51–60 of 76 posts
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.
It’s possible to initiate such cuts, but whether they stay cut after the inevitable legal battles remains to be see …
Recommendations from Presidential Task Forces like DOGE are non-actionable. For it to be actionable, it will require congressional approval, as the GAO and the rest of the American civil service's operations are already codified in law - not executive order.
Now no executive in my lifetime has ever shied away from spending every dime they could squeeze out of Congress, but maybe this one will be different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mi…
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.
Having been involved in such projects on the corporate level, I do agree that driving efficiency and reducing costs, even when everyone wants and tries to do them, is rather difficult, and very slow to implement. However, once you go down the track and commit to it, a major benefit is it raises the awareness of the importance of frugality and efficiency, and future projects do become more efficient. So maybe if you c…
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…
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"...
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.
> What DOGE should tackle is fraud, which is a known problem. You know how you stop/reduce fraud? More regulation, the exact thing these folks want to avoid. Some fraud is good, it enables processes to be efficient, so I doubt DOGE will tackle this.
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.