DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

That analogy doesn't work because there is no "to death" for governments unless they go fully bankrupt. For the US government, that's practically unthinkable at this stage.

If we're going with the medical analogy, we've been rubbing all kinds of creams and taking all kinds of pills for a funky looking mold on our arm. There's some malignant growth, but operating may damage one's ability to use their hand, so treatments are used to keep the growth in check. Treatments aren't cheap, sometimes they don't work or cause side effects and need changing, and often you end up driving an hour for a five minute check-up.

There are risky solutions, such as operating and hoping you can still use your hand afterwards, that will cost time and effort and hopefully reduce the illness in your body afterwards, but the risks have as of yet been deemed higher than the reward.

DOGE is cutting off the arm, slicing it up in parts, and checking for every individual clump of cells if they're necessary or not, before trying to put them back. You're losing a lot of blood and you may need decades of surgery to get your functioning hand back, but all of the bad parts have been removed at least.

Good. We need a lot more representatives genuinely interested in eliminating government waste. Because the graft is real regardless of political party.

Did anyone elect daddy elon?

1. My main concern is the total debt and its interest, as you mentioned in point two. With DOGE, ensuring orders are followed to fix policy is crucial, but some of these cuts do seem more about installing loyal personnel than just reducing costs.

I also worry about shifting staff to contractors. From friends that work in the DOD contracting they get paid 3-4x what an equivalent gov employee does. If contracts are cut too that could be a much bigger win than the gov staff.

2. They've discussed cutting programs like the F-35 and shifting towards robotics and drones for defense and offense. The goal is to move away from expensive Cold War-era weapons that are easy targets. If this just redirects more money to Anduril and Silicon Valley, that’s unfortunate. But if it reduces overall costs, that’s a positive step.

3. Diabetes and dialysis treatments are extremely expensive. Addressing obesity could significantly lower end-of-life healthcare costs. RFK has explicitly focused on this issue.

4. Agree.

Another major issue is the sheer number of regulations involved in anything. Not all are federal, but it's revealing to count how many laws you unknowingly break. For example, where I live:

If your dog chases a squirrel—illegal.

Flying a drone and disturbing a bird’s flight path—illegal.

Using a quadcopter to photograph your house in snowy conditions (when visibility is below IFR limits for airplanes)—illegal.

Taking pictures of dolphins from a boat, even if they move away on their own—illegal.

I don’t own a business, but friends who do often describe the nightmare of dealing with regulatory agencies. They may not be police, but the experience feels just as stressful—especially since they can effectively shut down your business. Compliance is incredibly expensive for the company.

> Wait, I thought the GOP was the party of fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit?

This has not been true since Reagan. The US political right has been selling economic bullshit since the 1980s:

> Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign for the presidency on a platform advocating for supply-side economics. During the 1980 Republican Party presidential primaries, George H. W. Bush had derided Reagan's economic approach as "voodoo economics".[21][22] Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[23] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[23][24][25]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_...

It's the same snake oil as "shareholder value" being most important thing:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine