Money Matters…
…but there are costs not measured in dollars.
I’m taking a surprising amount of flak for this post.
Well, it was surprising to me.
In retrospect it shouldn’t have been since it had a little something to annoy both sides of the political divide. Discounting the 35 cents per taxpayer annoyed the left, who suddenly became concerned with government spending while raising concerns over a military parade on the President’s birthday annoyed the right, who suddenly have no issue with large scale Soviet-like demonstrations of power like this:
Oops, wrong picture.
I’m making an assumption (probably a pretty good one) that those defending the parade are on the right and those criticizing it on the left. This won’t be entirely true as I’m sure there are centrists whose responses are more difficult to predict as they tend to have a more complex and nuanced take on events. However, for the sake of simplicity I’m going with a simple left/right breakdown.
It’s always grand to hold a grand parade!
The criticism I’ve received from the right tends downplay the fact that the parade was on Trump’s birthday and highlight that it was intended to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday. The parade did in fact take place on the Army’s birthday and the Biden administration did have a vague plan to celebrate the Army’s birthday. Trump just… well Trumpified it by augmenting it into a large military parade complete with heavy hardware.
I am not opposed to military parades. I spent 10 years in the military and participated in more than my fair share. That said, there are limits. Ceremonial parades with small numbers of troops or military bands are one thing, tanks driving down city streets are quite another. It’s not unprecedented. The last major military parade featuring tanks in a U.S. city occurred on June 8, 1991, in Washington, D.C., celebrating the end of the Gulf War with the "National Victory Celebration." It featured around 8,000 service members, including tanks, missile launchers, and attracted approximately 200,000 spectators, costing about $12 million at the time (~$28 million today). If the US had just won a war I’d probably not be objecting right now. But it hasn’t and I am. By all means celebrate the men and women of the Army but leave the tanks at home. Even discounting the association these types of parades have with dictators and autocrats, they’re gaudy and gauche. Of course, these are two words not uncommonly associated with Trump so I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised he’d love them.
That is all I will say (for now) about the right’s objections to my post as this is not about Trump’s predilection for the unseemly, but the criticism I received about costs.
When is cost a concern?
I am paraphrasing
here (again, sorry for overreacting).Short answer: Always
Long answer: It depends.
Since I’m being paid by the word (not true), let’s dig into the long answer.
First, I do not have a specific number I can give you. It isn’t $1 million matters but $999,999.99 is nothing to be concerned about. Second, it depends on what you mean by “concern” (my thanks to Bill Clinton for the structure of this response). Money should always be a concern, but other factors may come into play which demote it to a secondary concern. Put simply, circumstances matter.
Let’s look at some factors that must be weighed when attempting to determine if cost should be a concern. However, before we do, I’m going to restrict it to new spending. Why? Because as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has just shown us, cutting existing spending is very difficult. Depending on the source DOGE has saved somewhere between $2 billion and $175 billion or somewhere between $13.02 and $1,139.32 per taxpayer. That’s not bad but given the political fiasco that the entire effort has become we should not expect to see it’s like again soon. Nor should we expect Congress to suddenly become fiscally responsible and start cutting things on its own. We should therefore focus on assessing new spending. So, when does cost matter?
When the cost isn’t offset by new taxes or cuts elsewhere. If the government isn’t increasing taxes or cutting some services to fund others, it is increasing the debt. You either pay now or you pay later.
What is the purpose of the spending?
Is it to increasing military spending because the country has been neglecting the military for decades and is widely viewed as free riding on the United States?
Is the government trying to bribe the voters with new stuff such as “free” dental, tax “holidays,” or paying off student loans?
Is spending increasing without providing any useful return? An example of this would be growing the bureaucracy at a faster rate than the private sector.
Have project costs run amok due to incompetence or corruption.
Technically cutting taxes is not new spending, but I’m going to include it here because it’s buying votes while increasing the debt.
There are probably other factors that could be included but this is a good start. However, even factoring these in, determining when cost matters is still more art than science. To paraphrase a famous quote, I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it.
There’s also the question of priorities. If this were the only instance of government waste that might change the calculus, but it isn’t. Since we have limited resources and an almost limitless list of government waste, it is necessary to prioritize. Here’s a brief list of significant sources of government waste:
Improper Payments - Payments made incorrectly (e.g., overpayments, underpayments, or payments to ineligible recipients) across federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Corporate Welfare - Subsidies, grants, or tax breaks to corporations, often favoring private interests over public good (e.g., agricultural subsidies, energy sector grants).
Cost: $92 billion annually (2008 estimate, likely higher now).
Source: Heritage Foundation.
Medicare and Medicaid Fraud/Waste - Fraudulent billing, unnecessary procedures, and administrative inefficiencies in healthcare programs.
Cost: $100–150 billion annually (estimates vary, based on 2019–2023 studies).
Source: PMC reports.
Defense Budget Mismanagement - Overruns, unused equipment, and inefficiencies in the Department of Defense. Examples include unaccounted-for spending and bloated contracts.
Cost: Up to $125 billion in waste identified in a 2016 Pentagon study (one-time estimate, ongoing issues persist).
Source: Pentagon reports.
Unnecessary or Redundant Federal Programs - Overlapping programs (e.g., multiple job training or education programs) that could be consolidated for efficiency.
Cost: $247 billion in potential savings identified (2011–2023 estimates).
Source: Heritage Foundation and GAO.
There are many, many more examples just like these but these alone already amount to over $800 billion. That’s billion with a ‘b.’ So, you’ll excuse me if Trump’s $25-$45 million, with an ‘m,’ spent on the parade is not my main concern.
Note that only I may find interesting: The parade equals just five thousandths of one percent of total defense spending, that’s less than 1/200th of 1%.
Conclusion
Putting the costs in terms we can more easily relate to might be helpful (and if it isn’t I’m doing it anyway).
The US budget is $7 trillion.
The parade cost about $45 million.
The median household income is $80,610.
How much can you waste on your household parade?
For the math nerds:
$45 million is to $7 trillion as x is to $80,610
Solve for x (answer at the bottom of the article)
If, at the end of the day, you discovered you’d lost a dollar you might be annoyed. If you discovered, you’d lost a hundred dollars you would likely be upset. If you lost one thousand dollars, you’d be very upset. How much money would you need to lose to make that the most important issue of your day? The answer is likely, “it depends.” If you lost the money because you were hit by a car, the money might not be your primary concern. That is where we find ourselves when we try to decide when cost matters, “it depends.”
For me, in this particular situation, the calculus is easy. Was Trump’s parade a waste of money? Yes. Should it be our primary concern? No. Why? Because the parade itself is a bigger concern. Trump held a military parade because he has despot-envy, the 35 cents it cost each taxpayers is a secondary issue.
Waste is waste and every tiny bit of waste adds up. As U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen is alleged to have said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." Sometimes though, other details demand that we demote the cost to a secondary concern. Still, I must confess that at the end of the day a part of me still shares the sentiment expressed by
Note: My thanks to
for the subtitle to this piece.“Good writers borrow, great ones steal.”
-- T.S. Elliot
Answer: 52 cents.
Thank you for reading Hoist the Black Flag
If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing your thoughts in the comments, subscribing, or even buying me a coffee if you’re feeling generous and felt that this was a particularly enjoyable article. Your attention, participation, and support really make a difference to me.
Also, a ‘like’ really helps the Substack algorithm find me. And I’d be most grateful if you would share this piece to help Hoist the Black Flag grow.
I can’t believe you wrote a whole post to defend what amounted to nothing (statistically).
I got mad respect for your work! Great job.
PS—What would you need to write to defend a real issue?
Can't get too excited about this issue.