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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

#41

Post by fd111 »

mannyv wrote: post #18

Federal 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.

Download this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/hist01...

Outlays jumped over $2T in 2020 (3rd column, 127th row). We all know why.

Outlays have not come down to anything close to pre-COVID levels. We all know why.

Cutting $2T from a $6.7T budget would not even return to 2019's pre-COVID outlays.

Seems doable to me.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#42

Post by jeffbee »

llamaimperative wrote: post #14

Great 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!

I thought the untimely de-staffing of the CDC office in China was the rude awakening. Their mission was the apparently pointless one to "monitor, respond to, and control human seasonal, avian, and other novel influenza viruses"...

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#43

Post by ivewonyoung »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #12

Elon 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.

>legal immigration which suppresses wages so I guess it’s no surprise that what he really wants is to not pay people at all.

Does undocumented immigration suppress wages or not.

If it does, can we say the same thing about the current President and the current VP.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#44

Post by sundaeofshock »

akira2501 wrote: post #15
slillibri wrote: post #10

The “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.

The House creates the budget, the Senate votes on it, and the president then signs it into law. Usually, the executive branch will come up with a dream budget that can be considered their starting position in budget negotiations.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#45

Post by derekp7 »

kiba wrote: post #19

If 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…

There is a good analysis (from a corporate perspective) in The Phoenix Project.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#46

Post by cjbgkagh »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #43
cjbgkagh wrote: post #12

Elon 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.

>legal immigration which suppresses wages so I guess it’s no surprise that what he really wants is to not pay people at all. Does undocumented immigration suppress wages or not. If it does, can we say the same thing about the current President and the current VP.

We sure can

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#47

Post by syndicatedjelly »

kiba wrote: post #19

If 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…

    If 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.
A comment like this is kind of bewildering on a tech news site full of software entrepreneurs. Instead of handling more paperwork with more people, why don't we find ways to automate the paperwork processing using computers? Every other competitive industry streamlined their processes decades ago (and continues to do so) - why is the government exempt from this kind of solution as well? Do we have to accept that millions of people must do useless tasks for the US government?

    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?
It's funny you use this as an analogy, because home inspections are notoriously pointless. They tell you stupid things, such as that the step to the house is 11" from ground, while code is 8" - meanwhile totally missing issues in the crawl space because "it is unsafe for us to go in there". I paid $500 to be lulled into complacency, and no amount of money for more inspectors to do the job "faster" would have convinced someone to find the important issues with the house I was about to buy. I'm not interested in paying even more money for more useless information. That's the point - scrub out these useless checks and parades of stupidity, which there is plenty of in both the home-buying process as well as in government.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#48

Post by motohagiography »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #37
motohagiography wrote: post #34

removing collective bargaining would be a fair and gradual upstream strategy the public sector would adapt to and reform itself around. after spending over a decade consulting in the public sector, I concluded public servants of any kind should not have collective bargaining. it's capture and it creates the perverse incentives at the root of most complaints about it, with existential consequences for the whole societ…

If employees, even of the government, want to get together to push for a change in their workplace, what right do we have to prevent that?

a rule should state there will be no new unionized positions in departments or agencies funded by the federal budget, and that individuals in existing roles will be allowed to retire, but when they leave, their replacements will not be in a collective bargaining unit. management roles will also not be part of those units, etc.

the government is not a normal employer and it is not a firm that shares equity. it is an exception. while guilds are viable for trades, and professional societies self regulate, employees of the state have no collective interest other than that as citizens. where they act as a corporate body, they are a literal conspiracy to subvert the consent of the governed, and it deprives individuals of their agency to provide honest service to the public. where employees of the state can both vote in elections and have a collective special interest, they become a privileged class that is antithetical to any democratic principle or equality. they know this, and saying it out loud too often is why their candidate lost.

plus, union leadership savagely betrayed their members over the last 5 years thinking they were about to institute the socialism they were originally founded to deliver but accelerating it without needing the actual working class, so I'd bet a good 2/3 of employees would be glad to have the unions out. it's fairer than even/odd SIN cards, smarter than blunt slashing, and creates the opportunity for serious people to get into public service.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#49

Post by kiba »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #47
kiba wrote: post #19

If 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…

If 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. A comment like this is kind of bewildering on a tech news site full of software entrepreneurs. Instead of handling more paperwork with more people, why don't we find ways to automate the paperwork processing using computers? Every other competitive industry…

* A comment like this is kind of bewildering on a tech news site full of software entrepreneurs. Instead of handling more paperwork with more people, why don't we find ways to automate the paperwork processing using computers? Every other competitive industry streamlined their processes decades ago (and continues to do so) - why is the government exempt from this kind of solution as well? Do we have to accept that millions of people must do useless tasks for the US government?*

Why not both?

Some paperwork aren't boilerplate unnecessary cruft and required human judgement.

There is some paperwork needed but it isn't certainly no paperwork needed.

It's funny you use this as an analogy, because home inspections are notoriously pointless. They tell you stupid things, such as that the step to the house is 11" from ground, while code is 8" - meanwhile totally missing issues in the crawl space because "it is unsafe for us to go in there". I paid $500 to be lulled into complacency, and no amount of money for more inspectors to do the job "faster" would have convinced someone to find the important issues with the house I was about to buy. I'm not interested in paying even more money for more useless information. That's the point - scrub out these useless checks and parades of stupidity, which there is plenty of in both the home-buying process as well as in government.

I am only addressing one part of possibles issues that the government might have. If you want speedy and quality code inspection, you must be willing to staff and pay for it.

Regulation isn't simply a matter of too much or too little but also quality.

Re: Could DOGE cut $2T? The legal and practical reality of government reform

#50

Post by akira2501 »

sundaeofshock wrote: post #44
akira2501 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The House creates the budget, the Senate votes on it, and the president then signs it into law. Usually, the executive branch will come up with a dream budget that can be considered their starting position in budget negotiations.

The Administration creates the budget and submits it to congress. This is why the Administrative office of "Management and Budget" exists. This happens every year and has for as long as I've been alive.

I believe you're referencing "budget resolutions" which are not law and have a more complicated relationship to the process.

https://www.usa.gov/federal-budget-process

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