OP,

I think your statement is what everyone is thinking. Not only is this Fraud/Waste a huge cost to tax payers but even more so it was/is a huge opportunity cost on the investment dollars you did have invested.

Look at the SS payments! Could SS actually work? I am against our govt. operating SS at all, but looking at this amount of fraud in the program, could it actually be a retirement/savings option?

DOGE is and will be the greatest advancement in the history of the USA since George Washington.

Jeeper79 said:

---

Funky Winkerbean said:

---

Do you not understand that "5X" is just an arbitrary figure for the sake of this discussion? If you want to be taken seriously you need to expand your understanding and stop trying to argue the accuracy of "5X".

---

A serious discussion should start with a serious premise.

Listen to yourself. I try to bring the conversation back to the realm of reality and yet I'm the one accused of not being serious.

---

We spent trillions under Biden on infrastructure and GND. We have nothing to show from any of that.

Where did that money go? We spent billions on broadband access by itself and not one home has been connected from it.

And you think it's only .5x? You are the one not factoring reality here. .5x is frankly an embarrassing take.

Of course it's higher than that. I don't know what the number is but recent history alone tells you it's out of control.

It was shown up to 50% of Covid handout money was fraud and diverted. Another example.

FriscoKid said:

---

Isn't it like 10-20% of Red Cross donations actually make it to the victims? The other 80-90% is spent by the Red Cross.

---

This happens to a lot of big organizations - government included. A big part of it is administrative expense, but another huge part is fund raising expense. Apparently fund raising at scale isn't nearly as efficient so it takes more to make more. I'm not sure that's inherent or just the way big non profits operate.

rocky the dog said:

---

Quote:

---

they have uncovered the very small tip of the largest iceberg in world history. you ain't seen nothing yet.

---

Strange that you'd mention it...

---

Good illustration, but the iceberg needs to be monumentally bigger

Jeeper79 said:

---

We assuredly overpaid but it wasn't 5x.

Of course there's wide interpretation to the definition of "overpaid", but I'd still be flabbergasted if we overpaid by more than .5x (which is still way too much).

---

Didn't chelsea clinton buy happy meals for the bangladeshians at $1800 each?

I believe that's a factor of about 180X too much.

Mr. Fingerbottom said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

We assuredly overpaid but it wasn't 5x.

---

Lol

5x is the floor in this conversation.... it was probably much greater



Your cornpop vote makes more sense everyday

---

sadly this is the truth. The media would see this and find the contract that the government only paid 1.2x higher and screech.

What they won't mention is that the contract was for 3 billion so we only overpaid by 500 million.

Biggest hole is going to be education where colleges have milked that gravy train to trillions of dollars.

Not only have we over payed, many of the programs have done more harm than good.

I estimate about 20% to 40% of government spending is complete waste.

If we can get rid of 20% of government spending, we have a balanced budget, and can even afford tax cuts.

If we can get rid of 40% of government spending, our kids are going to have the best economy in the history of the USA.

Scoopen Skwert said:

---

ShaggySLC said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

HarleySpoon said:

---

I've always assumed we overpaid by 10% due to the natural inefficiencies and corruption of big government. If we overpaid by 20%…. then I'm livid and heads need to roll.

---

20% unfortunately wouldn't surprise me, and it should make everyone mad.

---

How 90% of the country isn't foaming at that mouth right now is disappointing.

---

Because over 45% don't pay taxes and live off the rest of us!

---

Agree with that but even those people that are actual citizens are getting screwed too. They would have more opportunities if all that money wasn't being funneled to politicians and their families.

Don't be surprised if 5x is low, the state of Texas has paid about that for capital improvements that trigger involvement from Austin that I am personally familiar with.

General Jack D. Ripper said:

---

From the looks of it this actually may have happened.

My qurstion is how long can the legacy media keep suppressing the news on this?

---

As long as the legacy media thinks they can continue to prevent the truth from coming out that would prove Trump is right about the fraud, waste and abuse of American Taxpayer dollars!

The level of TDS is as high as it's ever been......

5x is easily the floor... You also have to consider all the lawsuits after contracts and work is awarded (as a simple example.) This happens across the board and the gov has to address the constant attacks for money. The RFP process is a joke. The defense contractors do the same crap. Look at the process to look at alternatives to the service rifle.

A good example is the lawsuits filed against the VA for their basic IT contracts over years.

https://www.nextgov.com/acquisition/2024/04/t4ng2-protests-grow-14-more-possible/395697/

Agree. This is the dreaded double whammy , we paid for quite a few things that were not only not positive but were designed to be destructive for most Americans . This is why the discussion of federal spending year over year is not a discussion based on a level playing field because it only tells part of the story .

Jeeper79 said:

---

Funky Winkerbean said:

---

Do you not understand that "5X" is just an arbitrary figure for the sake of this discussion? If you want to be taken seriously you need to expand your understanding and stop trying to argue the accuracy of "5X".

---

A serious discussion should start with a serious premise.

Listen to yourself. I try to bring the conversation back to the realm of reality and yet I'm the one accused of not being serious.

---

And you know 5x is not serious how? Wishful thinking?

You're not simply saying he didn't prove 5x was accurate; you're saying it definitely isn't. So now the ball is in your court to prove that.

Please do so.

The federal government is a giant udder with a million teats to be milked, and people/organizations/politicians have mastered the art of milking the cow.

It's much worse than 5X when you consider just how much that is actually spent (and not just flat out stolen) accomplishes nothing but providing fake jobs. The people who have spent time working with the government all know it. And most use that knowledge to their advantage. It has just become accepted. This is the first time I've ever seen anybody even try to do more about it than just lip service.

You always hear what the individual citizen would owe of the debt. Now upon learning the bulk of it is overpaid and fraudulent, why not demand the reverse? A pay back to each ordinary citizen of something like 100 K each or such to erase the bad effects of inflation with that windfall and approximate the waste sent for foreign countries and even enemies and invaders? (Maybe the figure is too low but you get the idea)

Need to fine the MSM too, for covering all this up for the politicians.

Ellis Wyatt said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

We assuredly overpaid but it wasn't 5x.

---

How do you know? There have been jokes about $1,000 toilet seats and $100 aspirins for 30 years.

---

Anyone have an emergency room visit lately and got an itemized bill? 5x is not unbelievable at all.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

---

Ellis Wyatt said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

We assuredly overpaid but it wasn't 5x.

---

How do you know? There have been jokes about $1,000 toilet seats and $100 aspirins for 30 years.

---

Anyone have an emergency room visit lately and got an itemized bill? 5x is not unbelievable at all.

---

I have requested itemized bills before and they couldn't/wouldn't do it. Well, no itemized bill, no payment.

Quote:

---

Can you imagine the bitterness to know we worked our butts off the last 20 years for a lie instead of actually moving the ball forward with our families and our financial goals?

---

I don't have to imagine. I know this by working the first 3.5 months of the year just to pay taxes to the corrupt, wasteful gov't. I'm reminded every single tax day.

Jeeper79 said:

---

Funky Winkerbean said:

---

Do you not understand that "5X" is just an arbitrary figure for the sake of this discussion? If you want to be taken seriously you need to expand your understanding and stop trying to argue the accuracy of "5X".

---

A serious discussion should start with a serious premise.

Listen to yourself. I try to bring the conversation back to the realm of reality and yet I'm the one accused of not being serious.

---

When they began manipulating the money, golds was about $20 per ounce; today gold is almost $3,000 per ounce. That's 150x over 110 years.

If you don't bring in the element of time, this whole conversation is worthless. 150x in 110 years is roughly 5% annual monetary deflation. Is that believable?

5% annually is 2x every 15 years. I am 60 years old and first earned money when I was about 15; my period of clear economic awareness is about 45 years or three oh these 2x cycles.

2x2x2 = 8
My personal money destruction factor is 8x.

Magneto said:

---

What if we have been truly overpaying for everything the last 20 years by a factor of like 5x for no reason other than to give kickbacks to everyone but the common American?

Healthcare
Education
Food
Gas
Etc

I don't even want to think about the opportunity cost of something like this?

What if we somehow someway were able to drive the USA into reality? Can you imagine the bitterness to know we worked our butts off the last 20 years for a lie instead of actually moving the ball forward with our families and our financial goals?

---

Problem is that 2.7 of 3 branches of government are involved. Its like the wolves seized the hen house and are watching the .3 go in and try to clean it up. Hope they have lots of insurance and body guards.

For those here who spent any amount of time in the military, you know about Government waste. Government contracts for things like porta potties, munitions, vehicles, etc are ridiculous.

I think we all had the experience of being at the range for rifle qualification and everyone being done with only 20% of the allotted rounds used but then being told we have to fire off the remaining 80% to ensure that they get the same allotment of ammo from Uncle Sam in the budget next year. There is a mentality of "use it or lose it" because what was not used the year prior, they adjust for the next budget cycle. In other words, in a way, the government incentivizes waste because these entities don't want to lessen the amount of resources they are afforded, even if they don't need them. It's not hard to extrapolate from my Army experience how different states, federal agencies, Universities that receive federal money, and government programs abuse this system even worse.

Jeeper79 said:

---

Funky Winkerbean said:

---

Do you not understand that "5X" is just an arbitrary figure for the sake of this discussion? If you want to be taken seriously you need to expand your understanding and stop trying to argue the accuracy of "5X".

---

A serious discussion should start with a serious premise.

Listen to yourself. I try to bring the conversation back to the realm of reality and yet I'm the one accused of not being serious.

---

But it is a serious premise. Your question of accuracy isn't even a relevant question. If you were really interested in a conversation, you would have asked "5x compared to what?"

If the 5x is in reference to taxes being too high, I'd say 5x is FAR too low. If it's referring to general cost of living it starts to get more hazy. In this case we would have to account for a huge range of issues.

I think the intent of the OP is a more general version of "wealth the government takes from us to fund itself." For this, we wave to look at it from two different angles. The first is direct taxation. If you are in the middle class, the govt is taking nearly 50% of your income through all the various tax schemes. In many cases it's more than 50%. The second, is loss of purchasing power under govt stewardship of our currency. By my quick calculations, the USD has lost about 84% of its PP in just the last 20 years. Add these up and it's a huge amount of wealth being taken from you.

If you ignore loss of PP (inflation) even the taxes taken is a lot. Say you somehow managed to only pay $10k per year in taxes. That's $200k they have taken from you. I'll be extremely generous and estimate that only 50% is complete waste, fraud, corruption, etc. That factor alone would have put an extra $100k in your pocket and even that is a very generous number. When you factor in loss of PP the true number is MUCH higher than that.

IMO, we're not mad enough about this and I don't see how anyone could actually defend what's been going on for decades.

in 2009 I was charged over $2000 to remove five staples by some sort of med tech.

5X is believable.

Aggie118 said:

---

I think we all had the experience of being at the range for rifle qualification and everyone being done with only 20% of the allotted rounds used but then being told we have to fire off the remaining 80% to ensure that they get the same allotment of ammo from Uncle Sam in the budget next year. There is a mentality of "use it or lose it" because what was not used the year prior, they adjust for the next budget cycle.In other words, in a way, the government incentivizes waste because these entities don't want to lessen the amount of resources they are afforded, even if they don't need them. It's not hard to extrapolate from my Army experience how different states, federal agencies, Universities that receive federal money, and government programs abuse this system even worse.

---

And the bold is just one example. I think it gets far worse when you look at procurement. I was at a family reunion on my wife's side and a young couple both worked in DC for the fed gov. They were joking about $900 staplers and other sorts of ridiculous prices they paid for things. It was the same excuse as "use it or lose it" but even the prices they paid were outrageous. I had to avoid them because I would've gotten mad.

General Jack D. Ripper said:

---

From the looks of it this actually may have happened.

My qurstion is how long can the legacy media keep suppressing the news on this?

---

Because they are financed by it and therefore part of the problem. I remember the jokes about Pravda back in the day, turns out the joke was on us.

Magneto said:

---

What if we have been truly overpaying for everything the last 20 years by a factor of like 5x for no reason other than to give kickbacks to everyone but the common American?

Healthcare
Education
Food
Gas
Etc

I don't even want to think about the opportunity cost of something like this?

What if we somehow someway were able to drive the USA into reality? Can you imagine the bitterness to know we worked our butts off the last 20 years for a lie instead of actually moving the ball forward with our families and our financial goals?

---

The founders would think we didn't deserve this republic for not spilling blood over something like this.

Jeeper79 said:

---

We assuredly overpaid but it wasn't 5x.

Of course there's wide interpretation to the definition of "overpaid", but I'd still be flabbergasted if we overpaid by more than .5x (which is still way too much).

---

Somedays I feel like you are sloooowly being redpilled, and pulled away from the limp wristed white liberal male feminist camp. But other days you show that you are still a loyal komrade...you can't help but goaltend for them, no matter what.

You have zero clue as to how bad anything is...but TRILLIONS are unaccounted for...and your gut reflex or instinct is to goaltend for these corrupt cretins.

Madman said:

---

in 2009 I was charged over $2000 to remove five staples by some sort of med tech.

5X is believable.

---

I just got a bill from the hospital for an MRI for my daughter back in January. Hospital billed the insurance $100,000. Insurance adjusted it down $97,000, and paid $1,300. Hospital is billing us $1,700.