Oddly, I will not comment on the budget itself. The thing is not, after all, a single entity, a budget, but a massed set of thousands of pieces; and each piece has earned the approval of at least one congressperson and the acceptance of one or more congressional committees. Each part then, at least presents itself as serving the supposed legitimate interest of somebody's constituency. Beyond that, I would also drive readers crazy trying to justify or invalidate legislation meant to meet the needs of some distant place. I couldn't possibly get through all the minutae of the thing.
Of course, Congress is in roughly the same shape. Not even a single member of the House or the Senate--nor even a single one of their aides--will have read the entire bill; and, like me, none of them will even have a means to determine the supposed purpose and justification for any expenditure at all. Regardless of that though, congress has already voted for the thing and now, paradoxically, will start to eliminate parts of it in an effort to please voters. Of course, all during this process, various economists and statisticians will make justifications and recriminations over each line of text, but, unfortunately, they will only rarely state any justification for their opinion beyond their supposed status as experts. Because of this, and in hopes of provoking a little thought on the matter, I'd like to present the following set of questions to ask about the passing or repeal of any expenditure:
1) Does this bill cut any exiting government expenditure?. To name one example: The government faces certain losses for uncollected medical and legal fees through the burden of "bad debt," a means for professionals and others to deduct unpaid bills from their taxes. Therefore, the cost of medicade, medicare, V.A. health care and supplied legal services is at least somewhat smaller than the sum paid for them, and other services may have similar deductions. A real tab of the "cost" of any government expenditure must account for this sort of figure.
2) How much did this expenditure shrink the economy? All taxes end up in somebody's paycheck, and that person will, of course, either spend or save that money, ultimately stimulating the economy to at least some degree. To determine the economic loss from taxation then, the supposed experts will have to determine the difference between the stimulation expectable from the spending and savings of the money's original possesor to the stimulation expectable from the spending and savings of the ultimate recipient.
3) What is the total dollar benefit of this expenditure to the economy? Roads obviously foster trade, but the police, the E.P.A., welfare, health care and legal aid all prevent losses in productivity due to disruptions from crime or the ill health or workers. They therefore operate at a cost less than the gross payments to them, and statisticians and economists must therefore figure this dollar amount into their assessments of the worth of any of these programs. Again, examples of such cost/benefit relationships probably do not stop with those listed....
But then, the list of considerations probably doesn't stop with this list, either....
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