"The issue here is that no one can agree on which portion of government spending is wasteful."
Human nature, I guess
"It’s almost taken as a tautology that the government is wasteful. After 50 years of cost cutting and wage freezes,"
These cuts are not reflected in government spending vs GDP is mostly flat for the last 40 years
Note that in the 1970s the US was paying for moonshots and Vietnam (both filthy expensive)
"I tend to find it fanciful that individuals paid 1/4 of their private sector compensation to work on core civil infrastructure, national research priorities, and policy are somehow a bad deal for the American taxpayer at large. "
Ya, that's not a thing. I worked in government, I still work on government projects and no one outside the NSA is getting paid a 1/4 of their private sector compensation. Maybe a 20% hit which they chose to accept since, in my experience, most start as contractors and move to become feds for the job sec + benefits.
Frankly, Id say half of the government employees I worked with are unemployable. And they most of them had at least a STEM masters.
"If anything, I’d imagine that the government could incentivize greater productivity by normalizing the pay scales. At a minimum, maintaining a public capability can often neutralize monopolistic pricing practices."
I don't necessarily disagree.
"Have you considered who the narrative of wasteful spending benefits? Even our narratives of tax increases never discuss tax increases on what is now the bulk of personal monetary gain."
Ive considered it a lot in fact. One of the main beneficiaries appears to be the DC area which was the only region of the country not to have a recession in 2008 and has been outpacing most of the country in growth for thirty years.
The main beneficiaries, thus, are the laptop-class (and their billionaire masters) which is a new way of saying mandarins.
Human nature, I guess
"It’s almost taken as a tautology that the government is wasteful. After 50 years of cost cutting and wage freezes," These cuts are not reflected in government spending vs GDP is mostly flat for the last 40 years
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
Note that in the 1970s the US was paying for moonshots and Vietnam (both filthy expensive)
"I tend to find it fanciful that individuals paid 1/4 of their private sector compensation to work on core civil infrastructure, national research priorities, and policy are somehow a bad deal for the American taxpayer at large. "
Ya, that's not a thing. I worked in government, I still work on government projects and no one outside the NSA is getting paid a 1/4 of their private sector compensation. Maybe a 20% hit which they chose to accept since, in my experience, most start as contractors and move to become feds for the job sec + benefits.
Frankly, Id say half of the government employees I worked with are unemployable. And they most of them had at least a STEM masters.
"If anything, I’d imagine that the government could incentivize greater productivity by normalizing the pay scales. At a minimum, maintaining a public capability can often neutralize monopolistic pricing practices."
I don't necessarily disagree.
"Have you considered who the narrative of wasteful spending benefits? Even our narratives of tax increases never discuss tax increases on what is now the bulk of personal monetary gain."
Ive considered it a lot in fact. One of the main beneficiaries appears to be the DC area which was the only region of the country not to have a recession in 2008 and has been outpacing most of the country in growth for thirty years.
The main beneficiaries, thus, are the laptop-class (and their billionaire masters) which is a new way of saying mandarins.