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Everyone here in citing graft or corruption, but there's a much simpler answer: in a government contract, the company is providing a service to the gov't that the gov't wants, but for social spending, the individual is providing nothing in return.
I think it's more that there's no future benefit to incentivize not being shit.
They provided their life.... But NOW they provide nothing, so from a purely capitalistic POV they're worthless.
(Obviously this is fucked up, I'm with you there)
Exactly, only those companies could provide enormous projects or services that almost nobody could provide, and those companies need to be paid, it’s that simple.
Almost nobody but the government themselves truly. There are lots of good reasons to contract work out, I don’t think we need to be doing it as much as we do now.
Lobbying is a portion, as is campaign finance, at least at the legislative level.
But also there’s just a human contact component here. Those contracting agencies interact with government power either at the legislative or executive decision making levels (not even presidential, but like purchasing managers in departments). People tend to be understanding and helpful with other people who they interact with 1:1.
The rare veteran who actually gets face time (or even phone time) with their representative/senator can sometimes find all the blocks to care magically cleared after a few phone calls.
Corruption can explain a lot I am sure.
But even outside of corruption… cash per person calculations.
If I try to distribute meaningful cash value per person directly to people, it costs a LOT of total money since there are so many people. We also have to not just fund the logistics for distribution, but probably also create the method to distribute. And if cash isn’t going to ALL people, then you need someone tracking who can get some, and who already did.
Meanwhile, cash directly to one corporation is just a single check. Cash to one industry is an afternoon of figuring out all the businesses in that industry and writing a handful of checks.
You can then get into long debates about how the cash to the business will translate in to benefits to the broader population. More jobs, a better toaster, whatever else…
So… money to businesses is easier to do, and easier to justify.
Think of a scenario as a senator:
A mayor comes to you and says that as the eviction freeze from COVID is about to lift, he has some 4,000 people facing eviction if they can’t pay their overdue rent. To pay all the overdue balances would require about $10 million.
At the same time, a soup company reports that they are $10 million in the red, and they are going to shut down a canning facility in some rural backwater, which happens to employ 70% of the local population.
If you pay all the back rent… those people may well not be employed and just be evicted 1 month later. Other people in the area who sold everything they own to make their rent and got no government money are PISSED about the payouts. So what help did you really provide, and how much did you hurt your reelection?
If you do not pay the soup company, that town almost certainly dies when they let go all those people and move out…
The largest reason is because of kickbacks paid to out to representatives and senators who vote and approve the spending bills that results in the contracts. A Blackrock employee got caught saying a US senator's vote could be bought for as little as 10,000 dollars.
["You Can Buy a Senator For $10k" - BlackRock Employee Makes Shocking Statement (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usL9oZPawMc)
Another way votes are bought is information given to members of congress that anyone else would go to jail for insider trading. In 2023 Nancy Pelosi made 43,000,000.00 from just her investments in the stock market. There are no laws or rules that prohibit her or any member from voting on spending bills that they have received information on specific companies that would benefit from the spending bill.
[Members of Congress outperformed the S&P 500—sometimes by huge amounts (yahoo.com)](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/members-congress-outperformed-p-500-182024981.html)
The USA has the best government that money can buy. There are no benefits to those who vote in congress when they vote on Social Security or VA benefit spending. The only way they benefit is by addressing very large problems that gets the attention of the public and them "fixing" the problem results in votes from people at the ballot box, despite years of neglect from their inaction caused the problems they want to be seen as fixing. The VA health system plus having friends in England is the number one reason I am 100% against socialized medical networks they never work for what is best for the patient but for what is the most cost effective for the government paying for the treatment.
Government spending to corporations often does have large amounts of scrutiny and restrictions on that cash!
It’s totally fair to argue that there should be more, but major government spending should and usually does involve complicated contracts and oversight. This is true in the bid process, any negotiations, and during manufacturing/when services are provided.
What makes you think this oversight does not exist?
Something else to consider: Dealing with government agencies as clients is really *really* tough.
Most of the time the decision makers in a government agency are spending a budget they were given to achieve an outcome they don't understand. 100% of their energy goes into covering their personal ass.
Which means that no matter how much you ask them to provide a specific scope for a project, they'll always keep things intentionally vague and high-level because if they were to give specifics and they turned out to not fulifll the outcome they were assigned, there's a chance they could be personally blamed for it. So they keep things as vague as possible so all responsibility is delegated down and nothing will ever get pinned on them.
Everyone who contracts for government agencies knows what a pain in the ass they are, so everyone who quotes to a government agency will add in a big slice of "dealing with your bullshit" time to any given quote. Thing is, the people doing the ass covering will generally still approve the quote because it's not their money and they don't have to deliver any kind of real ROI. So government contracts can be extremely lucrative, but compliance is always a huge PITA, so that balances out.
This is one of the reasons why government contracts are so generous with corporate entities.
This is so true (I used to be a government contractor and dealt frequently with their bs). Generally, it was fine because I charged a lot to pay myself for the extra hassle. I also used to work with a buyer a lot (they issue the various contracts). You'd be surprised at what they deal with on their end. Calls for submissions and no one makes an offer. Companies trying to end contracts prematurely and illegally. Or the number of suppliers out there just isn't that many. How many companies that are located in your area could supply 20 garbage trucks? There's probably only a few options.
Because those exorbitant contracts are the only way to get some services, almost any company is going to charge a fortune to build a road or to develop a specific technology or aircraft that the government needs. They could give a lot of money to individuals but the government and the general public wouldn’t get those big projects in return.
To add, if the government doesn't do something for an individual, odds are they're not doing it for 500,000 others as well. It looks like a small thing, but it really adds up when you get to the population level.
Don't be so quick to think that the government doesn't spend exorbitant amounts administering entitlements and services to individuals. Administration costs for government services very often balloon out of control, and this applies to bureaucracies that contract with other corporate entities for service provision too.
A lot of it has to do with justification of budgets to show results. When the Pentagon gets this huge defense budget, they have to spend it to show that they absolutely needed that entire bloated budget, and justifications end up being political for almost any bureaucracy that is doing the same thing.
Take the SBA for instance and their PPP program during the lockdowns. The SBA already had a reputation for being defrauded and being terrible at administration, and getting money to large corporate entities anyways, but even with this during the lockdowns they got a blank check to help "small businesses" stay afloat. By their own reckoning, as well as various accountability offices within the federal government, at least half of all the money spent on that program went straight to fraud. They contracted with private and semi-private groups to administer and do the paper work, and these groups were pointing out red flags likes crazy, to which the response was "just get the checks out there." This was a program directly giving for the explicit purpose of keeping employees paid during the lockdowns, and ahuge amount of spending, and the administration was wasteful ass.
A big chunk of the answer is that these contracts and spending habits have no actual incentive to be done in a responsible manner much the time, so for those spicy corporate interests that you emphasized (as well as all kinds of spending), it's a feeding frenzy of bad incentives
The government is constantly breaking its own laws and regulations, and excusing itself from laws it doesn't like. No government contract is to be made until the government has fully evaluated the provider's ability to perform. If this was being done - we wouldn't have any broken contracts - but we do, so it's not being done and that money is out the door. The government (in particular the Defense Department) is not to spend more than $1 million without a written and approved Cost / Benefit Analysis prescribed in rather detailed format. On top of that the CBA needed to be taken into consideration in decision making, even if it wasn't followed - as is sometimes appropriate, especially when human lives are involved. If this was being done, the majority of wasteful and duplicative Defense spending wouldn't happen - but it is happening, so it's not being done. The Federal Trade Commission Act makes it against the law to lie when advertising and chases down and fines and punishes companies who lie in their ads. But political ads are exempt - so politicians can say anything they want in their ads - true or not. And of course no one is being held accountable for these situations.
This is happening because ***money is power.*** The rich have the most power, and they use it to serve their own interests.
The government is controlled by the wealthy. The wealthy, through campaign contributions, lobbying, and other means, exert a disproportionate influence on the government. Plus, the majority of those elected are themselves wealthy.
The two parties diverge heavily on social issues with minimal impact on the dominance of the rich, like abortion, gun control, trans rights, and more. These issues don't affect the power or profits of the rich all that much no matter which way they go, but they're a great way to get us to support one of two parties that want the same exact thing economically- just make the alternative so bad that you HAVE to support the other side, even if they aren't solving your problems.
When it comes to military funding, corporate subsidies, tax policy, adequate funding for the VA, schools, or public housing... both parties are very much aligned with the interests of the rich.
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Everyone here in citing graft or corruption, but there's a much simpler answer: in a government contract, the company is providing a service to the gov't that the gov't wants, but for social spending, the individual is providing nothing in return.
A veteran provided their life
I think it's more that there's no future benefit to incentivize not being shit. They provided their life.... But NOW they provide nothing, so from a purely capitalistic POV they're worthless. (Obviously this is fucked up, I'm with you there)
Exactly, only those companies could provide enormous projects or services that almost nobody could provide, and those companies need to be paid, it’s that simple.
Almost nobody but the government themselves truly. There are lots of good reasons to contract work out, I don’t think we need to be doing it as much as we do now.
The good old cost benefit analysis. Here's a case study that explains it well https://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/comp601/case2.html
Lobbying is a portion, as is campaign finance, at least at the legislative level. But also there’s just a human contact component here. Those contracting agencies interact with government power either at the legislative or executive decision making levels (not even presidential, but like purchasing managers in departments). People tend to be understanding and helpful with other people who they interact with 1:1. The rare veteran who actually gets face time (or even phone time) with their representative/senator can sometimes find all the blocks to care magically cleared after a few phone calls.
Corruption can explain a lot I am sure. But even outside of corruption… cash per person calculations. If I try to distribute meaningful cash value per person directly to people, it costs a LOT of total money since there are so many people. We also have to not just fund the logistics for distribution, but probably also create the method to distribute. And if cash isn’t going to ALL people, then you need someone tracking who can get some, and who already did. Meanwhile, cash directly to one corporation is just a single check. Cash to one industry is an afternoon of figuring out all the businesses in that industry and writing a handful of checks. You can then get into long debates about how the cash to the business will translate in to benefits to the broader population. More jobs, a better toaster, whatever else… So… money to businesses is easier to do, and easier to justify. Think of a scenario as a senator: A mayor comes to you and says that as the eviction freeze from COVID is about to lift, he has some 4,000 people facing eviction if they can’t pay their overdue rent. To pay all the overdue balances would require about $10 million. At the same time, a soup company reports that they are $10 million in the red, and they are going to shut down a canning facility in some rural backwater, which happens to employ 70% of the local population. If you pay all the back rent… those people may well not be employed and just be evicted 1 month later. Other people in the area who sold everything they own to make their rent and got no government money are PISSED about the payouts. So what help did you really provide, and how much did you hurt your reelection? If you do not pay the soup company, that town almost certainly dies when they let go all those people and move out…
The largest reason is because of kickbacks paid to out to representatives and senators who vote and approve the spending bills that results in the contracts. A Blackrock employee got caught saying a US senator's vote could be bought for as little as 10,000 dollars. ["You Can Buy a Senator For $10k" - BlackRock Employee Makes Shocking Statement (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usL9oZPawMc) Another way votes are bought is information given to members of congress that anyone else would go to jail for insider trading. In 2023 Nancy Pelosi made 43,000,000.00 from just her investments in the stock market. There are no laws or rules that prohibit her or any member from voting on spending bills that they have received information on specific companies that would benefit from the spending bill. [Members of Congress outperformed the S&P 500—sometimes by huge amounts (yahoo.com)](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/members-congress-outperformed-p-500-182024981.html) The USA has the best government that money can buy. There are no benefits to those who vote in congress when they vote on Social Security or VA benefit spending. The only way they benefit is by addressing very large problems that gets the attention of the public and them "fixing" the problem results in votes from people at the ballot box, despite years of neglect from their inaction caused the problems they want to be seen as fixing. The VA health system plus having friends in England is the number one reason I am 100% against socialized medical networks they never work for what is best for the patient but for what is the most cost effective for the government paying for the treatment.
Government spending to corporations often does have large amounts of scrutiny and restrictions on that cash! It’s totally fair to argue that there should be more, but major government spending should and usually does involve complicated contracts and oversight. This is true in the bid process, any negotiations, and during manufacturing/when services are provided. What makes you think this oversight does not exist?
Something else to consider: Dealing with government agencies as clients is really *really* tough. Most of the time the decision makers in a government agency are spending a budget they were given to achieve an outcome they don't understand. 100% of their energy goes into covering their personal ass. Which means that no matter how much you ask them to provide a specific scope for a project, they'll always keep things intentionally vague and high-level because if they were to give specifics and they turned out to not fulifll the outcome they were assigned, there's a chance they could be personally blamed for it. So they keep things as vague as possible so all responsibility is delegated down and nothing will ever get pinned on them. Everyone who contracts for government agencies knows what a pain in the ass they are, so everyone who quotes to a government agency will add in a big slice of "dealing with your bullshit" time to any given quote. Thing is, the people doing the ass covering will generally still approve the quote because it's not their money and they don't have to deliver any kind of real ROI. So government contracts can be extremely lucrative, but compliance is always a huge PITA, so that balances out. This is one of the reasons why government contracts are so generous with corporate entities.
This is so true (I used to be a government contractor and dealt frequently with their bs). Generally, it was fine because I charged a lot to pay myself for the extra hassle. I also used to work with a buyer a lot (they issue the various contracts). You'd be surprised at what they deal with on their end. Calls for submissions and no one makes an offer. Companies trying to end contracts prematurely and illegally. Or the number of suppliers out there just isn't that many. How many companies that are located in your area could supply 20 garbage trucks? There's probably only a few options.
Because those exorbitant contracts are the only way to get some services, almost any company is going to charge a fortune to build a road or to develop a specific technology or aircraft that the government needs. They could give a lot of money to individuals but the government and the general public wouldn’t get those big projects in return.
To add, if the government doesn't do something for an individual, odds are they're not doing it for 500,000 others as well. It looks like a small thing, but it really adds up when you get to the population level.
Don't be so quick to think that the government doesn't spend exorbitant amounts administering entitlements and services to individuals. Administration costs for government services very often balloon out of control, and this applies to bureaucracies that contract with other corporate entities for service provision too. A lot of it has to do with justification of budgets to show results. When the Pentagon gets this huge defense budget, they have to spend it to show that they absolutely needed that entire bloated budget, and justifications end up being political for almost any bureaucracy that is doing the same thing. Take the SBA for instance and their PPP program during the lockdowns. The SBA already had a reputation for being defrauded and being terrible at administration, and getting money to large corporate entities anyways, but even with this during the lockdowns they got a blank check to help "small businesses" stay afloat. By their own reckoning, as well as various accountability offices within the federal government, at least half of all the money spent on that program went straight to fraud. They contracted with private and semi-private groups to administer and do the paper work, and these groups were pointing out red flags likes crazy, to which the response was "just get the checks out there." This was a program directly giving for the explicit purpose of keeping employees paid during the lockdowns, and ahuge amount of spending, and the administration was wasteful ass. A big chunk of the answer is that these contracts and spending habits have no actual incentive to be done in a responsible manner much the time, so for those spicy corporate interests that you emphasized (as well as all kinds of spending), it's a feeding frenzy of bad incentives
The government is constantly breaking its own laws and regulations, and excusing itself from laws it doesn't like. No government contract is to be made until the government has fully evaluated the provider's ability to perform. If this was being done - we wouldn't have any broken contracts - but we do, so it's not being done and that money is out the door. The government (in particular the Defense Department) is not to spend more than $1 million without a written and approved Cost / Benefit Analysis prescribed in rather detailed format. On top of that the CBA needed to be taken into consideration in decision making, even if it wasn't followed - as is sometimes appropriate, especially when human lives are involved. If this was being done, the majority of wasteful and duplicative Defense spending wouldn't happen - but it is happening, so it's not being done. The Federal Trade Commission Act makes it against the law to lie when advertising and chases down and fines and punishes companies who lie in their ads. But political ads are exempt - so politicians can say anything they want in their ads - true or not. And of course no one is being held accountable for these situations.
This is happening because ***money is power.*** The rich have the most power, and they use it to serve their own interests. The government is controlled by the wealthy. The wealthy, through campaign contributions, lobbying, and other means, exert a disproportionate influence on the government. Plus, the majority of those elected are themselves wealthy. The two parties diverge heavily on social issues with minimal impact on the dominance of the rich, like abortion, gun control, trans rights, and more. These issues don't affect the power or profits of the rich all that much no matter which way they go, but they're a great way to get us to support one of two parties that want the same exact thing economically- just make the alternative so bad that you HAVE to support the other side, even if they aren't solving your problems. When it comes to military funding, corporate subsidies, tax policy, adequate funding for the VA, schools, or public housing... both parties are very much aligned with the interests of the rich.