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DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

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Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#211

Post by rayiner »

munchler wrote: post #186
MisterKent wrote: post #29

Two points that are often missed: 1. Perfectly tracking every dollar is more expensive than having some slack in the system. There's an optimal amount, at least from an overall value perspective. 2. We spend too much, and both sides of the aisle repeatedly blocked attempts to curb spending for literal decades while our debt got higher. That's how someone doing something coming in with a hatchet and no plan to build g…

"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.

It’s quite debatable what the founders intended here. Congress has the power to appropriate funds, it’s not clear as a constitutional matter it has the power to compel the executive to use all the appropriated funds.

Even as a legal matter, the impoundment act only requires rescission notification once it’s clear that the executive won’t use all the money appropriated for a “program.” When Congress is appropriating say $3 billion in a line item for USAID, DOGE can cancel a lot of individual contracts before it needs to invoke recession saying USAID won’t use all $3 billion.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#212

Post by anigbrowl »

rayiner wrote: post #182
projectileboy wrote: post #175

Frankly, this doesn’t matter. What matters is that an unofficial agency of the executive branch is deciding unilaterally - with no oversight - to stop payments that were voted on by Congress. Even if Musk and team were geniuses and doing brilliant work, it would be outside the rule of law.

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Congress is well within its rights to delegate such authority.

That would of course never make it through Congress.

Counselor, you know better than to beg the question like that. It's disappointing to see such an intelligent person resort to such fallacious arguments.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#213

Post by PeterStuer »

cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

"You have to understand bureaucrats behave like Google PMs. They essentially are chasing a promotion that comes with amassing and utilizing a large budget and having a bunch of reports doing the same."

This x100. For all those lambasting the public sector, understand that its flaws are not because of the 'public' part, but because of the size of the organization.

Private sector organization's inefficiency, fraud and waste also scales directly with their size.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#214

Post by croes »

cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

Imagine you know you are sick.

Doge is the one recommending bloodletting and brushing with burning straw.

The issue is rarely that neither side can name the problem but what is claimed to be the reason and therefore the solution.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#215

Post by rayiner »

uses wrote: post #205
cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

Even if you’re 100% correct, these aren’t the right people and these aren’t the right methods. Completely the opposite actually.

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Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#216

Post by Neywiny »

christophilus wrote: post #206
cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

I spent a few weeks working at a contractor who specialized in VA contracts. I put my two week notice in after the first few weeks. There’s no way I could “work” like that. They had teams and teams of people doing the job of a single person at a normal startup. I’ve never seen such bureaucratic waste anywhere in the private sector. It made my stint at Microsoft look like a lean startup by comparison. I talked to them…

That's why I like where I am. We usually work in really lean teams. One person in each role. And usually we're making a physical product so that's one mechanical, one electrical, one sideways, etc. Has its downsides but I don't feel like we're wasteful.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#217

Post by rayiner »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #179
JeremyNT wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) is questionable. Most of the budget is spent maintaining global hegemony through military dominance. Whatever inefficiencies that exist on the civil side are nearly irrelevant.

You should look at the CBO's reports on this. Most of the budget is spent maintaining Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. The sleight of hand involved in the idea that the military budget is "most" of the spending is by calling large parts of the government's spending (but none of its military spending) "mandatory," and then slicing up the "discretionary" portion only, most of which is the military. However, the d…

The full budget is $6.9 trillion, not $4.4 trillion.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#218

Post by apical_dendrite »

leereeves wrote: post #134
turtlesdown11 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong points in the face of this inaccurate, politically biased ledger that has revealed zero fraud, corruption or waste.

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The government does plenty of things inefficiently, but DOGE is making such a colossal mess with their rushed, uninformed, and frequently illegal actions that they're causing more problems than they solve. Indiscriminately firing people because they were hired or promoted within the last 2 years is incredibly wasteful. It means getting rid of the people who were most successful. It also means getting rid of people who had very specialized skills or who just went through a very expensive training process.

Also consider how much disruption all of this is causing to the federal workforce and the contractors. People are being forced to upend their lives on very short notice to RTO. They were getting daily emails telling them to quit. It's hard to imagine anyone doing good work when they're scared that some indiscriminate process is going to fire them.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#219

Post by School-Cotton »

cuuupid wrote: post #115
TomK32 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice examples, but why then doesn't DOGE go through every project? Why did Trump end all DEI contracts, why cause the disruption by freezing all outgoing money, why fire the Inspector Generals that are inspecting their agencies for waste, why fire all probationary workers, and why the fuck do they want to mess with the IRS, the one agency that brings money in at a very successful rate? Clearly no one at Musk's D…

These are good questions that are easy to answer once you’ve spent time in gov: - it is very hard to go thru every project and generally not worth it, it seems like they are sorting by contract vehicle size. there are 120k+ contracts spit out by the government every fiscal year alone so this is a monumental effort - the DEI programs are probably a PR thing, generally speaking though they accomplish essentially nothin…

It’s absurd to say anything is “what people voted for” in a system where only the votes of about 5 out of 50 states matter.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#220

Post by timewizard »

ruraljuror wrote: post #210

Keeping Musk’s interests in mind helps clarify what’s going on. Scorching earth and constantly lying is the playbook for dismantling agencies with oversight into the companies he runs and agencies that promote potential growth of competitors (e.g. pulling the ladder up behind him after the DoE’s Tesla loan). The Canada/China tariffs will cripple other automakers who depend on trade while Tesla’s integrated manufactur…

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