>after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within

After everything is all said and done, I wonder if it would be possible to build out a data project tracking the people and the decisions that led to the outcome and also where all the wealth went. I guess this is impossible because too many people are unnamed figures just doing their part succumbing to inertia.

Theoretically it would probably be more possible than you may think, but it would likely be a far bigger and more gargantuan project than you think too. We are largely talking about government money, which theoretically would need to have been tracked and accounted for, but just along getting access to that data would be an massive effort in and of itself, with massive interests groups fighting tooth and nail to keep that data secret by hook and crook.

For a bit of perspective, I just saw that James O'Keeffe just published a video yesterday that is related to that topic regarding the 8(a) set-aside fraud that he says amounts to $100 billion annually alone. Having some direct knowledge about that area in particular, I would not be surprised if it was even more than $100B annually, and that's just one of such schemes where I would guess about 80% of the money is full on defrauded by various means and methods, and of the remaining 20%, probably 15% are for things that are simply utterly useless, unproductive, pointless efforts; often even to do work in support of some other agency/department's work that is also utterly useless and inconsequential, i.e., a kind of circular fraud.

In case you are interested in the O'Keeffe video, even though it may be boring to some and utterly shocking to others [1]. Just remember, he is highlighting just one company and one tribe running this scheme/fraud, there are hundreds or even thousands of companies doing exactly that, and that is just one scheme/fraud of several that exist in federal contracting; even beyond just open and blatant corruption and nepotism and fraud you would not believe me if I told you, because you would not be able to square the fact that something so blatant could be occurring without law enforcement doing their jobs.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_CtRCLaSbY

The problem with O'Keeffe is that he has burned his reputation in the past with false reports that have harmed innocent people. Reporters like Ken Klippenstein and Matt Taibbi have discussed the topic of how in the "old days" of pre internet, reporters would lose their careers over serious mistakes made in reporting. In the post social media era that no longer seems to apply anymore. However I refuse to accept that. There is so much noise that people are exposed to that there HAS to be some mechanism to filter out the chaff. I propose bringing back the reputation of a reporter based on their past work. If you cannot put in the work to thoroughly vet your major stories then you are not a true reporter in my eyes. How am supposed to vet this given im not familiar with the area? The only signal to go by is his history and it is not a good indicator in this regard.