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Comment by arglebarnacle | Hacker News Reader

I think it's going to be safe. It demonstrably saves much much more than it costs, so conservatives will likely support it from a cost cutting/reducing government "waste" perspective. Liberals will support it because it's smart and makes government run better.

I think only an extremely cynical view would suggest this program isn't safe, a view in which conservatives intentionally dismantle good cost-saving government programs while leaving bad ones for the sole purpose of giving government a bad name.

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Has our legislative branch behaved rationally in the last few years? Recently they threatened forcing a default for unrelated (to budget) issues. And in the not to distant past they voted a law that prohibits Medicare from to using it's bargaining power to negotiate for lower drug prices. You know something that would save every tax payer quite a bit of money since Medicare is one of the larger budget line items.

Based on past behavior you don't have to be overly cynical to think a useful program like this could be eliminated.

Fortunately, 18F is under the GSA, which is the executive branch. It's entirely likely that most Congressmen don't know 18F exists.

More to the point, 18F is supposed to be a self-funded organization that shouldn't draw much from the overall GSA budget. (Not sure if that applies to standing up the organization / hiring and other investments). It would be a hard argument to kill it. That said, The US Digital Service is out of the White House Office of Science Technology Policy (a distinctly political / appointed office) and USDS / 18F interact quite a bit so momentum could be a challenge if there was executive-level antipathy.

> a view in which conservatives intentionally dismantle good cost-saving government programs while leaving bad ones for the sole purpose of giving government a bad name.

Pretty sure giving government a bad name is the goal for many of the elected conservatives (perhaps not the people who voted for them).

Additional slightly paranoid alternatives:

- $1 IT contracts get in the way of crony overcharging, said cronies then provide campaign financing to the right people (never forget Accuweather paying Rick Santorum $50,000 to lobby to stop making National Weather Service data public);

- overcharging is how some intelligence services finance black ops (the modern Air America might be a press or marketing company) as France is alleged to be doing already (e.g. [1] for the full description)

In both cases, there would be powerful incentives to shut down "more efficient government IT" projects.

[1] http://www.amazon.fr/Missions-methodes-techniques-speciales-...

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