That's a totally different issue from Congress failing to properly fund the IRS, a profit centre! It's one of the frew areas of government that spending money on makes money.
> It's one of the frew areas of government that spending money on makes money.
In a well run government, everything the government does should result in a benefit to the civilization and by it, the government. For example, adequately maintaining roads or other public infrastructure will save money on expensive urgent restauration works (e.g. when a water main explodes or a bridge collapses), as well as promote company growth (e.g. by building real, fast internet connectivity via local government owned utilities, thus enabling modern companies to work) which causes tax income to rise.
Even stuff that does not seem to be profitable at all in the long run makes profits. Take environment protection as an example: preventing or cleaning up pollution saves cost in the medical system (and even if it's a mess like in the US where most of it is privatized, the "win" is more worker productivity because they're not ill as much as before and can work more - or criminality decreases like w/ lead exposure), and trying to prevent climate change due to rising temperature will prove worth the money when the government saves money that would be spent on relocating people on the coasts.
Someone else put it perfectly when they said when cities decide each year whether to pay into pensions or fix failing infrastructure, they go with the option that won't sue them.
Well, if your infrastructure explodes like that bridge in Italy, then the survivors will sue... it's gambling, just with lives at stake.
Governments (worldwide) should be forced to a different accounting model - where maintenance for everything they build (infrastructure) or buy (IT software!) over the lifetime has to be budgeted for. No more expensive nutjobs like Olympic Games which will be unmaintainable after the single use...
