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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money. Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent. Before than we discussed the astronomically comical cost of healthcare.gov.

It's good that people are demanding social change and action; the answer should bbe private charity and community leadership, as the current system just funnels money into contractors pockets.

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> making $7 for every $1 spent

This is tremendously effective and a good argument for spending more on the IRS.

Demanding that border patrol be moved to private charity is an .. entertaining idea. Would be interesting to see people take up a collection for the "wall".

I would say government run and government funded is actually best. Government applied, government funded, contractor executed is garbage and a rort.

Why would private charities be any less corrupt than public ones?

Because private charities rely on someone making an affirmative choice to give them money. In theory, if they are corrupt or incompetent enough the flow of money dries up.

If the government is corrupt or incompetent, people get angry at them and then ... nothing changes. The flow of money isn't stopping, in fact the most likely outcome is their budgets keep going up year after year.

But then you have to accept a situation where only the people who have money (or those on their payroll) can implement policy. You might improve the efficiency that way but it doesn't sound much better to me, especially in communities with a history of discrimination.

That sounds the exact opposite really - one is answerable to voters and while the other is capable of acting like a MLM organization that does nothing for the nominal cause except marketting.

Look at the old institutional system - they had loads of bad PR and were killed off - there may have been cynical reasons for doing so but it was held accountable.

Then look at all of the private "reparative therapy" and other opposite of helpful private organizations still around.

Not that being able to opt out isn't a big advantage but private bad ones can stick around way longer than public ones.

> It's good that people are demanding social change and action; the answer should bbe private charity and community leadership, as the current system just funnels money into contractors pockets.

I agree. But a democratic government is not necessarily bad; it is only as bad as the democratic majority that voted for it and not against it.

> Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money.

I do not agree. All depends on the government.

A government is typically the worst as "minimalist" government that seeks:

- to promote austerity and thus poverty for the masses and the government. Typically enforced by harmful taxes as only money source for the government in a currency union.

- to promote certain evil ideologies (e.g. austerity and poverty and military) and elite interests by law and policies. The government is currently (and maybe only theoretically) the only force of the masses against the few at the top.

- to act as evil global night-watchman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state

Clear proof from the USA and Europe:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-spent-six-trillion-wars-killed-h...

https://juliareda.eu/2018/08/censorship-machines-gonna-censo...

https://juliareda.eu/2018/12/article-13-mess/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jZNepTx80&t=35

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/medicare-for-all-study-peri-s...

Regarding public and private morality and charity:

No government and no economy respects the human rights. Obviously no charity of millionaires and billionaires tries enough to help. http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/homelessness-chris...

> Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money

These kinds of broad, factless statements do not deserve to be on HN.

> Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent

Are you suggesting that the totality of taxes we pay to the IRS are only 1/7 of the IRS cost? What are we... paying for roads with? The military? Is the entire government going down in flames solely because of the IRS?

Why, because the facts don't conveniently align with your world view? Because you completely misunderstood my comment?

Here, take a moment to read: https://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2017/0...

So the IRS makes a 700% return on investment, and you are suggesting that means government is wasteful? Sounds like more of the government needs to run like the IRS.

Also trusting stories published through PR Newswire is unwise if not corroborated by other journals. PR Newswire is a pay for distribution service. Anyone can publish through it.

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