There is a lot of low hanging fruit in tax policy. How about means testing for Health Savings Accounts, (HSA), college savings accounts and social security. Any area where money is never taxed, should be for high income earners.
1 - Government programs and the people who administer and run them are better and more effective than they are often credited.
2 - People sometimes do not connect the benefits of a government program with their personal circumstances. This includes some who receive direct, monetary benefits from the government.
3 - Government programs are sometimes inefficient, become bloated and continue long past their public policy purposes.
4 - Nothing done at the scale of the federal government is "simple," "easy," "quick" or any other soundbite word. Not to create, implement, administer, revise or end.
Combine these four observations into a context and it is a useful tool in level-setting expectations. We need government programs and services, we benefit from them everyday bother directly and at the community and national levels. We need oversight and regulation. The real debates are how much and in what forms.
And while there are many examples of government employees who don't care my experience is that most do care, many are experts in what they do and they work longer and harder than many in the private sector. Government bloat and inertia is not unique to any sector of the government. You can find programs that have long since outlived their purpose in defense, ag, social services, transportation. They continue because their constituencies - including their employees - have enough political power to protect them.
And finally, "fixing" government is a multi-level, multi-dimensional challenge that requires finding consensus on both policy and politics. I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had in my life with politicians of every stripe where there's agreement on a policy - Mr. Simmons' comment below about the tax code gives us a perfect example - and the politician will tell you exactly what the problem is and what the fix; often, those fixes are smart, informed and sensible.
In the next breath, they will tell you why it will never be implemented for political reasons. And they're right.
So, forgive this old guy his skepticism at the latest incarnation of Ross Perot, an archetype we keep falling for who comes in to "get shit done" or "tinker under the hood" or whatever folkism is in vogue at the moment.
Last time I looked, interest, entitlement programs and defense was north of 70 percent of the $6 trillion federal budget. I would not exclude defense but many disagree. That means the rest - literally everything else the federal government does - is about $1.8 trillion a year. Real money for sure except in comparison to our $35 trillion national debt. Square that circle with a press conference, a summit or a commission.
TL'DR: Tom is right: at the end of the day, little to nothing will be DOGEd, a few symbolic and "anticipated" savings will be touted as proof of the success and the vast edifice of the federal government will sail on undisturbed. Mr. Musk's apparently limitless ego will be stoked a bit more and he'll probably be a little richer.
Well said. “Back in the day” when Ds and Rs could collaborate, there were meaningful and real initiatives to strengthen Social Security and at least slow the rate of increase in government spending. In both cases, success depended on looking at revenue and spending. That was true even in the Reagan Administration. Today, it’s hard to see anything but increases in the federal deficit and debt when Trump and Republicans are insistent on not only extending the abysmal 2017 tax bill, but expanding on.
I am not in the least bit a policy wonk - my (ancient) pedigree comes out of the political side of the business - but I had a true loss-of-faith moment in 2010 or so when the Simpson-Bowles Commission delivered a reasonable, bipartisan proposal to address government spending (including entitlements) and it died almost without resistance.
Earlier this year, watching the Lankford immigration proposal get torpedoed by Mr. Trump was a similar moment for me but tempered by 14 years more cynicism and lowered expectations. What they negotiated wasn't what I wanted but it was something that made an effort to address one of the most dysfunctional aspects of our nation's laws.
And so we govern ourselves by lurching from one self-made crisis to the next. In the most perverse way imaginable, the stupid, meaningless spending limit fights have become our BEST mechanism for getting anything done because they are about the only issue of such urgency that they can still break through the bipartisan gridlock.
If observers want to know why those bills always get passed at the last possible minute and run to thousands of pages that no one has time to read it's because that's what the world's greatest democracy has reduced itself to; lawmakers cram every possible thing into those bills because nothing else can clear both chambers and the White House.
Until it can't. Sooner or later, the stars will align and we'll break that seal as well. God help us if we default and don't trigger a global financial catastrophe because I'm not sure what's left.
Sadly, I won't be holding my breath. None involved with this current effort care enough to learn the particulars of governing to attempt a fix.
Tom,
There is a lot of low hanging fruit in tax policy. How about means testing for Health Savings Accounts, (HSA), college savings accounts and social security. Any area where money is never taxed, should be for high income earners.
Four things are true in my experience:
1 - Government programs and the people who administer and run them are better and more effective than they are often credited.
2 - People sometimes do not connect the benefits of a government program with their personal circumstances. This includes some who receive direct, monetary benefits from the government.
3 - Government programs are sometimes inefficient, become bloated and continue long past their public policy purposes.
4 - Nothing done at the scale of the federal government is "simple," "easy," "quick" or any other soundbite word. Not to create, implement, administer, revise or end.
Combine these four observations into a context and it is a useful tool in level-setting expectations. We need government programs and services, we benefit from them everyday bother directly and at the community and national levels. We need oversight and regulation. The real debates are how much and in what forms.
And while there are many examples of government employees who don't care my experience is that most do care, many are experts in what they do and they work longer and harder than many in the private sector. Government bloat and inertia is not unique to any sector of the government. You can find programs that have long since outlived their purpose in defense, ag, social services, transportation. They continue because their constituencies - including their employees - have enough political power to protect them.
And finally, "fixing" government is a multi-level, multi-dimensional challenge that requires finding consensus on both policy and politics. I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had in my life with politicians of every stripe where there's agreement on a policy - Mr. Simmons' comment below about the tax code gives us a perfect example - and the politician will tell you exactly what the problem is and what the fix; often, those fixes are smart, informed and sensible.
In the next breath, they will tell you why it will never be implemented for political reasons. And they're right.
So, forgive this old guy his skepticism at the latest incarnation of Ross Perot, an archetype we keep falling for who comes in to "get shit done" or "tinker under the hood" or whatever folkism is in vogue at the moment.
Last time I looked, interest, entitlement programs and defense was north of 70 percent of the $6 trillion federal budget. I would not exclude defense but many disagree. That means the rest - literally everything else the federal government does - is about $1.8 trillion a year. Real money for sure except in comparison to our $35 trillion national debt. Square that circle with a press conference, a summit or a commission.
TL'DR: Tom is right: at the end of the day, little to nothing will be DOGEd, a few symbolic and "anticipated" savings will be touted as proof of the success and the vast edifice of the federal government will sail on undisturbed. Mr. Musk's apparently limitless ego will be stoked a bit more and he'll probably be a little richer.
Funny how that works.
Well said. “Back in the day” when Ds and Rs could collaborate, there were meaningful and real initiatives to strengthen Social Security and at least slow the rate of increase in government spending. In both cases, success depended on looking at revenue and spending. That was true even in the Reagan Administration. Today, it’s hard to see anything but increases in the federal deficit and debt when Trump and Republicans are insistent on not only extending the abysmal 2017 tax bill, but expanding on.
I am not in the least bit a policy wonk - my (ancient) pedigree comes out of the political side of the business - but I had a true loss-of-faith moment in 2010 or so when the Simpson-Bowles Commission delivered a reasonable, bipartisan proposal to address government spending (including entitlements) and it died almost without resistance.
Earlier this year, watching the Lankford immigration proposal get torpedoed by Mr. Trump was a similar moment for me but tempered by 14 years more cynicism and lowered expectations. What they negotiated wasn't what I wanted but it was something that made an effort to address one of the most dysfunctional aspects of our nation's laws.
And so we govern ourselves by lurching from one self-made crisis to the next. In the most perverse way imaginable, the stupid, meaningless spending limit fights have become our BEST mechanism for getting anything done because they are about the only issue of such urgency that they can still break through the bipartisan gridlock.
If observers want to know why those bills always get passed at the last possible minute and run to thousands of pages that no one has time to read it's because that's what the world's greatest democracy has reduced itself to; lawmakers cram every possible thing into those bills because nothing else can clear both chambers and the White House.
Until it can't. Sooner or later, the stars will align and we'll break that seal as well. God help us if we default and don't trigger a global financial catastrophe because I'm not sure what's left.