The Islamic Dilemma

[Deacon923]

Could we do better? Probably. All programs should undergo intense scrutiny when taxpayer money is on the line. Then again the Pentagon operates 234 golf courses around the world. Or you could refer to this list I compiled in 15 minutes of research:

$60BN in contractor fraud/waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$70BN in waste in weapon system procurement.
Air conditioning alone cost $12BN a year in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The DoD spends $500 MM annually on marching bands.
The Pentagon-to-Lockheed pipeline drives up the prices of weapons and prevents effective oversight of weapon manufacturing companies — all of which ends up costing taxpayers billions each year.

Weird though, that in a thread about our relationships with the Middle East and Muslims, we're talking about welfare abuse and respectability politics. Almost like it's intentional distraction...

Could we do better?

what's the source for that table? Just curious for some context.

Most of the programs have very low abuse rates. I guarantee you that many large corporations are losing more than 2% to fraud, theft, employee expense account abuse, etc. etc. on an annual basis.

It's interesting to me that the worst performer, both in percentage and actual dollars, is "negative income tax". I'm curious about what that category includes. If it is just the Earned Income Tax Credit, I would think the table would say that. IMO the reason that there are such large problems with negative income tax programs is because (a) they are overly complicated, and thus easy to game; and (b) Congress has steadily crushed the ability of the IRS to enforce the tax laws by refusing to fund it at an appropriate level. It's a weird cycle; the EITC was a conservative idea to use the tax code to pay poor people rather than just giving them cash. Note that the programs that just give out cash have a much lower level of abuse. Then, the same conservatives turn around and make it even easier to game by going on crusades against the IRS and defunding it for the past 25 years or more.

 

[bobknightfan]

So you don't know what the level of abuse is but still think that it's too high?

I'm sure we'll be able to have a substantive and fact-driven discussion here if this is the initial hypothesis. Also, the amount of fraud in the current system is assuredly not "subjective."

How is the amount of fraud in the system not subjective if nobody knows how much it is?

 

[Wakeforest22890]

I believe in diminishing returns. If the rate of abuse is low enough, the cost of hunting down the abuse and remedying it is greater than the cost of abuse. I have no doubt there is abuse in the system, but I'm not going to say "I don't know what the rate is but it's too high!" without knowing the ballpark numbers for what we're talking about.

 

[PhDeac]

There are many things that neither of us know about an entire host of issues, son....and that has yet to keep either of us from giving our opinions on these issues.

If you broke into a business and stole a bunch of money, would someone be out of order for saying that was wrong just because they didn't know how much money you stole?

No. But you don't even have evidence somebody broke into a business and stole a bunch of money.

 

[TownieDeac]

what's the source for that table? Just curious for some context.

Full writeup here. Janky looking website, but well-sourced from the GAO/OMB.

Negative income tax is made up of the refundable portion of the EITC and Child Tax credits. OMB estimates that the ETIC Program has a 27.1% current improper payment rate based on a review by the Department of the Treasury. This is a “high error program” as classified by the OBM. No such review has been performed related to the Child Tax Credit, but the Inspector General estimates[vi] the range for that program to be between 25.2% - 30.5%. A 27% overall improper payment rate is estimated for negative income tax as a whole.

OMB describes the EITC errors as follows: “A number of factors unique to the EITC program trigger errors. The complexity of the law contributes to confusion around eligibility requirements, mainly qualifying child relationship and residency rules. Other factors include high program turnover of one-third annually, return preparer errors, and fraud.”

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Damn lawyers.

 

[bobknightfan]

I believe in diminishing returns. If the rate of abuse is low enough, the cost of hunting down the abuse and remedying it is greater than the cost of abuse. I have no doubt there is abuse in the system, but I'm not going to say "I don't know what the rate is but it's too high!" without knowing the ballpark numbers for what we're talking about.

I also believe in diminishing returns. The problem is that neither of us know the level of abuse nor the cost involved in trying to lower it, so we are left with only personal subjective positions on the issue.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

No, you have an opinion on it and think that we are not policing the abuse at a high enough level. I said that you didn't know what the rate was and since I don't either I'm not going to come out and say that we should be investing resources to lower the rate.

 

[PhDeac]

bkf's posts sound like the conservative talk around drug testing welfare recipients. Those programs found very low rates of drug use among welfare recipients. The end result was a wasteful handout of taxpayer money to drug testing companies.

 

[bobknightfan]

No. But you don't even have evidence somebody broke into a business and stole a bunch of money.

That is totally irrelevant to numbers' post and my response. He was not suggesting that there wasn't abuse, but only that I didn't know the level of abuse. My response was a hypothetical situation that represented the same thing, I.E., that the only thing not known was the amount.

How you came up with this post as a deductive response is puzzling, to say the least.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...18/drug-testing-welfare-applicants/53620604/1

"And Florida? For four months last year, before being stopped by a court, Florida tested all adult welfare applicants (but not people already in the program) and charged them the $30 to $40 cost of the test. About 2.7% tested positive. More significantly, roughly 2,000 — one-third of applicants — failed to take the test. But there's no telling how many feared failing the test and how many couldn't afford the fee. The cost is repaid if the test is passed, but welfare applicants might struggle to muster $30."

 

[TownieDeac]

bkf's posts sound like the conservative talk around drug testing welfare recipients. Those programs found very low rates of drug use among welfare recipients. The end result was a wasteful handout of taxpayer money to drug testing companies.

There's generally a lot of victim blaming in contemporary conservative dogma.

I think if you want to chase down waste in the safety net sector, you'd be best served looking at Medicaid.

 

[Deacon923]

We should definitely be investing resources to lower income tax fraud. Not just by poor people gaming the EITC for a couple hundred bucks, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_in_the_United_States The Treasury loses over $300 billion annually to tax evasion, so the EITC/child credit issues are a small percentage of the problem. Most of the cheaters are business owners *cough* job creators. Maybe they should take a little more personal responsibility and stop breaking the law. As a society we hardly allocate any resources to catching these criminals, but are happy to pack our prisons with hundreds of thousands of poor people in pursuit of the "war on drugs".

 

[bobknightfan]

No, you have an opinion on it and think that we are not policing the abuse at a high enough level. I said that you didn't know what the rate was and since I don't either I'm not going to come out and say that we should be investing resources to lower the rate.

LOL. Both are opinions. My opinion is that we should try to lower abuse. Your opinion is that it isn't worth the cost. (And neither of us knows the answer to that.)

You are just playing that game of "verbal gotcha". It's quite common among millennial WF grads on these boards who are filled with the certainty of their academic superiority. (That and trying to bully & overpower others with loads of data charts and "respected studies", which is very common way of being patronizing, too. If you look long enough, you can usually find a "respected study" to prove either...or both...sides of any issue being discussed.)

 

[Wakeforest22890]

No my "opinion" is we can't determine if it's worth the cost or not if we don't know what the actual abuse rate is. I didn't say that it's not worth the cost, I said we don't know and you're drawing conclusions based on anecdotes.

If you think using "data charts" and "respected studies" is patronizing and "bullying" then there's no reason to even talk to you about anything. You stick to using anecdotes as a compelling reason for the country to increase the oversight and policing of abuse of disability claims without any actual data and I'll reserve judgment until we can figure out what it is exactly that we're dealing with.

 

[bobknightfan]

No my "opinion" is we can't determine if it's worth the cost or not if we don't know what the actual abuse rate is. I didn't say that it's not worth the cost, I said we don't know and you're drawing conclusions based on anecdotes.

If you think using "data charts" and "respected studies" is patronizing and "bullying" then there's no reason to even talk to you about anything. You stick to using anecdotes as a compelling reason for the country to increase the oversight and policing of abuse of disability claims without any actual data and I'll reserve judgment until we can figure out what it is exactly that we're dealing with.

There is an old saying that "figures don't lie, but liars can figure".

In this day of advocacy politics, such things as data charts and "respected studies" can be manipulated to support any position. When I see someone refer to a particular study as a "respected" study, I am often reminded of the term "Fair" Tax. How do you know it is a "fair" tax? Well, it says it, right there in the title. What more do you need? Likewise, how do you know something is a "respected" study? Well, it says it is respected, right there in the article that is advancing it.

There is nothing wrong with supporting data, just be careful to use it as the end-all gospel....especially without considering the source, because these things can be (and often are) manipulated to support a preconceived position. Just like "push-polls", for example.

The bigger problem for WF millennial grads is to guard against becoming overly impressed their own intellect before they get the chance to test that intellect out there in the real world....because that can very easily happen. I've walked in those same shoes. As someone once told me, "It's what you learn after you already know it all that counts". And, unfortunately, you have to get completely away from the world of academia for some time before that happens.

 

[TownieDeac]

"data charts"

 

[PhDeac]

I am easily fooled and manipulated because I lack sufficient critical thinking skills to understand numbers and data analysis

Summarized for brevity.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Townie, you just have to get away from structured learning to learn.

And yeah, it's much better to just avoid statistics and descriptive numbers entirely and just rely on small sample sizes in the form of anecdotes. The latter is far less susceptible to manipulation :tard:

Under this logic if you live in a small town where there are no minorities, no tvs, and no radios and you never leave that town it's entirely possible you'd have never seen a a person of color before in your life. If you're just relying on anecdotes and someone showed you a chart of the demographic breakdown of the United States in 2015 and chose to reject statistics and studies for anecdotes you would believe that only white people lived in the country. That would be false but you'd just keep believing it anyway under the guise of "figures don't lie but liars can figure." The statement would still be true though since liars certainly can figure, except generally it's people who bury their head in the sand and value their own personal experiences above all others who are the ones doing the figuring.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

There is an old saying that "figures don't lie, but liars can figure".

In this day of advocacy politics, such things as data charts and "respected studies" can be manipulated to support any position. When I see someone refer to a particular study as a "respected" study, I am often reminded of the term "Fair" Tax. How do you know it is a "fair" tax? Well, it says it, right there in the title. What more do you need? Likewise, how do you know something is a "respected" study? Well, it says it is respected, right there in the article that is advancing it.

There is nothing wrong with supporting data, just be careful to use it as the end-all gospel....especially without considering the source, because these things can be (and often are) manipulated to support a preconceived position. Just like "push-polls", for example.

The bigger problem for WF millennial grads is to guard against becoming overly impressed their own intellect before they get the chance to test that intellect out there in the real world....because that can very easily happen. I've walked in those same shoes. As someone once told me, "It's what you learn after you already know it all that counts". And, unfortunately, you have to get completely away from the world of academia for some time before that happens.

the bigger problem for Americans is the bloated sense of self worth and general greed of the boomer generation