> If you fix them all they add up to not peanuts and then you don't have any money left
The initial criticism is worthwhile in its original context (0.02% of the agency's budget). By scaling it up, you took it out of that context so that it runs up against worries about the total budget, implying a shortfall even though the argument is about the same 0.02%. The obvious answer to your comment is "well then it's easy to cut a little from $ELSEWHERE", which will inevitably devolve into overt zero-sum partisan bickering.
No, I was just looking a step ahead. The only thing your original comment added was an appeal to destructive penny pinching that often accompanies popular fiscal conservatism.
For context I'm personally against wasting money. But kneecapping an organization by tightening its purse strings such that it can't fulfill its function is itself a larger waste of money.
> Or why you're moving the goalposts to "reduce their budget".
Nobody mentioned this but you! It's entirely something you brought up and you're the only person with any opinion on it! I haven't expressed a single opinion on reducing their budget or what their budget should be! I haven't moved the goalposts to it because I didn't say anything about it!
> arguing about deep cuts ends up inherently partisan
You're the only one arguing about deep cuts, or any cuts at all! I haven't given any opinions on any cuts! I've said absolutely nothing about it! There's no competing opinions on this with which to argue!
You're not arguing with me you're arguing with someone completely imagined in your head! If you think I've got some opinion try to see where I actually said that before replying again.
You keep saying that I am imagining what I believe you said. From my perspective, this is gaslighting.
I will paraphrase what I think you said (and the straightforward context/implication). Please tell me where my understanding goes awry.
> But there are probably thousands of things that cost only peanuts and aren't a priority.
There are many other items that similarly need fixing (across all federal agencies). Each may not cost a lot individually.
> If you fix them all they add up to not peanuts
But if they were all fixed (applying a universal standard), the total cost would end up being a lot (spending a lot is bad, regardless of how much has been fixed)
> *and then you don't have any money left and you didn't even fix any priority tasks!
The total budget should not be increased, so a policy of fixing small things would take away significant spending from other things that are more important.
What’s happened here is you’ve seen an argument for ‘no budget currently available for’ which is just factual, and then you’ve assumed a lot more.
The bits you imagined out of nowhere is the opinion ‘and should not be increased’, and then you’ve even further imagined an argument for ‘cut’. I never argued those things. Go back and try to find where I argued for either of those.
Can you link to them?
I don’t think you’ll be able to. You’ll find you mentioned it first in both cases and even then I haven't given any opinion on them!
Why do you think everyone is flagging and downvoting you?
Perhaps where we actually start to diverge is that I view stories like this as appeals for increased funding from Congress. If NWS were going to rearrange the budget internally, they would have already done so. Did you not mean your comment in the wider context of managing the entire federal budget?
You haven't directly argued for cuts, but I still maintain that reflects the gist of your comment. "You don't have any money left" is an assertion of limiting the budget. The immediate implication is that increasing funding to something means having to cut something else. The cliched response pertaining to such tradeoffs in the federal budget is "well then, buy one less F-35".
The directly opposing argument is that would be worthwhile to increase the federal budget and taxes by 0.2% to fix similar problems across the board. I'm certainly not making that argument to increase taxes though - but we should be able to hold a critique of the government's foolish penny wise pound behavior in our heads without collapsing it to one of the two.
My comments were downvoted because HN abhors sarcasm, the exchange has generated much more heat than light, and that got attributed to me because I went meta. Next time I'll just copypasta the comment about the F-35.
