Surely a government office named as part of an insider trading scheme to pump a coin that burns tons of energy to exist will be ultra efficient.
Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
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Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#12Elon is hiring people that will agree work for free, he is a big proponent of legal immigration which suppresses wages so I guess it’s no surprise that what he really wants is to not pay people at all.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#13If your goal is to cut spending in the short term, sure, that is easy and can be done. But wait and see where failing public infrastructure and services will lead the country in 5, 10, 25 years and make the balance then.
Just look at where basically every austerity policies lead the countries they were implemented in.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#14Great article! I fear this will be the country's rude awakening to Chesterton's Fence. The GAO recommendations list is a really great thing to point these DOGE people to. We have literally no reason to assume they're equipped to do this.
Edit: It's apparent most people commenting haven't actually read TFA. You should!
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#15The “Department of Government Efficiency” isn’t a real government office and as such has no actual power. Musk and Ramaswamy won’t be able to do anything, and the budget is controlled by congress, not the executive.
The executive requests the budget. Congress approves it.
The key thing here is the "Due Care Clause." The administration is required to implement our laws with "due care." If there's a law on the books the administration is required to enforce it. The means and expected effectiveness of that enforcement are often not specified.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#16The “Department of Government Efficiency” isn’t a real government office and as such has no actual power. Musk and Ramaswamy won’t be able to do anything, and the budget is controlled by congress, not the executive.
this congress will be an extension of the executive, and you know this administration and his legislative and judicial allies don't care about the rules and norms anyways. they feel like their agenda was obstructed last time, they've got a mandate now, and so they're just gonna steamroll anybody standing in their way this time around.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#17[flagged]
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#18Federal spending was $6.7T USD. Cutting 1/3 of that? Probably impossible.
That said, 5% might be possible. That would cover half of the interest payments on the federal debt in a year.
It also depends if they're going for one-time or continuing reductions. Obviously the latter is preferable. And cost-shifting to the future doesn't count.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#19If you want a speedy government and speedy paperwork, it might be worth asking if we could increase headcount to handle tasks, preferably in parallel if possible.
For example, if you require your house to get inspected for code, you may want to increase the size of your planning department so that code inspection can occur within the day.
Can the environmental assessment be done in parallel to other necessary paperwork?
The correct size of a department is probably not 100% utilization of employees, but more like 80% to allow for slack. If you're 100% utilization, the demand is greater than the ability of employees to complete tasks within reasonable time, then you're undersized. At 100%, if demand surge, then waiting time will obviously increases.
Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform
#20If you want a speedy government and speedy paperwork, it might be worth asking if we could increase headcount to handle tasks, preferably in parallel if possible. For example, if you require your house to get inspected for code, you may want to increase the size of your planning department so that code inspection can occur within the day. Can the environmental assessment be done in parallel to other necessary paperwo…
Yep, larger government with (arguably) a smaller/tighter mandate.