DOGE is done. What happened to its records? • Hacker News Board

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#161

Post by jimt1234 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #71

bs7280 wrote: post #11

One of my biggest criticisms of DOGE that I have not heard elsewhere is - why can't we have a "Department of Government Transparency". Giving Elon the ability to judge, jury and executioner any congressionally approved spending he wants has its own legal issues, but I do think there is a lot of value in having a massive publicly available dataset on where the money goes. I envision something similar to a massive sank…

We already have that in the GAO. We also have personnel who's job is to root out fraud: inspector generals. The budget is constantly audited scrutinized for excess and waste, except 2 departments: defense and Medicare. The former is pork for the politicians' home states. The later is so complex it relies on the healthcare industry to help write the rules. And they can't help making sure they get paid the most.

Yes, the GAO exists. But under the current administration, it's basically like a security guard that just sits there and watches crooks do bad shit, reports it, and then nothing happens.

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#162

Post by thunderfork » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

0xy wrote: post #120

daheza wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cut much more than DEI programs. They aggressively and ignorantly cut jobs and grants which could have benefited the planet and saved lives. https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA?Ffj...

NIH funded gain-of-function research into coronaviruses in Wuhan via grants issued to EcoHealth Alliance. Which, even if you do not think lab leak theory is likely, is extremely reckless and incompetent. So, at best, they're funding illegal research. At worst, their research inadvertently led to millions of deaths and trillions in economic damage. Exactly how many grants are necessary to make up for that, and why wou…

>NIH funded gain-of-function research into coronaviruses in Wuhan

Even this assertion is heavily, heavily disputed:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210706065130/https://www.washi...

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#163

Post by ThinkingGuy » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

bs7280 wrote: post #11

One of my biggest criticisms of DOGE that I have not heard elsewhere is - why can't we have a "Department of Government Transparency". Giving Elon the ability to judge, jury and executioner any congressionally approved spending he wants has its own legal issues, but I do think there is a lot of value in having a massive publicly available dataset on where the money goes. I envision something similar to a massive sank…

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#164

Post by jknoepfler » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

paul7986 wrote: post #97

SubiculumCode wrote: post #74

DOGE fired a whole bunch of NIH staff that processed high scoring grants to get them ready for Notices of Awards (the official document that starts moving funds, etc). Meanwhile, the administration now requires final approval of any grant by non NIH political staff. Consequently, Science is slowing down (and that is outside of other shenanigans). What used to take 3 months is taking 9 or more. For the many medical re…

DOGE was run like a startup and many startups are run like Sh!t shows with them following the mantra of break things fast ask questions later. Case in point i know someone at the NIH who in March 2025 wasn't fired with his hordes of colleagues who were. Yet, fast forward a year later he gets a notice saying something like we are sorry but you should've been fired last year so be prepared to be let go at the end of Ju…

Of all the things a 250 year-old federal government serving hundreds of millions of people across the entire spectrum of services should be run like, "a start-up" is pretty close to the bottom of the list.

I'm impressed we managed to arrive on an idea more detached from the fundamentals of public governance and less worthy of trust than running government "as a business." It takes real, concerted effort to be that thoughtless and shallow.

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#165

Post by dmix » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #137

flockonus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DOGE found an actually highly efficient Federal government Wish we could see the evidence for that.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-fires-operative-admits-gover... "One of Elon Musk's austerity operatives discovered that the government had far less glut than he'd banked on — and tellingly, admitting as much publicly got him fired."

sahil also said:

> "The public was seeing news reports of mass firings that seemed cruel and heartless, many assuming DOGE was directly responsible," he continued. "In reality, DOGE had no direct authority. The real decisions came from the agency heads appointed by President Trump, who were wise to let DOGE act as the 'fall guy' for unpopular decisions."

He also only very briefly worked with a single agency (VA), and his positives comments were about how the VA already had some open source Github repos and had a previous project to 'reduce claim times from "133 days to under a week"'. He was also critical of how they don't fire people with seniority, regardless of performance (which is enshrined in a reduction-in-force law from 1944) which explains why new and probationary employees were the ones let go when Trump's people took over. https://sahillavingia.com/doge

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#166

Post by thiht » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

Executor wrote: post #160

lenerdenator wrote: post #43

Given that DOGE was itself illegal, my guess is that the records were illegally disposed of. This behavior will continue on behalf of people like Musk and Trump until a real consequence is introduced.

[flagged]

So talking about the crimes Trump and his clique commit is Trump derangement syndrome, how convenient

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#167

Post by msie » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

So, is there a blacklist out there of all the DOGE goons? I remember a picture of a couple of grinning DOGE goons at a California facility trying to unleash a lot of water to help with the California fires except that it wouldn't help at all. Ah, found it: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#168

Post by beanjuiceII » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #74

DOGE fired a whole bunch of NIH staff that processed high scoring grants to get them ready for Notices of Awards (the official document that starts moving funds, etc). Meanwhile, the administration now requires final approval of any grant by non NIH political staff. Consequently, Science is slowing down (and that is outside of other shenanigans). What used to take 3 months is taking 9 or more. For the many medical re…

[flagged]

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#169

Post by thunderfork » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #153

mcmcmc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that’s what the 2nd Amendment is for

Movements/causes that use violence are less successful (23%) than those that use non-violence (45%): * https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-no... * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-978... At least per historical surveys (600 movements since 1900).

And yet, 100% of states, successful and unsuccessful, use violence for various purposes

Re: DOGE is done. What happened to its records?

#170

Post by devin » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #23

asveikau wrote: post #6

Any time people talk about cutting government spending, they are exploiting naivety of the audience. When you actually cut, nobody likes it. There isn't really much waste in federal spending. Most programs are important to somebody for good reasons. From this perspective, DOGE was always an obvious con.

> There isn't really much waste in federal spending. There's actually a lot of waste. DOGE just didn't go after it. Check out DOD and all the 9- and 10-figure programs that get canceled without delivering anything, and whose work is often useless for follow-on work. OCX is a recent example, costing around $6 billion and took so long that the program it was supposed to replace ended up just doing the work instead. Ess…

There is a general misunderstanding about "waste" in firms, organizations, and governments. Perfect efficiency DOES NOT EXIST and even if it did, it is NOT EVEN A DESIRABLE STATE for these entities. Sometimes when you see "waste", and you relentlessly try to drive efficiency, you destroy the _system_ that makes the desirable parts possible in the first place.