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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37378 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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Reuters:

Trump orders sweeping freeze for federal grants and loans

Trump order set to halt supply of HIV, malaria drugs to poor countries, sources say

Apparently based on this memo (pdf).

This seems very... crude. The question is if it's purposefully crude, if there's some structural reason it can't be better implemented, or if the person in charge is incompetent.

Also, impoundment? We'll see?

The question is if it's purposefully crude

Depends on what you mean by 'purposefully crude'. Most government-waste-cutting enthusiasts have a dubious understanding of the causes of government inefficiency, have an ideological presupposition that government spending is a waste, and have never heard the term 'market failure'. The result tends to be that they approach the problem by driving a bulldozer through Chesterton's fence. My view is that "they have no idea what they're doing" is significantly more likely than deliberate clumsiness.

There's a side problem wherein the major drivers of government spending are politically untouchable but you need to grandstand about how you're making cuts so you attack the Everything Else bucket even though it tends to be short-sighted penny-wise behavior.

Speaking of fences - do you have any guesses how did the US survive with government spending per capita dramatically lower than now for the first couple hundred years of its history?

Even today after all the money is spent on defence, veteran benefits, SSI, medicare, other health progams (medicaid), income security (TANF, Section 8, WIC etc), and eduation. The remaining stuff that comes to mind when you think of government (basically all the bureaucracies, parks, etc) adds up to a bit over $100 billion so far this year or about 5.5% of 1.8 trillion spent so far this fiscal year.

What percentage of the deficit though?

So far fiscal 2025 YTD it's about 14%. The money goes to the big transfers. Last year Medicare, Social Security, Defense, Interest, Medicaid, Income Security and Veterans Benefits and housing were 80% of the budget and 430% of the deficit.

https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function

Last year Medicare, Social Security, Defense, Interest, Medicaid, Income Security and Veterans Benefits and housing were 80% of the budget and 430% of the deficit.

Sure, OK -- but if you're trying to kill the deficit, grabbing whatever low-hanging portion of that 14% exists while you're figuring out what you can do about the big, popular things seems logical?

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