Top Secret America

Has anyone started the pool on when this thread gets locked?

 

Liberal media at it again.

 

Yes but it's top secret. PM me if you want in.

 

Why do you read that as a shot at one particular side? Which side is it a shot at?

Maybe I could have said government "initiative" instead of "agenda" but I don't think that really changes the meaning.

The facts are that government is not efficient. It spends lots of money, often without achieving its stated goals.

Profits aren't the at the bottom line, so goal of many programs is simply to become bigger -- to grow the budget, the staff, and the number of people "served". This is because the bigger the program you are administering, the more prestigious it is.

Paperwork is produced at staggering rates, often just to CYA.

And because multiple agencies want to get involved in some areas, many programs are redundant.

Here's a little bit on poverty:

Or, how about this from last month:

And this took me about two minutes to look up.

Give me some more time, and I can find a lot more articles & studies like this.

 

This is from 2005 (and yes, I know who was President & who controlled Congress in 2005), but I'll bet that not a lot has changed:

 

For a nation of 310 million people living in 50 states working for hundreds of thousands of businesses in the largest economy in the world, none of that strikes me as particularly excessive.

 

There may or may not be redundancies that need to be fixed, but the fact that a number of agencies can be described in the same broad terms doesn't prove it to me.

 

So does the Post's coverage of the intelligence community make you think that there are excesses, or are they understandable too?

There may be redundancies? Come on. We can't have a discussion if you won't acknowledge certain facts.

Orszag says there are redundancies. Do you not believe him?

And if you think I'm wrong, then say it. Say there are no redundancies, don't give me a mealy mouthed, "there may be redundancies."

The Federal Government is bloated.

I'm all for criticizing the bloat and think it should be addressed. But let's not pretend that problem is limited to the intelligence field.

And, btw, I'm glad the Post is doing the series. Sadly, as newspapers continue to suffer, there will be less and less organizations capable of doing something like this.

 

Find it interesting that no other news organizations have picked up on this story.

Probably because there is nothing there so far.

 

The issue here isn't whether you are right or wrong, for me. I was just commenting that the list that is supposed to be a smoking gun is insufficient evidence.

 

As Rick pointed out, posting the number of agencies proves nothing.

Of course government is bloated, of course it's inefficient. It's huge.

Specify those inefficiencies and we'll all be a step closer to fixing them.

 

This isn't a court room, Rick.

Forget the list. Read Orszag's words.

Use your own best judgement.

You know there are redundancies throughout the Federal Government and you know that billion's of dollars get wasted every year.

The Times the other day reported the other day that Billions have been basically wasted on useless "job training" programs.

Too often, government programs are judged on their intentions, not their results.

(I wish I could work that way. "Sir, you're espresso machine is still broken, but I tried to fix it. That will be $300. Please recommend me to all of your friends.")

I'm sorry I haven't "proven" this to you in my two minutes of googling, but you know it to be the case.

Admit it, and then maybe we can talk about fixes. Ignore it, and it goes on forever.