Whenever I encounter someone arguing about federal government spending, I do a quick search for the word "military" and "defense", as it is the second largest line item in the budget at $663 Billion, below social security, and is the largest line item in the discretionary budget, larger than anything else by over $500 Billion.
I didn't find it in Carmack's article. It's a useful heuristic as it distinguishes people who know what the US spends its money on vs. those that do not.
Almost every year, the defense budget represents the single largest wealth transfer from the public to private hands in the history of the world.
So, the question I put to Carmack, and thus those that tend to agree with him is this:
Exactly how inefficient is the federal government? If 60% of all discretionary spending is used in the least possible productive way, what portion of that overall federal inefficiency is directly related to discretionary defense spending? And finally, what political parties are more historically responsible for discretionary defense spending, thus with radically increasing the overall efficiency of our government? (See the gulf war, and the inception of the Iraq war and the Afghan war.)
Arguing for a smaller government is like arguing that you should decrease your startup's opex. The answer is almost always yes, but randomly cutting services without actually looking at what the big expenditures are, without looking at the productivity upsides of certain expenditures, etc. is foolhardy at best. Moreover, cutting the things that directly enable the productivity of your employees, rather than those things that do not directly enable the productivity of your employees is nothing short of insane.
It's like spending the money you would have spent on health insurance for your employees on a ridiculously expensive security system for your office. People get sick all the time, but you're about as likely to experience terrorism as you are to win the lottery. Would that make sense in your startup? Does it make sense for America?
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budg...
I didn't find it in Carmack's article. It's a useful heuristic as it distinguishes people who know what the US spends its money on vs. those that do not.
All spending and consumption has something called a multiplier effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics) and specifically, with regard to government spending, there is the fiscal multiplier effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier
essentially, all government spending produces some amount of multiplicative increase in gdp.
Of all government spending, guess what type has the lowest multiplier effect? Defense
Defense spending produces the least net gain to national wealth, standards of living, and productivity.
Additionally, defense spending disproportionately goes to private contractors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_S...
Almost every year, the defense budget represents the single largest wealth transfer from the public to private hands in the history of the world.
So, the question I put to Carmack, and thus those that tend to agree with him is this: Exactly how inefficient is the federal government? If 60% of all discretionary spending is used in the least possible productive way, what portion of that overall federal inefficiency is directly related to discretionary defense spending? And finally, what political parties are more historically responsible for discretionary defense spending, thus with radically increasing the overall efficiency of our government? (See the gulf war, and the inception of the Iraq war and the Afghan war.)
Arguing for a smaller government is like arguing that you should decrease your startup's opex. The answer is almost always yes, but randomly cutting services without actually looking at what the big expenditures are, without looking at the productivity upsides of certain expenditures, etc. is foolhardy at best. Moreover, cutting the things that directly enable the productivity of your employees, rather than those things that do not directly enable the productivity of your employees is nothing short of insane.
It's like spending the money you would have spent on health insurance for your employees on a ridiculously expensive security system for your office. People get sick all the time, but you're about as likely to experience terrorism as you are to win the lottery. Would that make sense in your startup? Does it make sense for America?