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Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

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Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#101

Post by akmarinov »

rsynnott wrote: post #85
akmarinov wrote: post #60

As a person who has no idea what most of the agencies do (exactly what Musk and Ramaswamy are): DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made TSA is a non-brainer, they don't really provide much security, let airports handle it on a case by case basis Do they really need a NSA and a CIA? Space force - just roll it into the air force Bam - that's probably like 500 billion right there

> As a person who has no idea what most of the agencies do "As a person who doesn't know anything about this, here are my ideas" is, er, one approach to things, I suppose (as someone else mentioned, you've just given the FBI a fleet of over 2,000 watercraft, which doesn't seem terribly sensible).

The FBI doesn’t need watercraft, just sell them off - this is too easy

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#102

Post by letmevoteplease »

some_random wrote: post #23
steveoscaro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't a democracy vote in the people that are saying they want to remove some agencies? Isn't that also how the agencies came to be in the first place?

Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention but deleting agencies was not something I saw discussed at all prior to the election.

The Republican Party Platform says: "We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run."

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa...

Trump also mentioned it frequently in his speeches: " 'I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,' he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin. "

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/department-of-educat...

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#103

Post by frumper »

Volundr wrote: post #77
akmarinov wrote: post #60

As a person who has no idea what most of the agencies do (exactly what Musk and Ramaswamy are): DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made TSA is a non-brainer, they don't really provide much security, let airports handle it on a case by case basis Do they really need a NSA and a CIA? Space force - just roll it into the air force Bam - that's probably like 500 billion right there

> DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made Easily? You just folded the Coast Guard, FEMA, Immigration, and the secret service along with many other agencies under the FBI. > Space force - just roll it into the air force Already part of the air force.

They also suggested selling off all the FBI watercraft. This plan is going well.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

akmarinov wrote: post #60

As a person who has no idea what most of the agencies do (exactly what Musk and Ramaswamy are): DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made TSA is a non-brainer, they don't really provide much security, let airports handle it on a case by case basis Do they really need a NSA and a CIA? Space force - just roll it into the air force Bam - that's probably like 500 billion right there

> DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made

The reverse might make a tiny, miniscule amount of sense, but that way it is just silly. FBI is a subunit of DOJ with ~35,000 employees; DHS is an organizational peer to DOJ with ~260,000 employees; the active duty uniformed component of the Coast Guard — one unit of DHS — is around ~45,000 people.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

frumper wrote: post #103
Volundr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DHS can easily be folded into the FBI and cuts made Easily? You just folded the Coast Guard, FEMA, Immigration, and the secret service along with many other agencies under the FBI. > Space force - just roll it into the air force Already part of the air force.

They also suggested selling off all the FBI watercraft. This plan is going well.

The only good thing about the plan is it is still probably better (and less corruptly self-serving for those formulating it) than what DOGE will come up with.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#106

Post by dragonwriter »

xnx wrote: post #68
hondo77 wrote: post #53

It's all billionaire fun and games until they try to close post offices. Have fun with that, boys.

I'm surprised Trump hasn't said he'd cancel the contract for new post office electric trucks and give it to Tesla.

Wait until the militarized ethnic cleansing already promised for day one is in full swing, there’ll be plenty of time for nakedly corrupt deals when the public has other things occupying its attention.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#107

Post by dvdhnt »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #78
dvdhnt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue the regulatory unit ought to be temporary while enforcement is ongoing. Permanent organizations are just as ineffective. They did nothing to protect our food supply from ingredients banned in other countries. They did nothing to stop microplastics from taking over the world. So exactly what are they good for while sitting around pontificating for years on end?

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We have the safest food supply in the entire history of humanity and there still improvements to go, but just removing all that progress because it wasn't perfect seems insane to me. You want more things banned? Removing all existing regulations will not get you there.

Sorry, I didn't mean to remove regulations. I meant that maybe the regulatory side of the agencies should meet as needed with enforcement being the thing that is perpetual.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#108

Post by mattgibson »

steveoscaro wrote: post #7
mattgibson wrote: post #5

This looks horribly like failing to understand Chesterton's fence https://thoughtbot.com/blog/chestertons-fence The agencies were democratically put in place for a reason. Removing them with no public discussion of the original reasoning is deeply undemocratic. At the very least, someone thought that the cost of having them in place was less than the cost to society of not having them there. Has that changed?

Didn't a democracy vote in the people that are saying they want to remove some agencies? Isn't that also how the agencies came to be in the first place?

Democracy isn't just blind voting. The votes mean nothing if people don't know what the candidates stand for. Manifestos outlining intent and reasoning are part of the process but so is explaining what a policy is intended to achieve as it is being enacted. Without knowing the intended outcome, how can people judge whether it succeeded or not and whether to vote for this candidate again next time?

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#109

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

d35007 wrote: post #44
gwurk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, but america use a two party system, there were only two options, and those options differed in many ways, it is difficult to say if "removing some agencies" was what the people that voted wanted, or if they just preferred that candidate despite them wanting to remove some agencies.

This is a pretty weak argument. Blaming the two-party system might feel good, but I don't think it gives us a better understanding of what happened in this election. People voted for the guy at the top of the ticket, and he was pretty clear about wanting to get rid of some federal agencies. I think we have to conclude that people were receptive to his message. My hot take is that the two-party system isn't anywhere n…

> In countries with multi-party systems, parties often have to form coalitions in order to govern. In countries with two-party systems, parties have to do most of that coalition forming before the election.

Exactly. This is really obvious but no one seems to acknowledge it. I even think the coalition dynamic can become a huge distraction from governance on its own. Could we think of tweaks to the process to make things better? Sure. But a wholesale rethink or uncritical mimicry is unlikely to produce something better.

Re: Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

#110

Post by unsnap_biceps »

dvdhnt wrote: post #107
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We have the safest food supply in the entire history of humanity and there still improvements to go, but just removing all that progress because it wasn't perfect seems insane to me. You want more things banned? Removing all existing regulations will not get you there.

Sorry, I didn't mean to remove regulations. I meant that maybe the regulatory side of the agencies should meet as needed with enforcement being the thing that is perpetual.

Generally the regulatory side is made up of scientists and data analysis folks that build data to back regulatory actions and ensure they're working as intended. How do you envision the regulatory side working? Wait for congress to say, "Hey, look into this?" and then spin up a few thousand temps to crunch numbers and figure out a action? Often times it takes years to build a regulatory stance. If so, how do you forsee holding actions accountable if there isn't a persistent level of folks validating areas of concern across the nation?

I totally understand that the government feels bloated and we could cut costs in plenty of areas, but I think it's way more effective to apoint people into leadership positions that can take a real deep look at things and actually cut what makes sense. Any sort of rapid deep cuts is only going to harm us as a society and likely not actually save that much money. No matter how much money you saved, when you spin up something new that is basically starting from scratch, you're going to spend way more then just fixing what exists.

I think it's the classic coder's dilemma, The code's shit, do I refactor it in place or do I replace it from scratch. Any small or even medium sized project, replacing it from scratch could be the right thing to do, but when you get into large projects, replacing it is just not the right decision if you're trying to save money.

IMHO, refactor the government, don't replace.

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