Would you spend a buck to save a quarter? Or get a nickel back?
If you are the government, pick a branch of it … no quarter. Just a twig. Even back in the day, not enough to go hear Dimebag, or thus indulge. But if you save up for the length it takes to produce several albums, you might be able to cop a Colt. But not go whole hog and get the whole horse. Dog and Pony show. After all, in a little known fact buried by politics, that pesky Farm Bill used to cost us more than all those welfare moms combined. Today’s ratio? Stay tuned …
If the government truly wants to go after cutting wasteful spending, they could start with the fear of fraud with programs that benefit low-income and other disadvantaged people. These perceived potential dodgings and minor fluctuations in earnings, and in particular the money that is thrown at enforcing such alleged rule-breaking, should be Musk intent. Go after what really matters to peoples’ lives, such as those on the margin, and makes a difference, not political scapegoats and its created enemies. Since after all, your priorities are forged by who you help first. The last shall not be first, even eventually. Trickle down in its various political-football forms may have salvaged a drop, but not much more.
So here is a breakdown, given as one example of many we should truly fix. Might save enough to actually build a wall. All the way to Phoenix? More likely, DOGE = DOG. A demonic heavy metal band did much the same when flipping upper-case digits.
The people on the benefit programs are many, and adjustments made even after a lot of scrutiny for cutting are often barely in double-digit dollars. All this keeping of a labor force — hope manufacturing jobs come back as forecast, but you don’t have to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows — in the name of actually saving the government money and reducing the budget and deficit and national debt.
When you are on a program such as Social Security Disability, lots of work hours — not to mention the reams of paper mailings this needs to generate — are spent tracking the scant income that such people manage. The rate of their benefit may then be adjusted slightly.
— Wages that are reported by beneficiaries of several programs will be cross-checked by computer against the wages employers report to the Department of Workforce Development to make sure they’ve not been crossed. Also asked may be the IRS, SSA, Unemployment Insurance Division and DOT. All that legwork to pay low-income people a handful of less bucks. —
However, I find it hard to believe that the few bucks that are saved justify the expense in labor and equipment and offices devoted to evaluate any changes in income. People in the programs and getting their benefits are not allowed to make more than $200 in employment income in a particular month without being penalized with a benefit reduction. Self-reporting is required following even certain minor changes, adding to paperwork, as their workers rank and sometimes adjust gross income, counted income and counted income limits, all the way down to the cent.
Say your ship comes in and you take in $210. After all is done being scrutinized, paperwork sent to recipients and then filled out and any kind of further review done, and more forms needing completion, the government, for its trouble, may end up getting back a few bucks off the overall benefit rate paid for a month or a few. (I’m no economist, but this overall amount of money saved by the taxpayer is probably less than for a quarter-pounder, (we’re not in the UK), and more like a few (French) fries or francs or a frankfurter.) Does anyone involved with this get franking privileges for postage? Even if they catch a few cheaters, they’d better get the most out of them possible with the fine of up to a quarter-million-dollars, but I doubt there is usually the full price and it might be tough to collect from poor people. Not everyone looked into is like Brett Favre.
If the feds are coming out in any way on their investment of labor, that must be a pretty damn low hourly rate. Minimum suddenly doesn’t look so bad. Wouldn’t it be easier and even cheaper to just let the poor guy keep his extra ten bucks and not have the government be able to recoup that, and not much more? And by the way, if one of the four or five main forms of benefits (described additionally below and largely tied to each other) goes up for a client, most of it is taken away from another category they receive. So the federal coffers end up getting a shitted nickel, after all the shit various people go through to get to that end.
On my end of things, there are three agencies for income reporting that can have overlapping duties, although they do take care of tasks in other areas. Some additional consolidation would seem in order.
There exists the main federal Social Security Administration, a regional consortium that is (usually) your first point-of-contact for reporting, and the economic support department at the county human services level, to which you might get steered anyway.
— Now I do realize that there needs to be the threat of what is essentially a small-scale audit to keep people from taking unfair advantage. You could apply the same assessment scenario to the IRS or interstate weigh stations for trucks. But maybe make the worker time spent a quick whip-through of the information and less frequently done. —
The average time even spent on the phone with a representative taking what should be just basic information, even in an annual review required even if the agency finds there is no change in income, can take close to a half-hour.
It seems any time you call in to report something like that proverbial $210 or more, you also get sent a full self employment document of about three pages to write up. A complete breakdown of expenses and receipts is required. The rub: When received by the government, all this takes time to review and assess, and all the people regularly doing the reviewing need to be paid.
The main way the benefit-rate-change scenario plays out is with EBT food stamps, or with rent rates. Sometimes too Medicaid, which in some categories is used by around half of individuals, (and if you are in Wisconsin, BadgerCarePlus for medical), and I cannot vouch for daycare, but I can guess. After all that evaluation, they often only change the outlay a few dollars, often amounting to less than 10 percent of the total. I know someone who had all this mailing done back and forth for a change in food stamps, that total being in the $150-range, of about eight dollars.
Wages that are reported will be checked by computer against the wages your employer reports to the Department of Workforce Development. Also asked may be the IRS, SSA, Unemployment Insurance Division and DOT.
Now I do realize that there needs to be the threat of what is essentially a small-scale audit to keep people from taking unfair advantage. You could apply the same assessment scenario to the IRS or interstate weigh stations for trucks. But maybe make the processing worker time spent more of a quick whip-through of the information and less frequently done, say if that $210-income a month referenced above hits three straight times, just require a quarterly beneficiary call-in. This way the feds save too.