We owe it to the taxpayer to evaluate social programs

The Washington D.C. economics reporter of German white collar daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung penned a short commentary when the White House launched the Trump budget plans.

The comment is light hearted, making fun of the generally "half baked" policy proposals of the Trump administration but soon comes around to one of the greatest neoliberal greed talking points: we owe it to the taxpayer to evaluate social programs and, if needed, do away with them.

Apart from conjuring up the mythical "taxpayer", what makes the statement so noxious is, of course, the application of the call to social programs only.

You don't even have to bring up the perfect example of a budget that is never evaluated closely, i.e. that of the military or the security apparatus. Although you should with the Trump budget because the president asks for more money for the world's most expensive military without any evaluation.

Showing how many people will lose health coverage is relatively easy compared to evaluating the necessity of a military program.

Socially and politically acceptable figures for military success are hard to come by. The U.S. tried straight up body counts in Vietnam, and "emotional evaluation" after 9/11. The first mostly failed because they were repugnant, the latter worked wonderfully for a while.

Other, easier, success indicators would be the number of bases around the world, or a map of countries with U.S. bases. The drawback of these is obvious: you cannot make them an everyday staple because they are used by detractors to question the bill.

Delegating the "evaluation of social programs" to Fox News or, in Germany, to the likes of BILD Zeitung has proved a winning formula, hasn't it?

And don't forget, the Democrats won't save you. Neither will the various social democrats of Europe.