Steve Ballmer's New Project: Find Out How the Government Spends Your Money (theverge.com)

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn't satisfied with owning the Los Angeles Clippers and teaching at Stanford and USC. On Tuesday, the billionaire announced USAFacts, his new startup that aims to improve political discourse by making government financial data easier to access. A small "army" of economists, professors and other professionals will be looking into and publishing data structured similarly to the 10-K filings companies issue each year -- expenses, revenues and key metrics pulled from dozens of government data sources and compiled into a single massive collection of tables. From a report on The Verge: The nonpartisan site traces $5.4 trillion in government spending under four categories derived from language in the US Constitution. Defense spending, for example, is categorized under the header "provide for the common defense," while education spending is under "secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity." Spending allocation and revenue sources are each mapped out in blue and pink graphics, with detailed breakdowns along federal, state and local lines. Users can also search for specific datasets, such as airport revenue or crime rates, and the site includes a report of "risk factors" that could inhibit economic growth. The New York Times has the story on how this startup came to be.

Comments

Problem is true waste is hidden

[mysidia]

The number $X spent on defense obscures the fact about how each defense dollar is spent.
It may be that with an increase in efficiency, and reduction in labor force, you could reduce $X in defense by 75%, and still have just as effective a defense program, with no material sacrifice other than removing deadweight, or eliminating financial mismanagements or abuses by bureaucrats.

What the American people need is drill-down financial transparency down to the Per-Employee, Per-Contract, and Per-Product level.

We should literally know how much our government is spending on each tool, supply, or service being requisitioned, and what is included with each tool, supply, or service.

Re:Problem is true waste is hidden

[Gilgaron]

I think the cost of running an analysis that fine would eat any savings many fold over. It's like drug testing welfare recipients... it might sound like a good idea but you'll waste more money than you'll save.

Re:Problem is true waste is hidden

[tinkerton]

There are generals who've stated it bluntly: the military budget needs depend on what you want to do. If you just want to have a defensive capability, then a fraction of the current budget is enough. If you want full scale dominance then the current budget is not enough.

That the military and intelligence budget is not transparent is true enough. there are a lot of shadowy constructions that have been setup specifically to allow secret funding of projects(typically projects that change names often). Only I wonder if that should be the main focus. The main problem may be in plain sight. If you just look at the current organisation, there is a huge military budget, and part of it is spread around to many states, so that a lot of people benefit. In effect a lot of politicians support military projects because they hope to benefit.
It leads to an arms race that fuels itself. Politicians are in favor of modernizing nukes because it means jobs. Politicians don't want a less wasteful budget. It would only mean they get less of it.

Re:Problem is true waste is hidden

[SirSlud]

> Even if it cost money I don't know many working people who wouldn't fork over another $20 just to make everyone else have to get up in the morning too.

Running an economy on emotions is a stupid thing to do.

Re:Problem is true waste is hidden

[dinfinity]

You're suggesting a mild form of slavery.

Note that forcing people to volunteer negates the meaning of 'volunteer'. It also prevents them from finding an actual job and removes all market elements from the labor involved. See the US prison labor system to see what that leads to.

Even if it cost money I don't know many working people who wouldn't fork over another $20 just to make everyone else have to get up in the morning too

You need to get to know people who aren't so spiteful that they would want to pay to ruin other people's lives just because they don't like theirs. Because that is what you are suggesting.

Don't show up, don't get your free money.

So it is not free money.

Listen, I get that you want the world to be a fair place. I suggest however you direct your efforts away from the weakest people in society to those who use their affluence to game the entire system to make it as skewed towards them as best they can. While you are devising 'solutions' for 'lazy' welfare recipients, billionaires and lobbyists are laughing all the way to the(ir) bank.

There are only four programs that matter

[sjbe]

The only government spending that really matters is Medicare/Medicaid, Defense, and Social Security. Those together account for about 3/4 of the federal budget. Any discussion of federal spending that doesn't involve those four programs is pointless and/or grandstanding. Stuff like NASA and education are almost rounding errors in comparison to those four programs.

That's also why anyone who talks about cutting taxes without also talking about cutting either Medicare or Defense is completely full of shit because we don't pay enough in taxes to cover those programs today. We certainly can't afford to cut taxes when last year we borrowed $600 billion to cover the $600 billion defense department budget. Cutting taxes without cutting Medicare or Defense is simply handing the bill to your children which makes the people doing it assholes. Believing that cutting taxes will magically increase government revenues through growth makes the people saying either idiots or charlatans or both.

Re:There are only four programs that matter

[Solandri]

Also of note is that 1/4 of the portion of the budget that isn't in that 3/4 is interest on debt (about 6% of the budget). And that will rise as interest rates rise unless we start reducing the debt.

Believing that cutting taxes will magically increase government revenues through growth makes the people saying either idiots or charlatans or both.

No, that's based on a fundamental theorem of calculus. We know that:

• At 0% taxation you get zero tax revenue.
• At 100% taxation (Communism) we get a certain amount of tax revenue.
• At an arbitrary % of taxation between those two points, we get an amount of tax revenue higher than at 100% taxation.

If tax revenue is a continuous function of tax rate, then according to the mean value theorem there is a certain percentage between 0% and 100% at which tax revenue is maximized. Call it m%.

• If the current tax rate is below m%, then decreasing tax rate will decrease tax revenue.
• If the current tax rate is above m%, then decreasing tax rate will increase tax revenue.

You can argue that we're below m% so cutting taxes won't work. But automatically classifying people as idiots or charlatans for believing decreasing tax rate can increase tax revenue just shows your lack of understanding of mathematics.

Re:There are only four programs that matter

[ChrisMaple]

You and Laffer both have an unstated and hidden assumption, that maximizing tax revenue is a good goal. It's not; the long-term maximization of the income of Americans is a good goal.

Since much of the money that the government takes in is used to inhibit production and remove incentives to work, it's fairly safe to claim that the tax level that maximizes long-term American income is below the rate that maximizes tax revenue.

In addition, a tax rate below the maximum revenue rate increases freedom.

I included the phrase "long-term" for a specific reason. While a zero tax rate would maximize the income of Americans for the short term, the lack of a military that would come from a zero tax rate would eventually result in the end of the USA, and hence no income for Americans.

Whining about taxes

[sjbe]

Stop taxing us.

If you want to stop being taxed then explain to me how you plan to fund roads, bridges, education, police, firemen, defense, schools, medical care, etc. You planning to fund those things yourself voluntarily? How do you plan to get others to help out? I've never heard someone whining about taxes with a good answer for this but maybe you can be the first.

Let us be free to spend our money how we see fit, rather than forcibly confiscating it and wasting it.

First prove how society wouldn't fall apart by eliminating taxes.

It is very easy to waste other people's money. Governments excel at this.

If you think governments are so good at wasting your money go ahead and move somewhere where you won't be taxed. There are countries where this happens or where it happens very little. I assure you that you won't find living there to be very pleasant however. Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.

The problem is not where, it is how much

[sjbe]

The number $X spent on defense obscures the fact about how each defense dollar is spent.

It doesn't really matter how each defense dollar is spent. The problem isn't what specifically we are spending it on but the fact that we are spending too much of it on defense in total. We have a $600 billion defense department budget as of 2016. That is more than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, India, France and Japan combined. We could be getting amazing efficiency from our military spending and it would still be a pointless boondoggle. Our military is really just an inefficient jobs program. The money could be put to far better use as research dollars or to fixing our education system, or repairing/building our infrastructure. Instead we have the sort of military that a paranoid banana republic might build at vast cost. Are you aware that we borrowed almost exactly the ENTIRE defense department budget last year? We are like the guy who buys a Ferrari and then wonders why he's having trouble paying the rent.

We should literally know how much our government is spending on each tool, supply, or service being requisitioned, and what is included with each tool, supply, or service.

Let's stipulate that that was somehow magically possible. (it isn't) What exactly would you do with that information? Are you going to go argue that a secretary at NASA was being extravagant when she requisitioned a stapler? Beyond a certain point the cost of maintaining that information is greater than the value you get from maintaining it.

I'm an accountant and one of the principles of accounting is that you don't bother tracking something if the cost of tracking it is greater than the value gained from doing the tracking. Your proposal would waste an unbelievably vast amount of money on the overhead required to keep track of every paper clip. Far more money than you could possibly save by doing so. FAR more. For big ticket items, sure there should be reasonable transparency. But thinking that you can keep track of everything in fine grained detail and get actual positive value out of doing so is just naively unrealistic. It provably cannot be done.

It's data, not bumper stickers. Costs, not dreams

[raymorris]

> I wonder what Ballmer's political affiliations are...

Ballmer has donated roughly equally to Republicans and Democrats - he doesn't seem to politically passionate either way. He's more of analyst than an advocate, a numbers guy. I don't follow Ballmer closely, but from what I've seen I'd posit he doesn't hate Obama or hate Bush, the opaqueness of the entire federal bureaucracy bugs him. I could be wrong though.

One can draw some conclusions from the nature of the project - though different readers will draw different conclusions. The project will compile thousands of pages of data - hard numbers compiled from government sources. It's compiling data, not bumper sticker slogans. If you think the data, reality, supports certain political positions, you can conclude that compiling the data and making it more readily available will support those positions.

Personally, it seems *to me* that some of the lofty ideals that liberals tend to focus on are best advocated in an inspirational medium such as music (ie "Imagine" by John Lennon), while the more pragmatic issues of costs etc that conservatives tend to focus on are seen more in the numbers. I'm not saying either is right or wrong, better or worse. Both are needed, I think - it's worthwhile to "Imagine there's no countries ... Imagine no possessions ... No need for greed or hunger". After imagining for a while, it is then time to look at how much we need to spend on which programs to reduce hunger in the US vs how much we should budget for international aid, etc.

Re:Nobody starts a project like this

[__aaclcg7560]

This project reeks of self-righteousness. I wonder what Ballmer's political affiliations are...

Although an equal opportunity giver to both parties, he did work for George W.'s 2004 reelection campaign.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/political-leanings-of-silicon-valley.html

Idiotic nostalgia

[sjbe]

The following socialist programs should be eliminated completely: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We need to roll the Federal government back to what it was prior to 1913.

There is a saying that you shouldn't tear down a wall until you completely understand why it was built in the first place. We have those programs because they address problems that were not being adequately handled before those programs were created. You seem to have some naive nostalgia that somehow things were better prior to 1913. They weren't.. You are demonstrating that you are either a troll or an idiot for suggesting otherwise. You are suggesting eliminating health care and financial security for millions of our most vulnerable citizens, mostly the elderly and poor.

Just like businesses...

[bradley13]

It's all nice and stuff that Steve Ballmer wants to do this. However, the government really should be doing this itself. Government accounting should meet the same standards as business accounting. Why? Because it is just as important, if not more so. Furthermore, all accounts should be fully public. Why? Because it's our money the government is spending.

For the poster who said that this is too much work: This is what every business in the country has to do. If it's too complicated, the government could consider simplifying things. But the government wants clarity in business accounts, for tax purposes. And we - the citizens - want clarity in seeing how the government spends our taxes. Sauce. Goose. Gander.

Won't happen, of course, because it would become much more difficult to hide pork. Ballmer's idea isn't going to work, because he will be unable to get the information that really counts.

Re:It's data, not bumper stickers. Costs, not drea

[losfromla]

Well, given the wealth disparity, the scheme the rightists are using is definitely working much better.
Now the very wealthy own virtually everything and almost everyone from the far left to the far right are scrambling for crumbs.
Yay for the very poor right! Y'all won! *sigh*