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GSA Eliminates 18F

nextgov.com

331–340 of 495 posts

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplify the tax code, don't add even more complex bureaucracy in a misguided attempt to make the awful tax code understandable. Citizens need to understand the tax code themselves, they shouldn't need an entire government division to write software that is the only way to understand it.

That's a great idea. Let's do that. And until that happens, helping people file their taxes for free is a benefit to everyone (except tax prep companies).

And after it happens let's keep filing for free.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#333
post #66

Bad result for America, as at least the two that I've been familiar with have both been dramatically better website implementations than much of the federal government. GSA, Digital Analytics Program: https://analytics.usa.gov/ Huge amounts of data about how government websites are used including: locations (cities, countries), languages, referral sources, media sources, devices, browsers, OS, website destination, an…

The goal is to make government as dysfunctional as possible (beside the part that enforces corruption [for your side]), so people want it to get smaller and smaller (except for the corrupt parts that benefit exclusively them), so that it costs less, so that they pay less taxes, so that they have even more money (that they don't need). They definitely do not care if this "makes things worse". Often, it's intended.

It’s not about paying taxes. The super rich don’t really pay taxes, and they don’t care whether the middle class pays taxes.

It’s about regulation. The only thing that can counteract the super rich are government regulators.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#334
post #308
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Musk has inserted industry CEOs into agencies where they definitely have conflicts of interests, the other goal is to privatize the scraps.

The most important task now is for every civil servant and citizen to maintain a paper trail on what they can. So that when this gets litigated, everyone who broke the law is convicted.

Bro, it isn't 1975, it's 2025. The president has immunity like some South American dictator. His agents will be pardoned as long as they stay in favor.

The civil servant should collect his pay as long as possible and do as little as possible.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#335
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purple fringes of the congressional GOP would be crucified by their constituents if they were doing this shit, which is why it is sitting back and letting the executive do everything that the party always wanted, but couldn't, while they keep their hands free. The legislature could stop this, yes. But it won't, because he is carrying out the program the GOP always wished it could have done, but couldn't. Once thi…

> And given just how fucking fast a dedicated executive can destroy anything it doesn't like, there's literally nothing the Dems could have done to prevent this. It doesn't matter what laws they passed when they had control of government, when the current executive simply doesn't follow the law. Oh yes there is. It's just more radical than they were prepared to admit was necessary. It's things like ramming through th…

People suggest things like that as if the underlying problem is that Republicans often get into office with 46% of the vote and if they had to get 51% every time everything would be perfect, under the assumption that then they would never win.

What do think would really happen in that case? They'd change their platform slightly in a way that allows them to get 5% more of the vote and then still get in half the time. They're one of the parties in a two party system and it's a two party system because it uses first past the post instead of e.g. STAR voting. And the reason court packing doesn't work is obviously that as soon as either party actually did that, it would become the norm and happen every time the party in power switched, and nobody wants the courts to become fully partisan and the number federal judges to double every 4-8 years.

If you actually want to stop them from fucking everything up, figure out why they're doing the things they're doing. "They're evil and corrupt and have entirely impure motives" doesn't explain why ~half of voters voted for them.

Instead you have to look at the actual reasons and do something about them. Why do they want to expand oil production? Because people want cheap energy. If you don't want to expand oil production then you need to cause energy prices to go down in some other way, e.g. by not actively opposing the construction of nuclear reactors so their costs don't balloon as a result of lawsuits and a capricious regulatory environment, or provide more tax incentives for renewable energy so the transition happens faster and people stop caring about the price of gas sooner. Use diplomacy to e.g. encourage Germany not to shut down their nuclear reactors and raise global energy prices by switching back to fossil fuels.

Republicans keep getting elected by saying they're going to do something about burdensome regulations. Maybe consider whether there's something there? Look into what it's like to operate a small business. If you're making $9000/year selling stuff on Etsy and you invest in a postage meter, should you now have to know what MACRS is? If you don't, is it because it's somehow illegal to own one? How does property tax work on unsold business inventory stored in an out of state third party warehouse? If you have a question about any of this, why isn't there anyone in the government who can give you an official answer? Does the law create a good way for you to accept digital payments without getting locked into an overpriced payment gateway that can capriciously disrupt your business by dropping your account at any time? If you get an electric vehicle for your business, can you take the tax credit if you have enough income to be eligible for it personally even though the business didn't make a net profit this year? Why is the tax credit aimed at making it easier to afford one limited to people who make enough money that they already can? What can happen if you get some of these things wrong?

People keep voting for Republicans because interacting with the government is slow, frustrating, complicated and dangerous. The best way to take that away from them is to solve those problems yourself instead of insisting that they don't exist.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#336
post #97
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right wants everything related to taxes to be as difficult and painful as possible, in the hopes it will encourage the government to lower them.

I have heard of this argument many times but it doesn't make sense to me. Most often, the ways to lower taxes come from things like finding new deductions and credits that you didn't know apply to you. This is what the difficult part is. Otherwise, taxes are simple if you just have some W-2 and 1099-INT or 1099-DIV, and claim the standard deduction. Indeed if taxes are too difficult or painful, a reasonable person wo…

My friend owned a tax preparation place for awhile. Half her clients could file with the short form. Most of the rest had either dependent care deductions or EIC, that's it. Hell, I have a fairly complex return. It takes me <90 minutes with a $40 software package.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#337

Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online, without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered far-left extremism in the US. You’d think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in the taxation system would be something the right could get behind?

Every Republican must swear an oath to uphold Grover Norquist thought

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#338
post #162

New York Times wrote [1] a pretty extensive expose on how the government takeover has happened. Basically Musk started infiltrating the government with his agents a couple of years ago so by the time inauguration happened he had access to all the passwords. I am not sure which laws were broken but if they were I hope the administration that comes in 2029 will not overlook these people's contribution. [1] https://arch…

[flagged]

This defeatist attitude accomplishes nothing. Do not obey in advance

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#339

Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online, without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered far-left extremism in the US. You’d think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in the taxation system would be something the right could get behind?

[flagged]

I do my taxes myself almost every time. And they're more complicated than average.

I'm all for simplification, but it's already pretty simple to understand for almost all Americans.

The only part that sucks for all Americans is actually filing, especially when you have to pay some asshole intermediary just to make it slightly faster.

In our state, they streamlined filing. I still have to understand the same things, but it's 3x faster than before. So I know it's possible.

Laying off the one programming team whose products were actually improving my interface with the government was braindead stupid.

Again, yes, simplify the tax code. But for the love of Christ, streamline filing with DirectFile no matter what you do!!

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#340

Is there any meaningful reason that states couldn’t start their own equivalent 18F at the state level? I live in Massachusetts and I know a bunch of socially conscious techies who’d love to help out in this manner. I have no idea if there is need for 18F at the state level, but I could see something like this working OK in MA, CA, and maybe NY.

> Massachusetts
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