Americans: Uncle Sam Wastes 50 Cents on the Dollar.
Americans: Uncle Sam Wastes 50 Cents on the Dollar
Figures are 42 cents for state governments; 37 cents for local
(the poll) http://www.gallup.com/poll /122951/Americans-Uncle-Sa m-Wastes-50-Cents-Dollar.aspx#1
Okay, look at the numbers on the second page of this poll. This is a horribly laid out poll and the analysis from this girl is SO way off. First she arbitrarily separates the divide at ‘below 50cents of waste and ‘above 50 cents of waste’ as if 50% waste is somehow acceptable. So, now going back to the actual poll results you see that the MIDDLE choice for those being polled is ’.26 cents to .50cents’. Do you realize that .26 cents wasted out of 1 dollar is 26% waste! That’s more than ¼! … 26% of 1 million is $260,000! This is somehow acceptable? I think not. If you were 1/4th wasteful at work you’d be fired. If your employer messed up your paycheck 1 out of 4 times (essentially once a month) would you still be working there?
So IF (and that’s a big if) we could say that 25% of government waste was acceptable then the analysis changes wildly. So, now let your friendly neighborhood analyst redo this….
Okay, for the 2009 poll you have 35%+19%+16 = 70%. That means 70% of people polled think that the government wastes .26 cents or more of EVERY DOLLAR! Or another way to think of this, you give the government a dollar and they spend .20 cents and the burn the other .80 cents
For 2001 the percentage is: 63%
1986: 51%
1984: 66%
1979: 60%
So from MY analysis of the numbers provided you can see a different story emerge and that story is this: on some fundamental level the American people KNOW that the government can not do ANYTHING without wasting large amounts of money. Now, I can tell you exactly why this works out, it’s called deadweight loss and it explains in economic terms how money is quite literally sucked out of the system when you tax it and give it to the government.
Now the original analysis differentiates from Federal, State and Local levels of waste but if you simply add in the middle answer (.25 to .50) then you see that there really is NO difference in what people think about the waste in their various governments.
Note, this is a Gallup Poll analyzed by Gallup themselves, from their analysis what does that tell you about just accepting someone else’s analysis? Right, you need to think for your damn self.
~SK
