US Open Government Sites To Close 385
SEWilco writes "US government sites which promote open government are going to shut down soon due to not enough funding being directed at them."
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US Open Government Sites To Close
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This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
The few million dollars these sites cost to run is a drop in the bucket compared to those three programs.
But there's plenty of money (Score:3, Insightful)
for social media propaganda and sockpuppet accounts... Eh.. whatever. The whole thing is such bullshit
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:1, Insightful)
Social Security still has a surplus.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who needs to fund Open Government initatives (Score:3, Insightful)
Heard of them recently? Gone really quiet all of a sudden...
Less non-corporate info (Score:5, Insightful)
Special interest groups own Washington. Consistent, open data and an informed public are usually at odds with these special interest groups. It was a milestone to get these initiatives started in the first place, but in this climate? I mean, NPR got cut, and while that might not sound like much, decent radio as we know it just DIED across most of rural America; and its the radio that often tied whole communities together.
There's a reason America has the best government money can buy.
No one should be immune to cuts. But should such information programs be killed off with nothing to replace them with? If nothing else, such websites help dispute so much of the opinionated pundit talk that Fox 'News' airs for hours and hours during Prime Time. There's those medical Death Squad panels you hear about, looking to save money by cutting medical support for old people, and then there's the facts.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
If you put all of the FICA taxes and T-bills owned by the Social Security Administration towards what they're supposed to be going for, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, are doing collectively just fine right now, and will continue to be more-or-less just fine for decades.
The problem is that instead the significant surpluses in FICA were used to cover up even-more-massive deficits in the general treasury. And where and when those deficits came isn't a mystery: In short, blame can be laid pretty squarely at the feet of Ronald Reagan [wikimedia.org] (notice the huge inflection point between 1945 and 2010).
Basically, Reagan claimed he could cut taxes without affecting revenue. The effect of trying this was that he effectively proved that this was utter nonsense. But everybody likes paying less in taxes, so people who pointed out that it was nonsense were effectively told "Shhhh! Don't give the game away".
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Data.gov probably uses more money gathering and curating the tons of data they offer than with hosting.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
4 million dollars would pay 30-40 people. That's not a whole lot, considering all of the data that has to be collected, checked, massaged into the right format, made compliant with accessibility rules, press dealings, server support, IT support for staff, and so on. I'm not an american so I'm not all that familiar with how funding is allocated in detail, but the site seems to spend a lot of time on awards, and sub award reporting. Presumably 'awards' could be easily extracted from regular budget documents but sub awards can't? There's seems to be a lot of time devoted to analysis of the data as well (which could drive costs up a lot if you have a few PhD's in stats or econ doing the analysis), in addition to building the flash visualization stuff.
On top of all of the sort of obvious stuff I'm sure there's a lot of legal there too. You can't always just go and blab what contractors you're giving money to, or if you can you need to verify the information you're going to say about the company. There can be a big difference between a deal with a company that is myurl.net and myurl.com, and you don't want to say they got 10 million dollars when they got 1, or 100.
As with all any large outfit, the more money you spend accounting for the money you're spending, the less is available for the actually things you're trying to do. It becomes a balance between the legitimate need to know where money is going, and the equally legitimate need to not waste 50 cents on every dollar documenting where you spent the other 50 cents. It seems like most everything on this website is available elsewhere, not necessarily easily. Whether or not a few millions of dollars in data aggregation on top of billions in accounting for trillions in spending is providing good value, especially when it's not my money, is beyond me.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
three giant money-sucking programs that need drastic cuts if we want to do anything about the budget: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense
Mmm, because a disease-racked, starving underclass is the perfect foundation for a stable and prosperous democratic society. But if we at least fund the military, the desperatly hungry, plague-ridden rabble with no jobs and no future will at least be well-trained in modern urban combat and the overthrow of oppressive (or just annoying) regimes.
Nothing about this bold social plan could ever possibly go wrong!
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article:
We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year.
$4mil to keep a website going for one year? Think if I called them up and offered to do it for 3 they'd take it?
Depends. Are you going to do all the data collection, tabulations, etc? That $4-million figure wasn't just to run some Apache server stuff in the corner. It's the entire program that's being cut. It's no real great loss since traffic to these servers was negligible anyway. In the long run, it's actually cheaper to respond to FOIA requests than the maintain the full-disclosure types of websites.
Keep in mind these were the half-assed answers to political campaign promises about open govt. They were never intended to fully funded or maintained.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because they only usually think taxes are too low for *other* people.
Re:Dumb Cunts (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because people like you hate reason, are driven by emotion...
Rage is an emotion. It's that feeling you have when someone has offended you beyond your ability to understand. It often manifests as an intense desire to cause physical harm to the offending person(s), with little to no concern for any mitigating circumstances.
Perhaps the woman in question has a vision or coordination problem. Perhaps she's distracted thinking about other things. Perhaps you should have been a proper gentleman and made sure you were well out of her path, that she may go any way she likes. Perhaps, for a few fleeting moments, you could let a trivial inconvenience pass by you, and not demonize someone you know remarkably little about.
What moral principle says that someone should be so privileged that they can risk injuring others without even trying to be responsible and should never ever suffer any consequence of that?
That's a very good question. Why should anyone be given the ability to risk injuring anyone else, especially around the face, which is of high social importance?
Given that you've shown you know nothing about the other side of the story, and appear unable to empathize, why should you be the sole judge of who should be injured and who shouldn't?
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
They are doing that. It's called inflation and it's the biggest hidden tax of them all. For those who consider this a top priority, it's also an incredibly regressive tax. That's because most wealthy people have their money tied up in appreciating assets that scale with inflation. Most everyone else has their money in bank accounts. It's hard to live within your means, slowly build wealth, and move up when the money you are saving is constantly devalued. It's one of many forces that help to limit upward mobility and ensure that those who work hard and are not currently wealthy are unlikely to become wealthy.
The problem with that is that when a nation starts going bankrupt, the majority population becomes so busy trying to do things like avoid starvation that there remains little time and energy to advance knowledge and invent new things.
If it would work that would be nice. There are a few problems that quickly come to mind and there are likely more than that. One is that this would require a huge investment of trust in the government. Providing a realistic income to every last adult in the nation would require a government even larger and more powerful (legally and economically) than the one we have now. I look at the assholes in power and I see little more than incompetence and insatiable hunger for power. If we are going to put this much more trust in our politicians then we need better politicians.
The other problem is that very large systems based on extremely centralized micromanagement of human behavior tend not to work out. The only reason corporations can pull that off is because they are dictatorships and each member is relatively easy to eliminate and replace. Then consider that the only challenges that would receive funding are those you can get large, bureaucratic committees staffed with politicians to agree with and support. Proposals involving a scientific discipline are exceedingly unlikely to be reviewed and approved by people who actually understand the science. Then you'd still have all the usual problems of cronyism in which the politicians' buddies and supporters have an easier time getting a challenge approved.
Reagan proved that most corporations who are given generous tax breaks would rather give that money to their shareholders than the rank-and-file employees actually performing the work. Hamilton was a supporter of centralized banks and fiat currency and debt is an integral and unavoidable component of that arrangement. Lincoln's greenbacks were interest-free currency because Lincoln was wise enough to foresee the inevitable collapse of a system in which money has interest attached at the moment it is created, namely because there is never enough money in circulation to pay back the debt.
The Panice of 1837 wasn't caused by Jackson paying off the national debt. The Panic was caused by drastic inflation that happened over a length of time that was followed by sudden intense defla
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three giant money-sucking programs that need drastic cuts if we want to do anything about the budget: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense. The few million dollars these sites cost to run is a drop in the bucket compared to those three programs.
At least Medicare and Social Security are doing something for American citizens.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually federal spending as a percentage of the GDP is not significantly different now than it has been historically. The tax burden has shifted quite a bit though. Corporations used to account for about 30% of federal income tax receipts and the wealthy used use to have a top marginal rate well over 50%. Now the burden has shifted toward the middle class. After all, Bill Clinton balanced the budget and had a surplus when he left office and that was only with an extra 4 or 5% tax on high income earners. But then we had a major commitment of our military without raising taxes to help pay for it as we have in past wars. 3/4's of the federal debt was accumulated under Republican's because all they want to do is cut taxes but they're afraid to cut the spending by a commensurate amount because they know they'd be out on their asses at the next election if they did. Cheney said "Deficits don't matter." but what the Republican's really mean is they only matter when there's a Democratic president so they can make political hay out of them.
yes, but (Score:5, Insightful)
this is precisely what republicanism and "shrinking the government" is all about. Of course, they are even more clever by slipping in all their favorite kickback schemes into the defense budget that no one dares touch for fear of being labeled anti-American. Its the perfect scam. No or a shrinking government lets them get away with anything they want and you and I get to pay for it in further reductions in regulations and services that may potentially save the lives of millions. Republicans are good at recognizing that millions can starve or die as long as they get their millions.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, America could implement, say, the kind of health care plan that any other western nation has and probably cut Medicare expenses (and overall health spending, public and private) and still come out ahead, or at least be able to fund social security in a sustainable fashion. But of course, you can't have a single-payer system that comprehensively covers all your citizens. Oh, no. That's socialism, and we can't have that! It's wrong for the government to employ a bunch of doctors and nurses and have themgo around and heal people!
You can, mind you, have the government employ a huge, well-armed and trained military force to kill people. That's perfectly ok.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
The rest of the western world has more government-provided services, generally has less government intrusion and, interestingly, spends less doing so. All of this is because they don't have a pathological fear of government that forces everything to be done below-board and half-assed.
To put it succinctly, America has the government is citizens deserve.
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet somehow there's always funding to rain $600,000 missles down on some 3rd world nation. Oh, well. I guess they fund what matters to them.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would happily pay my income adjusted contribution if it meant I wouldn't have to listen to people bitch about it anymore and stop cutting important social programs like nutrition assistance.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we should eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes that are currently at about $100K. People who make over $100K a year have more to spare than people making less - the cap is exactly backwards to sanity. Once the cap is gone, there'll be plenty of money for everyone to ensure nobody starves to death when we stop working at 65. Keep in mind that lots of us used to starve to death before SS. Lots of us used to starve to death.
Re:yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:1, Insightful)
I hate to say this, but the Department of education has actually had a negative impact on education since it's creation. This is most likely because it's goal is only education on the surface, it's real goal seems to be conformity and political propaganda.
either way, we had more people doing better in school before the DOE was created in 79. Funding isn't the issue. The structure and concept of the DOE as currently implemented is.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
By "cutting" you mean "not increasing". What I'd like is a top to bottom review of ALL government spending and ALL programs having to justify themselves, and with more than anecdotal evidence of some grandma eating dog food. And in case you're wondering, I have a hard time wanting to justify some of the very programs you're probably supportive of. How about this, Nutrition Assistance based on not being "fat". I see the "Free food" kids at school who are fat. And I don't mean "chubby", I mean barely able to walk, waddle like penguins ... fat.
And you're gonna tell me that they are poor (sure) and are fat because lack of some education at home where the parents are too stupid to not eat at McDonalds every day ... or something. Great, how about you drag mom AND dad down to the local "re-education" center and get them educated BEFORE they can participate in "free and reduced" food (breakfast AND lunch now).
Never mind that now that the parents only have to find one fat filled meal instead of three, they can now drink an extra sixpack of bud or fifth of vodka.
Look, I don't mind helping people who need it. But I'm sick of people who don't need it, milking the system so they can drink (or smoke dope, or crank, or pop Oxycontin). You know, I've had to tighten my belt over the years because I'm not making any more, and the government it taking more, and things just cost more. How about ... for a change ... government do the same thing?
So, lets cut (as in not increase) all government spending for a while. No new programs unless you're willing to cut two old ones. Let us review each program's effectiveness and see if we can't be more productive with the tax payers hard earned money. I know, novel idea for government to justify its existence, we should try it as the other option isn't working any longer.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
slander stated as fact with unfounded assertions for a rather uncreative run of the mill troll. shame on the fools who modded you up -- please mod up new and interesting trolls for us to enjoy, not the old tired ones; nostalgia not withstanding.
and just in case you were actually serious, we also had less countries with the bomb in '79. (hey, at least my metric is verifiable) That must be the DoEd's fault too according to your logic? A rather lot has changed since then, and you can really ignore all the other changes in society and tie the causation to the management of this afterthought of a gov't dept? really?
Sagan is dead. Long live Sagan.
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