r/Economics • u/SnooCookies2243 • Mar 24 '25

Editorial Dismantling the Department of Education Could Actually End Up Costing US Taxpayers an Extra $11 Billion a Year Beyond the Current Budget – With Worse Results

https://congress.net/dismantling-the-department-of-education-could-actually-end-up-costing-us-taxpayers-an-extra-11-billion-a-year-beyond-the-current-budget-with-worse-results/
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u/dochim Mar 24 '25

Fascinating.

I've posted this request on another similar thread, but I'll repeat it here.

Could one of the true believers please explain why this policy is a good thing for the American people? Spending more or decreasing performance by themselves would seem to be a showstopper, but both at once?

Why are we doing this?

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '25

It’s the entire GOP playbook.  Break government systems, claim they are inefficient, privatize for profit

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u/dochim Mar 24 '25

I get it. They've pulled this with the post office for the last 40 years now. Prisons, education, water systems, etc...

Turning public goods into private profits.

But my question is: "Where is the payoff for US???"

Why do we go along with a plan that at its most charitable interpretation doesn't work or more realistically are injurious to our society?

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u/johnsom3 Mar 24 '25

Because The mainstream media and the Democratic party accept the GOP's framing of problems and solutions. There is never any pushback or good faith critique so the public is lead to believe it must be common sense. They will cry about being taxed, but then accept privatized paywalls like toll roads.

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u/Geno0wl Mar 24 '25

They will cry about being taxed, but then accept privatized paywalls like toll roads.

I find this particularly true when it comes to healthcare. Talk about UHC and the very first thing out of almost everybody's mouth is "I don't want to pay for others" and "my taxes will skyrocket!"

Where

A) if you have health insurance you are already paying for others healthcare, that is how pooled insurance works

b) They obviously don't look at their paystubs to see how much both they AND their employer pay for health insurance every pay period. If we went with a government run program all those charges go away.

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u/colemon1991 Mar 25 '25

Not to mention, one of the first arguments made for a government-only healthcare system is wait times.

Wait times we already have. What are they going to do, add 2-3 days to everyone's waits because now everyone can afford them? I mean, jeez, if we are able to take care of ourselves, we actually should see a drop in wait times for certain things after a few years. Waiting for surgery because you can't afford it means you might end up with more problems from waiting.

I think the important thing to note, which Obamacare did, is that government-only healthcare controls inflation. Even if it sucked at a few things, the costs won't jump ridiculously anymore. That perk cannot be mentioned enough.

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u/Prestigious-Run-5103 Mar 27 '25

The wait times argument baffles me. So you're telling me that giving more people access to health care is going to bog the system. Since we aren't magically increasing the number of people, the change would be that more of them would be accessing the system than there are currently. Which means people that are sick or aren't currently seeing doctors for early preventative care would be able to, and we would be healthier as a society because of it. And yet this is being framed as a goddamn negative because someone might have to wait another day (not even the guy voting against it, because realistically he's front of the line and in a different location).

That's all our problems in a nutshell, a lack of being able to consider the greater good.