Comment by russdill

Comment by russdill 2 days ago

15 replies

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It's already been a thing for quite some time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Inspector_General_(U...

They are independent of the things they review, they find inefficiency, overspending, fraud, and embezzlement. They make their reports public and work with transparency. There are also other similar departments like CIGIE. There have been very substantial results.

What DOGE is doing is not finding inefficiency. They are doing two basic things. 1) Completely eliminating programs they don't think the US should be spending money on. And 2) Reducing headcount. Both of these actions may reduce costs, but may end up costing the US more money in the long term.

misiti3780 2 days ago

We are 35 trillion dollars in debt - we are broke. We have go cut costs if we want to avoid catastrophe in the medium term.

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  • pjmorris 2 days ago

    Government debt is a result of government spending into the real economy. It is where we get the taxpayer dollars that we spend, some of which go back to the government itself. A government without debt is also an economy without money.

    Governments with central banks can mismanage their currency, but they can't run out of it.

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    • seanw444 2 days ago

      They won't run out of currency, but the people that use it will run out of faith.

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      • pjmorris a day ago

        > They won't run out of currency, but the people that use it will run out of faith.

        Which is what happens when bond yields go so high that governments default. To my limited understanding, US Treasury bonds are used to determine the 'risk-free rate' of return because the US government reliably pays its bills.

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      • nullocator 2 days ago

        When? At what specific (magic) number does everything come crumbling down? We're at ~36 Trillion today, would 37 Trillion the number that will cause people to run out of faith? I mean that's only one more than we have today, surely people won't run out of faith for one more. So maybe it's 40 Trillion? But come on, we're at 36, people can't possibly give up on the US dollar just an 8% increase. How about 100 Trillion? 500 Trillion? I'm not sure you know how this game is played.

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    • [removed] 2 days ago
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  • dontparticipate 2 days ago

    There's a body of government explicitly built to do exactly that and given exactly that power in the constitution. It's called Congress.

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  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 2 days ago

    If we are broke then why do people buy our debt? It's obviously more complex than you make it sound.

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    • tekknik a day ago

      because for now there’s a reasonable chance it will get paid off. what happens when the house of cards comes down?

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      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 a day ago

        What happens when any house of cards comes down? Could be said about any system anywhere on Earth. Could be said even if the US had zero debt.

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        • tekknik 6 hours ago

          nobody would complain about the looming debt crisis if the US had no debt.

          what does this comment even say?

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