It would be cheaper than prison. We do so little to support foster families that I don't know how we know that it's not sustainable... we just haven't tried. It's a cliche but if we spent 10% of of what we spend on Nukes or drug enforcement on this it would be a game changer.
> It's a cliche but if we spent 10% of of what we spend on Nukes or drug enforcement on this it would be a game changer.
I think people that say things like this overestimate how much we spend on things like this and underestimate social spending. About 50% of US government spending is health and social services. So even cutting everything else to zero is only a doubling of health and social services. A doubling isn't nothing, but a game changer? And not all (or even most) of that other 50% will be spending you feel is frivolous, so it would be much less than doubling.
> It's a cliche but if we spent 10% of of what we spend on Nukes or drug enforcement on this it would be a game changer.
> > I think people that say things like this overestimate how much we spend on things like this and underestimate social spending.
These caught my attention because they both made claims for which the quantitative basis can somewhat easily be established, partly because the parent was making a relatively specific claim as these things go.
Here's what I was able to find with ~20min of searching for federal spending in these three categories:
Foster care: $22 billion (2017) [1]
Drug control: $25 billion (2015) [2]
Nuclear arms: $35 billion (2019) [3]
I was surprised that these three areas received roughly equivalent amounts of money - support for your statement that people tend to underestimate social spending.
As to the parent comment: while it does seem likely that taking 10% of the budget from nuclear arms or drug enforcement would indeed make a qualitative difference to foster service provision, my hunch is that the 10-20% increase that implies wouldn't be a "game changer" as the parent asserted even if the claims in [1] that the program needs to be entirely reconfigured are warranted.
EDIT: The parent comment also asserts that a better-funded foster care system would be "cheaper than prison" - another question which could probably be answered with some quantitative basis. Anyone else want to take a shot at it?
Almost 60% of projected spending is not on all health and social services, but only 3 specific programs, 2 of which primarily benefit the elderly.
It can still be true that if a program to support the success of foster children increased by 10% of the budget from somewhere else, the program would be significantly more successful in helping children.
But doesn't a large majority of 'social services' spending go to retirement incomes? Obviously that is important, but discretionary spending on, for example, taking care of children, is much smaller.
For what it's worth, there's a difference between pro-drugs and pro-legalization. I personally think that legalization is our best hope for reducing drug use.
> I get that many techies are pro-drugs. But a lot of people waste away on them.
Yah, but prohibition doesn't work very well, either. Not to mention that there are lots of responsible users of alcohol and other intoxicating substances.
Some people neglect their kids because of video games or TV, too.
Yes of course doubling would be a game changer! Think of the huge amount of good stuff already covered in healthcare and social services, even a 10% increase in budget could do a massive amount of good.
The central bank is doing far more than doubling with little to show for. The amount isn't important, only the effectiveness. An effective program can end up reducing spending and give better outcomes at the same time.
This is a question of priorities.