[Very OT] I need budget infos from Americans • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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[Very OT] I need budget infos from Americans
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Alexander
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:36 am

Besides gaming, my other big interest is politics and at the moment in Italy there is a big (and growing) thunderstorm about the so called 'cost of politics' and 'the Caste' (the mix of politicians, bureaucrats and assorted fat cats living handsomely with taxpayers money

). One of the best example of this is the most recent budget request for the functioning of the two Houses of Parliament, Presidency, Supreme Court, CNEL (some kind of job related bureaucracy) and CSM (Judges Self Governing Council): almost TWO BILLIONS OF EUROS

. This is THE LAST STRAW. I'd like to know (at least, I'd like some pointers about where to look) the combined cost of the US Congress, Supreme Court and Presidency as stated in the United States budget. This will be fine ammo for our effort to fight this most despicable breed which is literally playing with fire... Thanks in advance.

Deadlord
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:51 am

Huh?

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dsaunders
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:19 am

http://www.answers.com/topic/united-sta ... udget-2007

-dave

deimos3428
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:37 am

dsaunders wrote:http://www.answers.com/topic/united-sta ... udget-2007

It's worth noting that in the USA (and Canada), a "billion" is 1,000,000,000 (1E+09), whereas in the UK it's 1,000,000,000,000 (1E+12).

I'm not sure which system Italy uses, but when the Americans talk about "trillions", that might equal "billions" in Italy.

Deadlord
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:29 am

I think the US Government typically uses gazillions as a denominator.
2 billion euros seems not much from a government standpoint, but I'm not fluent is Italian governmental benefits and such.

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Alexander
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:27 pm

Deadlord39 wrote:I think the US Government typically uses gazillions as a denominator.
2 billion euros seems not much from a government standpoint, but I'm not fluent is Italian governmental benefits and such.

The problem here is not measuring the effectivness of the Italian government (or state: we use State in the same way Americans use the word government while we use the word government in the same way you use administration...) or its functions (you would be surprised about the meaning of 'right wing' here - just an example: any proposal to privatize the National Health Service means political death as Tories in the UK have discovered some years ago. No party dares to embrace this idea because Italians are vehemently opposed to it en masse - myself included - especially after hearing all the horror stories about the US health insurance system). The problem here is the cost of two billions euros (meaning 2,000,000,000 â‚¬) just for financing five palaces of power: parliament, presidency and a couple of state bodies. This is not the entire Italian state budget, just the money 'asked' by politicians and their friends for themselves. Considering that my unlucky country has a debt bigger than the ENTIRE GNP (and this is saying something, considering that Italy is after all one of the seven most industrialized countries in the world...) and we are daily lectured about the need of 'sacrifices' and 'belt tightening', this is unacceptable (the damned politicians after lecturing the people about the virues of saving money decided to help themlseves 53 millions of euros MORE than in 2007!). I'm not used to such expressions, but this time I mean it: THIS CRAP MUST STOP! And getting infos about costs of the palaces of power in other countries (especially friendly and allied ones...) is really helpful

to help my countrymen make comparisons (is it possible that the Italian presidency costs four times the British monarchy???) and, hopefully, rebel to this. PDT_Armataz_01_34

guerret
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:54 pm

I can definitely state that I prefer the "lightweight" policy of the Italian government than the strong influence of the American one (since I have lived in both countries), but costwise it's no news that Italy is a big "magna magna". Unfortunately, this is a legacy of 40 years of Christian Democracy (and 2000 years of Church) and the Socialist government in the late Eighties. Later governments (not surprisingly) seem to have little interest in eradicating this well-established weltanschauung, so apart from minor displays of good intent (like Prodi reducing by 1/3 the "formal" - I mean "documented" - income of deputees) there's not much progress in this sense.

Working as a public researcher, I can see how much money devoted to research is wasted or transferred to companies (which often turn out to have some ties with the administrators who engaged them) in some barely legal way. And that's just a small part of the big picture.

sauromatian
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:09 pm

deimos3428 wrote:It's worth noting that in the USA (and Canada), a "billion" is 1,000,000,000 (1E+09), whereas in the UK it's 1,000,000,000,000 (1E+12).

That usage has been phased out over the last 20 years, with the UK adopting instead the more common billion = 1,000,000,000.

FormCritic
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 3:57 pm

I'm still not sure how to compare the Italian "government" with the US "government."

The President, senators and congress make decent wages...but rather low for what similar level executives might make in private business.

If one figures in the cost of salaries for the American beauracracy, the total is quite large.

If one figures the total cost of salaries for every "public employee" in America...well...I believe it is more than a gazillion.

A comparison between the US and Italy might be complicated by the fact that America has many layers of federal, state, county and municipal government...right down to local school districts and utlilities districts. You'd also have to consider the fact that American states are sovereign entities.

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

guerret
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Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:31 am

FormCritic wrote:A comparison between the US and Italy might be complicated by the fact that America has many layers of federal, state, county and municipal government...right down to local school districts and utlilities districts. You'd also have to consider the fact that American states are sovereign entities.

Quite funny. I'm studying the concepts of "sovereignty" right now, and it turns out that most scholars agree that in a federal country the sovereign entity is still the centralized government, not the individual states, although they maintain a degree of "internal" sovereignty.

Apart from that, don't think that Italy is organized differently. Apart from the obvious size difference, we have several layers of public administrations, from the central State, to the regions, then the provinces and last the municipalities (plus metropolitan cities, which are recognized by our Constitution but have not been instituted yet). Italy is a country with a plurality so strong that it is quite close to federalism.

sauromatian
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Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:48 am

But would it be considered a 'magocracy?'

Alexander
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Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:19 am

sauromatian wrote:But would it be considered a 'magocracy?'

Cleptocracy (government by thieves) would be a better term.

FormCritic
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Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:32 am

guerret wrote:
Quite funny. I'm studying the concepts of "sovereignty" right now, and it turns out that most scholars agree that in a federal country the sovereign entity is still the centralized government, not the individual states, although they maintain a degree of "internal" sovereignty.

Apart from that, don't think that Italy is organized differently. Apart from the obvious size difference, we have several layers of public administrations, from the central State, to the regions, then the provinces and last the municipalities (plus metropolitan cities, which are recognized by our Constitution but have not been instituted yet). Italy is a country with a plurality so strong that it is quite close to federalism.

American states do not practice foreign policy and are subordinate to the federal government in many matters.

But, American states run most of the government that actually touches people's lives...law enforcement, education, etc. I figure that any govermnet entity with the power to execute people is sovereign.

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

Alexander
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Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:34 pm

guerret wrote:Italy is a country with a plurality so strong that it is quite close to federalism.

I disagree. Our country has a huge bureaucratic and politician class (the Caste), but real power stays with the central government. The various articulations of the Italian state have often the power to spend, but not the authority and the burden to create taxes, enforce them and collet them. They are not responsible for the way they spend money - if we partially exclude the five 'special statute' regions. This is fiscal foolishness: having so many institutions spending money has given us the biggest public debt in the entire civilized world. We will have federalism when ALL regions and not just five will have pover to collect taxes and then transfer a quote to the central government for the common funcitoons agreed (defence, foreign policy and some others).

guerret
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Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:09 am

Alexander1968 wrote:I disagree. Our country has a huge bureaucratic and politician class (the Caste), but real power stays with the central government. The various articulations of the Italian state have often the power to spend, but not the authority and the burden to create taxes, enforce them and collet them. They are not responsible for the way they spend money - if we partially exclude the five 'special statute' regions. This is fiscal foolishness: having so many institutions spending money has given us the biggest public debt in the entire civilized world. We will have federalism when ALL regions and not just five will have pover to collect taxes and then transfer a quote to the central government for the common funcitoons agreed (defence, foreign policy and some others).

You are wrong... there are many issues (for example garbage collection, river bonifications, parking fees, traffic administration, concourses, and so on) where the local administrations have full financial power, both on the income and the expenses. There are still some fields where the financial power stays with the central government, but a lot are moved to the local administrations (to different degrees, depending on the locality being a municipality, province, or region). You can verify this by checking article 117 of the Constitution, after the 2001 reform: you will find a list of fields where the State has full control, and and a list of issues shared between State and regions, and these lists are extensive, i.e. those issues and nothing else. Everything not mentioned there is left to local administrations (article 117 specifically refers to regions, but there are laws outside the Constitution specifying the powers of smaller administrations).

Alexander
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:01 am

guerret wrote:
You are wrong... there are many issues (for example garbage collection, river bonifications, parking fees, traffic administration, concourses, and so on) where the local administrations have full financial power, both on the income and the expenses. There are still some fields where the financial power stays with the central government, but a lot are moved to the local administrations (to different degrees, depending on the locality being a municipality, province, or region). You can verify this by checking article 117 of the Constitution, after the 2001 reform: you will find a list of fields where the State has full control, and and a list of issues shared between State and regions, and these lists are extensive, i.e. those issues and nothing else. Everything not mentioned there is left to local administrations (article 117 specifically refers to regions, but there are laws outside the Constitution specifying the powers of smaller administrations).

This is, simply put, not federalism. I suggest you check better: having the power to tax garbage collection, discipline traffic violations and such minor tasks is not a real devolution of power. The Italian State has the overwhelming power of taxation and the Regions (again, excluding the special statute ones) very little. I can say this for sure because when I pay my taxes I can see clearly the amount going direct to the Region I reside in and the one going to the central government via VAT, income tax, social security and so on. The difference is at least 95% (in my last income statement at least). You can have no true federalism without controlling at least a significant part of taxation - taxation, in my eyes, being the ultimate manifestation of authority. If and when all the Regions will have at least the same powers of the special statute ones, we will have something close to federalism. But, in this moment, we have not.

Alexander
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:04 am

guerret wrote:
You are wrong... there are many issues (for example garbage collection, river bonifications, parking fees, traffic administration, concourses, and so on) where the local administrations have full financial power, both on the income and the expenses. There are still some fields where the financial power stays with the central government, but a lot are moved to the local administrations (to different degrees, depending on the locality being a municipality, province, or region). You can verify this by checking article 117 of the Constitution, after the 2001 reform: you will find a list of fields where the State has full control, and and a list of issues shared between State and regions, and these lists are extensive, i.e. those issues and nothing else. Everything not mentioned there is left to local administrations (article 117 specifically refers to regions, but there are laws outside the Constitution specifying the powers of smaller administrations).

This is, simply put, not federalism. I suggest you check better: having the power to tax garbage collection, discipline traffic violations and such minor tasks is not a real devolution of power. The Italian State has the overwhelming power of taxation and the Regions (again, excluding the special statute ones) very little. I can say this for sure because when I pay my taxes I can see clearly the amount going direct to the Region I reside in and the one going to the central government via VAT, income tax, social security and so on. The difference is at least 95% (in my last income statement at least).

You can have no true federalism without controlling at least a significant part of taxation - taxation, in my eyes, being the ultimate manifestation of authority. If and when all the Regions will have at least the same powers of the special statute ones, we will have something close to federalism. But, in this moment, we have not.

The special statute regions collect taxes and then send a quote to the central government. In the ordinary statute regions, the central government collects taxes and then send a quote back to the regions. Again, the power to spend but not the power to replace central government taxes with their own and so finance themselves AND being forced to have responsible spending.

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