simpler explanation. People vote for things that are good for themselves and come up with contrived arguments for why that's moral.

> To turn your point around, can you point to any large nation with low taxes and good outcomes?

This is overly simplistic.

> Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

Have I advocated for this?

> Is your argument that corporate services would outperform government services?

I have not made that argument once. I've made the argument that government spending is wasteful. Unsurprisingly the government choosing private corporations to execute government services is also wasteful.

It seems you think I'm a libertarian because I don't like giving my money away?

> complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

I'm glad you think society is complex, so do I. Can you give examples of large completely centralized successful societies?

>> Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

>Have I advocated for this?

So, you are advocating for the collapse of society? You don't want a functional society without taxes but also don't want taxes?

Well, I'm a little disappointed but not surprised that your posts are more "taxes are immoral" arguments without any substance about how we're supposed to do things without them. Even this latest post is like small quibbles and straw men about completely centralized societies. Feel free to round out your position on how we're supposed to run a society without taxes or just how we can spend money more "competently", but I think this is just another paper libertarian argument here.

When you have to resort to refusing to engage in an actual debate and just throwing questions back to confuse the conversation you're no longer arguing in good faith - though it's not clear to me you ever were.

>As if the money has to go to some entity other than the individual that earned it

How much money have you ever earned all by yourself? If not for the government, me and a few buddies would come and take it.

Hell, I bet you even got all that stuff in the first place from a corporation that only exists due to governmental regulation, who has to follow a contract to pay you because if they don't, you'll sue them in government courts.

> The military is considered one of the competent parts of the US government and the amount of waste is staggering.

This is not universally agreed upon. Military spending has been a deeply controversial topic along political lines given its overall amount and lack of transparency.

As far as examples of competent spending goes, there are plenty but they tend not to get as much attention as the failures do. A big example that most aren’t aware of are the government backed small business loans granted by SBA. Clean energy subsidies are another (Tesla was originally capitalized by a government clean energy grant).

You might not have known that about Tesla, but you’re more likely to have heard about Solyndra, which was funded by the same initiative and tarred in the press as an example of wasteful spending. US gov stimulates a ton of business investment behind the scenes that often goes unnoticed.

Soooo, yet more rich folks using government money to grow their own riches?

If you want to be overly reductionist about it, that’s up to you. The reality that there’s never been a time in human history where this hasn’t been true. Why make perfect the enemy of good?

Lots of rich people exploited PPP during the pandemic, does that mean the government shouldn’t ever hand out life-saving subsidies like that?

> tarred in the press as an example of wasteful spending

umm... they WERE wasteful spending, in that they went bankrupt. You can drive past that building on the 880 freeway.

Right, but you only ever hear about the stories of waste, not the stories of success, because talking about the success of government business loans is one of the driest and most dull topics out there. Press doesn’t like to cover it because it’s so boring. I mean, a marginal percentage of people participate in local government meetings because of this reason. It’s so boring to listen to meetings about housing and infrastructure policy, even though they’re vital to the community.

If you want to read about government success stories, you have to seek them out.

So you've changed your topic now. First you said they were "tarred" as if that was false.

Can you elaborate on what is competent spending?

The theory of privatization solving problems is predicated on the assumption that competition will exist. Competition in the private sector cannot be assumed to always exist.

I'm not advocating for privatization. I'm advocating for decreased government spending and lower taxes. Privatization means the government gives money to private entities to do supposedly necessary functions of the government.

Think about how important roads are to just about every facet of keeping the country running.

I also think the relevant question here is “compared to what?”. The built in assumption is that the public sector is extremely wasteful compared to private but large private companies are also extraordinarily wasteful. Think of the amount of money Meta pisses away every year on frivolous stuff that goes nowhere.

Our roads suck and they were created 100 years ago. Can we talk about effective use of government money from the past half century at least? And can we at least show a pattern of competency rather than a pattern of waste?

You’re obviously coming into this discussion with a pre-existing viewpoint and have no actual interest in hearing alternatives.

Why does it matter when roads were created? They require near constant maintenance, something public funds do. And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true. Of course parts of the road system suck but it’s an integral part of keeping the country running and by and large works fine.

> Why does it matter when roads were created?

Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now.

> And “our roads suck” is just an absurd generalisation and is obviously not true.

I disagree and I believe that "terrible roads" is public sentiment. I've never heard anyone praise our roads.

> You’re obviously coming here with a perspective and you have no actual interest in hearing counterpoints

I have a very strong opinion obviously and am open to being proven wrong but I am not going to just accept terrible arguments. The political class of this country is just completely inept. Everyone thinks in terms of "taxing the rich" as if some billionaires are going to be fund all these public mega projects. The billionaires do not have enough cash, the people that will get hammered with taxes are the middle and upper middle class.

> Because we are talking about how our money will be spent now.

Again: how do you think maintenance happens?

> I’ve never heard anyone praise our roads

Which is a great example of why public sentiment isn’t really worth a whole lot of anything. People love to complain. If we stopped maintaining our highways people would very quickly learn to appreciate how it used to enable full grocery store shelves, receiving packages and so on.

Absurd generalisations are absurd. If I said “I worked at Google, they waste so much money, every private corporation is a total waste of money and should be gotten rid of” would you think my perspective was a sensible, measured one?

> Again: how do you think maintenance happens?

Good point, let's get rid of all public programs except social security and road maintenance and lower everyone's taxes 20%.

I'm not actually suggesting that but it's absurd to use road maintenance as the reason why the government needs more money.

Was that your way of admitting that road maintenance is an example of competent public spending while avoiding actually saying those words?

I mean, your argument seems to be that since the government does some good we should give them complete access to our bank account

In what way is that my argument? You said:

> Can you actually give examples of competent public spending?

I gave you an example of competent public spending and you’ve somehow transformed that in your head into “we should give government unfettered access to our wallets”. Absurd generalisations are absurd.

You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith. Feel free to argue against straw men in your own time but I won’t be wasting my time joining you.

Ok cool, you won the school house debate with the arbitrary rules. I win the actual debate that largely the government is incompetent and should not be given more money.

> You’re very obviously not coming to this discussion in good faith

I'm not but this is the second time you've stooped to questioning my credibility (which is against the rules of hackernews). For some reason you've fixated on this one phrase of "giving actual examples" when I'm obviously pointing to a wider trend of extreme waste.

> it's absurd to use road maintenance as the reason why the government needs more money.

far from absurd, it's an extremely good example. The USA is filled with public infrastructure that we collectively decided to create but that we do not maintain adequately, because we choose not to spend money on it.

You say our roads suck, and to whatever extent that is true (not really interested in debating that specific point), it's because not enough is spent maintaining them.

Now of course, it's entirely possible that this situation does in fact represent the actual collective opinion of the population: yes we'll build stuff, no we will not pay (enough) to maintain it. But that has not been established.

Uhhhhh.... what? New roads are being constructed literally every single day. I think you'd have an impossibly difficult time finding a single road in NA that is actually 100 years old and hasn't received repeated expensive maintenance.

Libraries, roads, firefighters, police, utilities, national parks, local parks.

Taxes don't pay for utilities, I can't personally use libraries anymore because they've become defacto homeless shelters, the police suck.

So now we are left with firefighters, national parks and local parks which I guess are not good targets for power hungry and incompetent politicians.

> I can't personally use libraries anymore because they've become defacto homeless shelters

I’m sorry, I can’t take any of this seriously. I use my neighbourhood library regularly, take my kids there, it’s a wonderful place. I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences (have you? Or did you just read online that libraries are full of homeless people?) but don’t extrapolate your experience out to a universal one.

For me libraries vary substantially. My local library in the burbs was nice, but they decided to close every Sunday and only open from 12-5 on Saturday. And oddly, 4 libraries about 10 miles apart from each other all closed after a storm due to rain damage. Even though they are different buildings build many years apart in different styles. It seems odd they wild all have water damage.

And while they are closed to the public, the employees are still working, they are just working from home. Every week. So their plan is to have remote workers doing library work on Sunday.

But when they are open, they are very nice places.

But drive 30 minutes into the major city and it’s not a nice place. There are many homeless inside so it is messy and not a very safe place, if you don’t want someone yelling at your kid.

I think it’s appropriate to use our own experiences with libraries to form judgements.

I’m glad you (and I) have good experiences, but should we extrapolate our experiences into universal ones? What makes you think all libraries are great like yours?

> should we extrapolate our experiences into universal ones? What makes you think all libraries are great like yours?

I’m specifically saying we should not do that!

The OP asked for examples of competent public spending. I consider my local library to be one such example. Someone else’s library being awful doesn’t make mine an invalid example of competent spending, they’re two separate things.

But then you shouldn’t extrapolate your local library spending well any more than you don’t want GP extrapolating that his local library spends poorly.

What makes you think all libraries are run as well as yours? It seems the question is “does government do well, in general, at managing money?” And having an example of your local library isn’t very helpful for predicting whether government is good or bad.

I don’t think the sentiment is “every single government in existence is horrible at managing money” and more so “in general, government is inefficient at management so is not a good investment for optimal social benefit.”

> What makes you think all libraries are run as well as yours?

I feel like I’m going crazy, I’ve said two times that I don’t think we should be talking in universalities.

Statement #1: my local library is great and is an effective use of public funds

Statement #2: my local library is awful and a waste of public money

Both of these statements can be true and neither contradicts the other. There is no need to come to some universal conclusion here.

The broader point is that you often see this approach taken when talking about public spending: one example of waste somehow invalidates the whole concept. Yet you never see someone say “invest in a private company? Did you not see what happened with Enron?!”

My library has fricken 3d printers. It's quite obvious that guys' politics. "All taxes are theft" isn't the mature political position he believes it is... He was never serious lol. "Get rid of all taxes except road maintence and reduce everyone's taxes by 20%"

The Post Office and the DMV are always given as examples of how terrible the government is at providing services. Have these people not visited either one in the last 15 years? Maybe they used to be terrible, but I’m always in and out with whatever I needed done, and the people working there and friendly and competent.

Parks and libraries are pretty well managed, too.

The post office has never not been amazing, I don’t understand the people who rally against that. I hate FedEx and UPS far far more.

NM state tax online services are outright phenomenal. Filing my state taxes (after the first year) takes me less than 8 minutes, and the refund shows up in my bank account about 3 days later. Everything about it is precisely as it should be.

> Can you actually give examples of competent public spending?

That question, without an agreed-upon definition of "competent," has built-in Schrödinger goalposts. Is it competent? Is it not? Is it the superposition of both?

> Can you actually give examples of competent public spending?

You have to weigh that against the negative effects of profit maximisation of commercial entities for the consumer. To what extent is "Can I get away with making this product/service shittier and increase profit margins?" cause of a life getting more expensive and difficult for the average person? Take healthcare. It is getting more expensive with an aging population needing more care. But also large chunks of the healthcare supply chain become ever more commercial, with companies exploiting their cozy niche for every penny.