GSA Eliminates 18F

> And now neither of them exist (the vast majority of what once was USDS is gone, and what remains has been converted into "DOGE").

Do any of the old USDS staff survive? I don't know. USDS acting administrator, Amy Gleason, used to work for USDS under the Trump and Biden admins, so it sounds like there is still room for "old USDS" staff in "new USDS" – if they are happy to be there, and if the new administration is happy to have them.

And I don't think DOGE's remit is completely distinct from that of USDS. Of course, DOGE is a lot broader in scope than USDS, but according to Executive Order 14158 which established it, a big part of its mission is software modernization–same as old USDS was–and DOGE staff appear to include a number of software engineers, which also aligns with that mission.

> I don't know what the quotes around "abolishing a government agency" indicate -- those words weren't used previously in this thread.

You asked the question "Which government agencies have been targeted by Democrats for being too conservative?" – which seems to put 18F in the category of "government agencies" - if it isn't one in some sense, then the question isn't asking for a relevant comparator. And the title of this thread is "GSA Eliminates 18F", and "eliminates" is a synonym of "abolition". So, the premise of your question implies "abolishing a government agency". Which in a sense abolishing 18F is, since it was sort-of-kind-of a government agency – but strictly speaking it isn't, since strictly it wasn't – hence the quotes.

> So if you would make the problems actually go away, they would lose the ability to run on them.

But the fact that they run on them without solving them shows that it's possible to run on a vaporware platform and never do what you said you would. So they would just find some new nonsense to run on. Also to a non-negligible extent the "problems" they run on are already illusory or unrealistically exaggerated, like demonizing various groups, or capitalizing on people's lack of understanding of how regulations can amortize risk.

I think we agree that structural reforms are necessary (like changing voting systems), but I think it's more than just that. There is a very real movement that is based in getting a large mass of non-wealthy people to reject reality in order to capture their votes to support the goals of a small number of wealthy people. Switching to STAR voting isn't going to fix it. That entire phenomenon has to be actively purged from society in the way that Nazism was purged in post-WWII Germany.

> and chucking out a significant chunk of work they've done

It is unclear how much of the actual work they've done is being "chucked out".

18F did work for various federal agencies, and whatever code 18F wrote for its client agencies would still be in possession of those agencies.

What happens to that code going forward – whether it continues to be maintained by other resources, or whether it just gets archived – is going to be an agency-level decision. Probably some will be kept, others will be thrown out – keeping or abolishing 18F is a separate decision from keeping or abolishing the agency-level projects/initiatives 18F was working on. (And even if 18F had survived, probably some of that code would eventually have been thrown out anyway, since government IT projects frequently end up failing and being cancelled, and 18F involvement is no guarantee against that outcome.)

Obviously, if those projects are going to be kept, removing 18F resources is going to cause a delay to the project – but maybe other resources will be found. It also depends on what percentage of the project resources were from 18F. If a project was 18F-heavy, it may take a big hit, if 18F's contribution was smaller, the negative impact might be smaller.

18F was funded out of the Acquisition Services Fund (ASF), managed by the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) within GSA. FAS is legally obligated to spend ASF funds on federal technology modernization projects. Without 18F, FAS will have to find some other mechanism to spend those ASF funds on technology modernization. So, while of course there will be a delay, agencies which were relying on 18F may still end up getting help from GSA TTS for their modernization projects. I wouldn't be surprised if ASF funds were redirected towards DOGE, and DOGE was then tasked with working on those projects.

Please. None of the media is making hay of Trump's IV-bruise, and credulously accepted the White Houses's statement that he was sharking hands too hard the day before. Half his face is droopy, but that's not notable or worthy of speculation when its Trump.

All valid criticisms. Here are my assumptions:

18F staffers joined the government to make a difference. Most of which likely joined from industry forgoing very lucrative salaries to be the government’s internal tech consulting team. One thing they shipped that the government hadn’t shipped in a long time was the IRS e-file service to the chagrin of the big tax filer companies.

So I assumed in the post that they are capable, mission driven, loyal, hard working (to navigate the government takes dedication) folks that any company and team would benefit from.

AND they were cut not for merit or bad performance but for political reasons by the meme-lord-turned-carnate Elon for dubious reasons.

All of that has me thinking that we as a community should give them a break — in doing so we only would be benefiting ourselves: we’d get new employees and coworkers who are eager to get back to employment who have all those attributes I mentioned above.

Of course the market for jobs is tough as it is. Now with all these federal employees being cut from all parts of the government now likely looking for work in the private sector means competition for roles is only going to get worse. I get that. I feel for all job seekers. You were right to challenge me. Maybe my enthusiasm was unwarranted. It’s just now you know my thinking.