An Inconvenient Truth About The Bush Tax Cuts
- Thread starter pspr
- Start date
For the same reason that you don't like throwing money at the problem: it doesn't solve the core issue. Taking money away doesn't improve processes or efficiencies, it's not reform, it's just taking money away.
and somehow you don't understand that's progress.
What a fvcking dope.
What do people do (personally) when a resource becomes scarce?
Yes, people would spend more efficiently. That doesn't mean the government would though. If they're going to cut budgets they need to have reform plans in place first. I'd rather aim before I shoot.
too damn bad if govt can't spend more effeciently
I am a little confused as to what you mean by "taking money away".
Do you understand how budgeting works? Let's make up some numbers. Let's say we have the United States Department of Breakfast Sandwiches (because I'm eating an egg biscuit right now). And in the USDBS, we have an annual budget of $1 Million.
During budget discussions, someone decides that the USDBS needs to lose $200,000. That's it's share of the cut it's going to be given. The comptroller of the USDBS budget goes in and says "ok, I still have a mission to accomplish here, but now I have to do it with $200,000 less. What is it I can cut? How can I more efficiently provide the service I am tasked with? What will be the missed opportunities, and what will be the sacrifices that will have to be met?"
You force the budget planner to come up with efficiencies simply because he/she cannot spend the same amount Y/Y. Now they have to go into each account code (object code, whatever) and trim according to what they can sacrifice. If they are smart, they can drive efficiencies into the budget to allow for better spending. This should be relatively easy if the budget never had to go through this process, or hasn't gone through it in a while. There will be more fat to cut. If this cutting process has occurred year over year for the last 5 or so years, the process is extraordinarily difficult.
I am speaking from experience. Part of my job is managing the P+L for a $1.8 Billion dollar section of my company. So I kinda know what I'm talking about here.
But because I'm in the private sector, no one throws money at me every year -- I am obliged to make this thing the government never has to worry about. It's called "profit". So each year I get a ZOG target (zero overhead growth) and I have to churn out higher output with the same budget. This is equivalent to cutting the budget in the government (since not many of their departments are judged on output of any kind).
If all you do is throw money at the problem and never ask for cuts, then what reason does anyone have to possibly become more efficient? They just grow bigger and bigger year over year until the budget gets so bloated that the people who work for it just go "ah, it's ok. Add it into the budget." No one ever gets concerned it cannot be paid for. No one cares about being overcharged. No one cares that there are 50 people doing the job that 10 can do. No one cares that massive waste and sometimes even fraud is prevalent. No one cares because it can always be paid for, so there's no issue.
"It's not my money, so why should i care?" But with the government, that's just it. It IS my money.
Point taken in the context of a corporation, but this is the government we're talking about. There will be fat to cut, but there are also special interests who lobbied to get their no bid, cost plus contracts into the process. So who's going to lose out in the end? The tax payer. That is why I keep harping on driving efficiencies from auditing/reform first, then budgeting. If you budget a broken process or system, it's still broken, just at a discount.
As I told you too damn bad, if that doesn't stimulate reform. then it's a crap system to start with so it should be cut EVEN MORE.
I suppose I should clarify for both of our sakes:
Ideally auditing/reform before cuts or tax levies. Unfortunately, it almost seems like reform would take too long for the short term needs (e.g. the next few months), forcing us to let the Bush era cuts expire, thus raising taxes from their current level.