> The us govt wastes by some estimates 30% of its budget. Trillions annually. Have to start with the waste and fraud. Empty daycares are not a good use of hard-earned tax dollars and have a massively pernicious effect on the society. They're not taking care of kids or paying teachers. Just pure inflationary greed.

Much can be said about the problem of government waste, and it certainly is a problem, but there's an underlying assumption in this kind of talk, which I'd like to attack. That assumption is: "people are poor because the government taxes them too much, and wastes their money". Republicans in the US run and win on this platform again and again.

The problem is that it's simply not true. Government wealth has been falling for decades[0] -- nations are increasingly rich, but governments are increasingly poor. I don't even need to include a source that shows effective tax rates have been falling for the same period (no surprise -- that's _why_ governments are so relatively poor). As nations have continued to get richer, most of that wealth has been concentrated in the hands of an increasingly small group of private individuals.

Governments are not sequestering your wealth -- rich people are.

[0]: https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-3/

Waste happens any time people are spending other people's money (and it happens in corporate land all the time too).

Any time people bring up concerns about fraud and waste in social problems only, I dismiss them out of hand as using that fear to justify their selfishness.

If one isn't calling out waste and abuse in their favorite programs too, then their concern is insincere and should be treated as such. Pro tip: audit the DOD.