Government Waste

[The Carlisle]

PA is know for having some of the worst roads in the States. So I would say its a waste to not fix our roads.

[Greed and Death]

Local government, county councils in particular, seem to destroy everything they touch.

the problem with local government is that it is filled with the following:
1. those who are just using it as a stepping stone to higher office. these only care about local policy in so far as it can be used to make them look good. and they often just style themselves as fighting an impossible battle against...
2. those who lack either the talent or ambition to seek higher office. the ones without talent have big ideas...that suck. the ones without ambition think the shitty way things are is the shitty way things ought to be. and they have all of the seats.

a third category are those who are part of a larger political machine and have the gig as mainly a sinecure. and they don't give a shit at all. i'm looking at you, forest preserve district president.

You forgot the 4th category those trying to make the government inefficient so they can complain about it at election time. And yes many of them do work for the government.

[The UK in Exile]

Well, I was just gonna post this picture in the the eternal thread with a short explanation, but since that's gone I guess I need a thread for it.

What's the absolute worst example of your government wasting money that you have heard of? Including local governments, and how would you stop this happening in future.

(Image)

This safety railing was installed recently by the local county government. It's currently the source of many lulz on my towns political facebook page.

Maybe we wouldn't need to cut so many benefits if these people weren't so insanely incompetent and wasting money.

thats not waste, thats efficiency. Avoiding the angles makes the guard rail shorter hence saving valueable taxpayer money and the rail also prevents use of the bench, thus saving on maintainance costs. It's perfectly logical if you hit yourself several times round the head with the daily mail.

[Quintium]

Last year, I had to pay €45 for a driver's license and €35 for an identity card.
Just pieces of plastic with standard data, and I had to provide the photographs for them myself, and they're mandatory (identity cards have to be carried around at all times in public spaces).

45 € for a driver's license? Wow, that's cheap. In some parts of Finland, the price can go up to 3000 €.

Not the entire thing, of course - just the little purple pass.
If lessons and mandatory tests are included, it's probably near €3000 also.

[Occupied Deutschland]

The F-35. Dear sweet God 'government waste' should be the thing's fucking calling card by now. What I'm saying is that when you type 'government waste' into Wikipedia, it should refer you to the F-35.
If I could draw back a bit, the entire military procurement and funding bureaucracy/system is rife with waste. Ranging from shit design that needs to be redesigned, to no-bid contracts, to shit not doing what needs to be done, to shit's procurement being spread out to buy off as many congresscritters as possible, to Congress absolutely refusing to cut funding to thing even when actual military generals and analysts say 'STOP buying us this shit!' (Abrams).

And of course, since our military makes up something like fifty percent of American discretionary spending, that makes it a really big example of waste.

Where I live there's a bit of a row over snow-plowing as well. It's claimed (I have seen no evidence) that the mayor of a city near me blew the budget for snowplowing way too early in the year paying the company to plow anything and everything, leaving them stuck in a bit of a conundrum when recent storms have meant plowing is REALLY needed and there's no money in the budget.

[Quintium]

The F-35. Dear sweet God 'government waste' should be the thing's fucking calling card by now.

Oh, we're also paying for that. And unlike the Americans, we're getting a stripped-down version, because the Americans want to have the newest and most advanced features for their own military only.

[United Marxist Nations]

The F-35. Dear sweet God 'government waste' should be the thing's fucking calling card by now. What I'm saying is that when you type 'government waste' into Wikipedia, it should refer you to the F-35.
If I could draw back a bit, the entire military procurement and funding bureaucracy/system is rife with waste. Ranging from shit design that needs to be redesigned, to no-bid contracts, to shit not doing what needs to be done, to shit's procurement being spread out to buy off as many congresscritters as possible, to Congress absolutely refusing to cut funding to thing even when actual military generals and analysts say 'STOP buying us this shit!' (Abrams).

And of course, since our military makes up something like fifty percent of American discretionary spending, that makes it a really big example of waste.

Where I live there's a bit of a row over snow-plowing as well. It's claimed (I have seen no evidence) that the mayor of a city near me blew the budget for snowplowing way too early in the year paying the company to plow anything and everything, leaving them stuck in a bit of a conundrum when recent storms have meant plowing is REALLY needed and there's no money in the budget.

It's because, at least on the federal level, what programs get money is all about politics, and not actually about the utility of the funding.

[Free Soviets]

the problem with local government is that it is filled with the following:
1. those who are just using it as a stepping stone to higher office. these only care about local policy in so far as it can be used to make them look good. and they often just style themselves as fighting an impossible battle against...
2. those who lack either the talent or ambition to seek higher office. the ones without talent have big ideas...that suck. the ones without ambition think the shitty way things are is the shitty way things ought to be. and they have all of the seats.

a third category are those who are part of a larger political machine and have the gig as mainly a sinecure. and they don't give a shit at all. i'm looking at you, forest preserve district president.

You forgot the 4th category those trying to make the government inefficient so they can complain about it at election time. And yes many of them do work for the government.

those sound like subcategories of 1 and 2, honestly.

[Nua Corda]

The F-35. Dear sweet God 'government waste' should be the thing's fucking calling card by now. What I'm saying is that when you type 'government waste' into Wikipedia, it should refer you to the F-35.
If I could draw back a bit, the entire military procurement and funding bureaucracy/system is rife with waste. Ranging from shit design that needs to be redesigned, to no-bid contracts, to shit not doing what needs to be done, to shit's procurement being spread out to buy off as many congresscritters as possible, to Congress absolutely refusing to cut funding to thing even when actual military generals and analysts say 'STOP buying us this shit!' (Abrams).

And of course, since our military makes up something like fifty percent of American discretionary spending, that makes it a really big example of waste.

Where I live there's a bit of a row over snow-plowing as well. It's claimed (I have seen no evidence) that the mayor of a city near me blew the budget for snowplowing way too early in the year paying the company to plow anything and everything, leaving them stuck in a bit of a conundrum when recent storms have meant plowing is REALLY needed and there's no money in the budget.

It's because, at least on the federal level, what programs get money is all about politics, and not actually about the utility of the funding.

Indeed. After the Little Bighorn disaster was blamed on the Trapdoor Springfield, the US Army held a competition for a new rifle on the demand of Washington, even though they knew they couldn't afford to actually adopt a new weapon. But it made the public feel better. Or, at least, it got the politicians who demanded it reelected.

[The Black Forrest]

(Image)

Ok? What am I missing?

[Greed and Death]

(Image)

Ok? What am I missing?

The protesters have seized the oil fields.

[Republic of Coldwater]

The U.S Federal Government wastes their money all the time.

[Xerographica]

The solution is simply to allow people to shop for themselves in the public sector...

What a delicious prospect: a government office having to explain itself in order to persuade taxpayers to support its existence. The elements within the government that can make a persuasive case will do fine. Americans are not stingy or shortsighted. We will still have plenty of mine inspectors and curators. But who will voluntarily pay for the layers of bureaucratic barnacles that make up so much of the organization charts? Who will pay for the billions in subsidies that are doled out to agricultural, corporate and nonprofit special interests? Who will pay for the enormous pork-barrel projects? - Charles Murray, You Are What You Tax

Until now Washington has resisted my earmarking system because it lacks faith in the people. Politicians ask me, ''If we let taxpayers earmark the uses to which their money can be put, how can we be sure enough people will earmark their taxes to maintain, say, the inevitable level of Pentagon extravagances?''

My answer to them is: ''Trust the people.'' A distinguished Senator asks, ''Do you really expect any significant number of people to earmark their taxes for purchase of $600 toilet seats?''

My answer is a resounding yes. Americans have a wonderfully macabre sense of humor when they turn their attention to Washington.

I have no doubt that the public, with its strongly satirical view of Federal spending, would send in so many tax returns marked ''Use for $600 toilet seats only'' that the Pentagon would soon have to distribute overpriced toilet seats free to the homeless, as the Agriculture Department once had to give away cheese to make storage space available for more excess cheese being bought with the taxpayer's famous dollar. - Russell Baker, Taxpayers' Choice

[Orennana]

First off, a statement of indemnity: I'm on placement with a local council, and their internet policy prohibits me from posting anything negative about them from a council computer. However, the following description is about the council area I live in, which is a different council, and so I'm pretty sure there's nothing against me bad-mouthing them

My local council has to be the worst council ever, at least in Britain. I live in probably the biggest town in the council area. They treat my town as a cash cow. They spent pretty much all their money on a stupid vertical pier that nobody wanted, and actually you get a better view over the sea from the third floor of some of the Victorian seafront houses, meaning that the ever-popular fireworks display had to be cancelled due to lack of funding, and then when Guisborough Registry Office was sold off, the bid put in by a local theatre group who put on plays and film screenings for people with learning disabilities (everyone else is welcome too, of course) who currently have no permanent home, was rejected in favour of building a Wetherspoon's pub. There are already 6 pubs on a high street spanning less than quarter of a mile, and two others have recently been sold off to other companies (a Chinese restaurant and a coffee bar) because the pubs on the high street can't get enough business. You'll never see the streets clear of snow in the winter (except, of course, the council car park, which never has as much as a snowflake on it), meaning that a couple of years ago late-night shopping in my town was cancelled due to safety concerns (because, surprise surprise, if you don't clear the snow it starts freezing and becomes dangerous to walk on!) Guisborough even made headlines one year as far away as Madrid because of the ridiculous amount of snow that was just lying on the main road, having not been cleared by the council. This being the same council who, when forecast with the worst winter weather for over a decade, sold all their salt to America. Also, they never fix potholes - they patch them up, meaning as soon as it gets cold, rains or basically any change in weather, the patches lift and the potholes reappear. Can anybody top that?

[Wytenigistan]

Lmao

[Pope Joan]

PA is know for having some of the worst roads in the States. So I would say its a waste to not fix our roads.

I was raised there, and part of the problem is that at one time a serious push was made to expand the miles of paved road. Dirt and gravel were dug up, deepened, and covered with asphalt. It was in its way an admirable ambition because it made it easier for PA's important agriculture, farming and mining industries to access their markets.

"During his second term in office, January 20, 1931 to January 15, 1935, Governor Gifford Pinchot cooperated with President Franklin Roosevelt, despite his being a Democrat and Prohibition opponent. Under Governor Pinchot's leadership, Pennsylvania welcomed the Civilian Conservation Corps, which established 113 camps to work on public lands in Pennsylvania (second only to California). Working with the Works Progress Administration and National Park Service, Pinchot helped expand Pennsylvania's state parks, and also helped Pennsylvania's struggling farmers and unemployed workers by paving rural roads, which became known as Pinchot Roads.[25]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifford_Pinchot

But sustainability was not built into the model. Who pays for upkeep, and when, and how?

In my own humble opinion, NH and IN have roads which are vastly inferior to PA. They are a danger to your vehicle. Once you get off the interstate, watch out! Even in Indianapolis, which you would think would show some concern for automotive well being, you cannot find a street or road in safe condition for driving. And would New Hampshire possibly want to please the wealthy families of Dartmouth students by giving them a few miles of road to travel to and from college that would not destroy their pricey SUVs? Not a chance.

[Free Soviets]

The solution is simply to allow people to shop for themselves in the public sector...

do you remember that time when everybody gave you detailed explanations about how this could not possibly work, because it creates both a massive coordination problem and a disastrous free rider problem? 'cause i do.

'tax choice' is a problem pretending to be a solution to an imaginary problem that is in reality a solution to a real problem.

[Xerographica]

The solution is simply to allow people to shop for themselves in the public sector...

do you remember that time when everybody gave you detailed explanations about how this could not possibly work, because it creates both a massive coordination problem and a disastrous free rider problem? 'cause i do.

I remember when some people failed to explain why the market does not work. I also remember when I failed to effectively explain why bottom up systems work. I also remember failing to explain why top down systems do not work.

'tax choice' is a problem pretending to be a solution to an imaginary problem that is in reality a solution to a real problem.

If government planners (congresspeople) could accurately guess what the demand is...then we wouldn't need any markets. But every time markets have been eliminated...the results have been disastrous. Why? Because some of the demand guesses of government planners are terrible enough.

I couldn't truly know whether anybody would reply to my post. Just like the creator of this thread couldn't truly know whether anybody would reply to their thread. Both of us simply used society's limited resources to create something. We each created a product that other people are free to spend as much, or as little, time as they want on. And here we are.

Shopping is the process by which consumers use their time/money to communicate their preferences and circumstances. If you eliminate shopping then you eliminate this vetting process. If you eliminate the vetting process then you must have sublime faith in the people steering the boat. Except, if it was good intentions that could keep the boat from steering off course then some command economies would have thrived. But it's not about good intentions...it's about accurate information. And there won't be accurate information without shopping.

The efficient allocation of resources depends on accurate information. Whether you should touch, or avoid, poison oak, requires accurate information. Whether you should move to Mexico or New Zealand requires accurate information. Whether you should become a vegetarian requires accurate information. The less accurate information you have...the greater the chances that you will inefficiently allocate your resources.

Markets work because we're all free to use our time/money to provide each other with accurate information. If something matches our preferences, we buy it. If it doesn't, we don't. This helps ensure that resources are put to their most valuable uses. If you eliminate our freedom to allocate our resources according to the information we have...then all that information will not be used. If all our information isn't used then resources will not be put to their most valuable uses.

I'm really not making this up. If you study public finance you'll learn that...

A. voting does not allow us to accurately communicate our preferences/circumstances
B. therefore, congresspeople cannot supply optimal levels of public goods

Do you need me to substantiate either of those two claims? Because I certainly can. Can you substantiate your claim that congresspeople can supply optimal levels of public goods? Of course you can't. You can't substantiate your claim because the "optimal level" of anything depends on a guideline...and in economics that guideline is demand. The optimal levels of public goods will be the levels that match the demand for public goods. Which is exactly why we need to create a market in the public sector. Free-riding is irrelevant because I'm not arguing that taxation should be optional. And if your coordination concerns were legitimate then this forum wouldn't be able to function.

[Greed and Death]

You forgot the 4th category those trying to make the government inefficient so they can complain about it at election time. And yes many of them do work for the government.

those sound like subcategories of 1 and 2, honestly.

While they may or may not have ability, they all have ambition just not for hire office.

[Nervium]

Obviously, this means the private sector has to take things in hands.
*tears of laughter*

[Free Soviets]

Markets work because we're all free to use our time/money to provide each other with accurate information. If something matches our preferences, we buy it. If it doesn't, we don't. This helps ensure that resources are put to their most valuable uses. If you eliminate our freedom to allocate our resources according to the information we have...then all that information will not be used. If all our information isn't used then resources will not be put to their most valuable uses.

I'm really not making this up. If you study public finance you'll learn that...

A. voting does not allow us to accurately communicate our preferences/circumstances
B. therefore, congresspeople cannot supply optimal levels of public goods

and if you studied public finance, you would know that markets are even worse at it.

market failure. look it up.

or, if you don't want to do that, remember that a group of 10 people can barely split a check at a restaurant. and they have the option of having somebody do the math for them. your proposal not only rules out having somebody do the math for them, it rules out the ability to see what other people are paying until the paying decisions all have been made. so everybody is working totally based on their guesses about what everybody else will do. everybody of the hundred+ million of other people in the same situation. important things are gonna come up way short. which is why restaurants add in an automatic tip charge with large groups.

and if you try to get around that, you make everything exponentially worse. because instead of mere shots in the dark, randomly underfunding and overfunding everything, you would make the whole thing an ongoing attempt by everybody to free-ride off of everybody else...while also making it impossible for any department to plan their spending, leading to rampant shortfalls in delivery of services.

[Xerographica]

market failure. look it up.

Does the market fail at supplying boogers? Well...the market doesn't supply more boogers than people already produce. Does that count as a failure? Not really because we both agree that there is 0 demand for additional boogers. There's absolutely no unmet demand.

If you want to argue that the market fails at producing something...then you're arguing that there is unmet demand. And I'm really not arguing that there isn't unmet demand. My argument is that the only way that we know the size of the unmet demand would be to create a market in the public sector. How people spend their taxes will reveal the extent of market failure...if, and only if, the government is successful at supplying something that there's there's actually enough demand for.

It's entirely possible that both the market and government fail at supplying the same exact thing. Market failure does not mean government success. Just like government failure does not mean market success.

Government success only has any meaning when it's successfully supplying something that there's sufficient demand for. Given that we have no idea what the actual demand is for public goods...it's impossible to say that the government succeeds at supplying anything that it should.

In order to "see" exactly what I'm talking about...please read this thread...Demand Clarity Would Eliminate Corporate Welfare

[The Liberated Territories]

All governments are inherently wasteful.

But in New Jersey, the roads probably take the cake. Even with tolls the government can't maintain them.

[Estado Paulista]

(Image)

Ok? What am I missing?

...

[The Liberated Territories]

PA is know for having some of the worst roads in the States. So I would say its a waste to not fix our roads.

Ah. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Not even close.