[PuppyTailWags]

Veteran's Affairs, the postal service, social security benefit enrollment and payment processing, the irs, and public education is generally more efficient than commercial offerings at multiple points in their historical existence. Many of them are currently hampered by underfunding though, so I don't know how efficient they are now (being unable to invest enough to maintain themselves would force them to make long-term inefficient tradeoffs).

[nine_k]

This is a good list. But doesn't "underfunded" mean "the society refuses to pay the whole price of the service"? That is, it's sort of more expensive, but is kept both starving and alive by fiat?

Regarding public transportation, for instance: New York's MTA receives about half of its financing as a subsidy. London Tube is a statutory corporation, and can cover only 90% of its expenses from fares. Tokyo Metro is a private entity that shows a healthy profit, and Moscow metro also used to be profitable for a long time. Both Moscow and Tokyo underground infrastructure and service at least are not inferior to NYC's and London's (from my personal experience with 3 of the 4 of them).

[mrguyorama]

No, underfunded means republicans (and occasionally democrats) have hampered these groups for decades, under the guise that "government can't do anything", and then point to the kneecapped government actions as reason to believe the government can't do anything.

If you disallow the government to pay its bills, or effectively haggle, or build the kind of teams it needs, of course it will do a bad job. Meanwhile lots of countries have shown you can have in house teams in the government who make great things.

People will say "the government can't do anything" while cashing their social security check, after driving on the federal highway, drinking their usually clean water, and yelling at their kid's teachers for stupid reasons. We have had 60 years of starve the beast, this was all intentional.

[Firadeoclus]

There is no reason public transport should aim to be financed entirely by fares, or to make a profit from fares. It benefits people who rarely or never use it.

[verall]

It is not always comparable between cultures. If the Tokyo Metro was found to be blatantly profiteering, the president of the company would probably resign due to the cultural shame. In the US, it would be, "welp, that's the governments fault..."

[PuppyTailWags]

I didn't include public transportation in the list so idk.

[jimmaswell]

Aren't VA hospitals hopelessly corrupt with such a low standard of care that any veteran avoids them like the plague if they're able?

[tnel77]

Corrupt? I haven’t heard about widespread corruption at VA hospitals. Do you have a source for this claim?

[PuppyTailWags]

Please read my entire post.

[Firmwarrior]

VA hospitals were like that 50 years ago too though

[PuppyTailWags]

Please read my entire post. I never cited a specific time of efficiency. I only said that there exists a point in time that a service was more efficient than equivalent, private sector services. If you want to disagree you will have to prove that in the entirety of the VA's existence it has never been more efficient in any of its services (they cover housing too) than private sector.

[Firmwarrior]

Yeah, fair enough.. I don't want to get into a big flame war here, but you should look up the concept of the "motte and bailey" fallacy or "moving the goalpost"

You pop into a conversation about private industry vs government and insist that government organizations have often been much better historically, but they're underfunded now so they're all suffering. Then someone points out that one of your examples is grossly terrible and has always been terrible, and you retreat back to a nearly-meaningless interpretation of your argument: "Oh, I wasn't saying we should actually have the government run things, I just wanted to say that possibly there have been good government bureaus at some point in the past! If you very carefully cherry-pick just the right instant in time and space!"

To that, all I can say is ".. OK"

I don't think you set out to be a troll or anything, and the post office is a pretty good example of exactly what you're trying to say. But you're getting really combative and watering down your core argument that "The Government CAN get things done and has in the past" by attacking people in defense of the nearly-universally-hated VA

[PuppyTailWags]

I haven't motte and bailey'd anything. I made one statement that at some point these organizations offered efficient services, and cannot verify if that is still the case. I was very clear about this. I haven't moved any goalposts. Yes, this is a largely vague statement because I am not researched enough to say "in X time the USPS, in Y time the VA, in Q time the IRS...".

I think you're actually trying to hold me to a more precise standard than I ever set out to say. It's like strawmanning my argument. I don't know where my being called combative is coming from; I'm merely pointing out that I never said the things that are being argued against.