[johnsmith1840]

I guess I'm ignorant but why do we continue overspending worldwide?

Like do these groups all have heavy metrics about how budget is growing so we actually know anything is in balance here?

I guess I've never seen proper studies around:

"We project tax revenue will grow X amount with this level of confidence therefore we know we can consistently be within Y range of debt growth forever safely"

Or are we all just hoping we all die before someone has to comes in and cuts services spending in half?

[jezzamon]

I think you're already getting at the "why", which for many situations you can view it as a leveraged investment. This site shows education as the biggest expenditure, and there's some argument about that resulting in an overall return on investment. If that is really the case then there's a large opportunity cost in not overspending.

The analysis is not always done sufficiently (or without bias) but that's the idea.

[johnsmith1840]

Sure but that's kinda my point. If they did this analsysis why isn't it blasted everywhere?

I've never seen a politician mention this kind of (we spend x for y returns) discussion or a doc on it holistically.

It's obvious to most people to invest money can give you more in return but that's not really discussed except peicemeal for one program at a time.

[jezzamon]

It's not blasted everywhere because economics doesn't really resonate with people, I think. It comes up during government budgeting sometimes

[xienze]

> I guess I'm ignorant but why do we continue overspending worldwide?

Social programs are popular with voters (well, the ones who benefit from them without paying sticker price), no one ever wants to take a step backwards in lifestyle (especially government employees), and there’s an unwavering belief that any amount of spending is “fine”, all we need are those damned rich people to pay their fair share.

[saagarjha]

Lots of Californians do not benefit from social programs but support them anyway.

[xienze]

Do they have a choice?

[saagarjha]

Yeah, they can vote against it. Most don't

[gweinberg]

Yes! They can choose to leave California!