White House rescinds federal aid freeze • Hacker News Board

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#31

Post by quickslowdown » Wed, Jan 29, 2025, 10:27 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #30

janice1999 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear and stress is actually the desired outcome. > "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains" Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/trump-federal-eorkers-inspe...

Treat people like villains, and they'll start to act like it.

This pithy, stupid comment is completely missing the forest for the trees. Most of these people have long histories of being the villain. Treating them as villains because of their history of being villains isn't what caused them to be villains.

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#32

Post by smegsicle » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 12:52 AM UTC

feraldidactic wrote: post #16

Or maybe not? https://bsky.app/profile/juddlegum.bsky.social/post/3lgvnaep...

boy that is hard to read

twitter really has gone downhill

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#33

Post by trog » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:52 AM UTC

lokar wrote: post #10

lenerdenator wrote: post #8

There are ways to cut wasteful spending without, y'know, creating a panic.

How sure are you that there is in fact a ton of waste? All the sources for that position have a clear bias, and offer essentially no real evidence (at best a few anecdotes).

There is also the question of whether the actions required to cut the waste are themselves expensive. If you spend a huge amount of time and effort to cut waste, there's a point at which it would have been cheaper to just accept that some waste is inevitable and to not worry about it.

Literally every organisation I've been in has had "waste", but most of them have been smart enough to realise that you don't want to spend thousands of person-hours measuring every tiny little thing and doing wildly complex RoI analyses (especially on stuff where it's almost impossible to figure out anyway because there are too many variables), and instead focus on having metrics around the outcomes that they do care about.

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#34

Post by xnx » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 2:57 AM UTC

lokar wrote: post #13

Molitor5901 wrote: post #5

That was only a matter of time. Congressionally directed spending is supreme under Article I of the Constitution.

If congress is unwilling to use impeachment and removal, the president is above the law.

Third time's the charm?

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#35

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 3:00 AM UTC

lokar wrote: post #27

johnnyanmac wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those companies can't produce money to "pay off debts", increasing the defecit. So I'd say there's a fighting chance there. I'm no economist nor businessman though, so I won't pretend I can answer that with confidence.

Just don’t see why I should take it on faith that the US department whatever has 10X the “waste” of a big multi-national bank. Or that DOGE can improve anything.

DOGE will improve everything... For billionaires. The working class is screwed.

But hey, they might lobby to finally get rid of penny production. So that's a micro-win.

I definitely wouldn't claim that the government is on a scale of 10x the waste of corporate. But the structure of government budgeting does make it easier to create more efficiency

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#36

Post by lenerdenator » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 7:25 PM UTC

quickslowdown wrote: post #31

lenerdenator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treat people like villains, and they'll start to act like it.

This pithy, stupid comment is completely missing the forest for the trees. Most of these people have long histories of being the villain. Treating them as villains because of their history of being villains isn't what caused them to be villains.

Most workers at federal agencies don't have long histories of being the villain.

I've been far more screwed by the private sector than by people in government.

Re: White House rescinds federal aid freeze

#37

Post by quickslowdown » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 10:15 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #36

quickslowdown wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pithy, stupid comment is completely missing the forest for the trees. Most of these people have long histories of being the villain. Treating them as villains because of their history of being villains isn't what caused them to be villains.

Most workers at federal agencies don't have long histories of being the villain. I've been far more screwed by the private sector than by people in government.

I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about villains, like Trump and Musk, Kash Patel, Mitch McConnel, the people we treat as villains because they have shown us repeatedly that's what they are.