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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting and non partisan description of the near hopelessness of trying to make government more effective!

It would have been a lot more interesting to explore why the US government is so resistant to any kind of reform compared to other forms of government. Especially in the last 40 years.

I would venture, that the same factors which make the US resilient also contribute to its stagnation.

The US government is now the world’s second oldest government. The system of checks and balances prevents large shifts in government. The lack of realistic external competition motivates complacency. Geography, and history prevent separation.

How are we stagnating? We’re growing every year, it’s like the number one policy goal of most governments is to make the economy grow each year. 10 years ago you might get predicative spell correct for text now we have generative AI like ChatGPT. Fuck we cured sickle cell anemia and got a FDA approved treatment out like 2 years ago, and other branches of science keep trucking along.

We’re having a problem with distribution of this wealth but by no means is the US stagnating

Other countries are growing faster. It goes beyond America, the Western empire no longer dominates the global economy.

When the US president goes to Vietnam he has to treat them as equals.

>Other countries are growing faster

Other countries have grown faster by copying from the most developed countries (and taking advantage of international trade facilitated by the US) which only works for significantly-less-developed countries.

The US was 25% of the global economy in 1960 and it is still 25% of the global economy.

>Fuck we cured sickle cell anemia and got a FDA approved treatment out like 2 years ago, and other branches of science keep trucking along.

The US's life expectancy was recently eclipsed by Cuba lol, medical science is absolutely not the field you want to try and champion as exemplary of American exceptionalism

Did I say that the US “increased life expectancy by more than other nations” or did I say “ Fuck we cured sickle cell anemia and got a FDA approved treatment out like 2 years ago…”

The person I was replying to stated that the US was stagnating. One of my counter examples was the fact that we cured a disease that was genetic and previously considered incurable, via our innovation.

What your describing is a problem but it’s not one of innovation, it a problem of wealth distribution which I also highlighted

The fortune 50 is thriving, but if you talk to a school teacher or any other “median” professional - they have seen a large quality of life decline in real dollar terms over the last 50 years.

In the public sphere, the problems I learned about in grade school are still the top problems of today… except worse. Our government has become incapable of addressing public policy issues across the entire political spectrum from school shootings to immigration reform.

The filibuster. You need 60 Senate votes to do almost anything and for the last 40 years the only time anyone came close was Obama in 2009 which gave us the ACA.

I suspect not having proportional representation plays a large role. New parties can't get into government, so any change has to happen inside the existing parties.

Usually I am against one-liners like yours, but in this case I really think this is the only response. DOGE is a lobby group with no plan and therefore no prospects of success. There isn't much to talk about. The Republicans have been disingenuous about any efficiency or economic reform for my entire lifetime and even assuming Trump & Co are serious I doubt they have the numbers to get Congressional support for big reform, so there will be at most small incremental changes that will probably be rolled back in a few years.

I'd like to be wrong, but if there is anything here I don't see it. It is going to take a lot more than buzz and conversation to handle the unmanageable pork-barrelling beast that is the US bureaucracy.

Adopting a skeptical approach is indeed wise in politics. However, there's a significant opportunity to align bureaucracies with modern technologies. Politics, as a field, seems unusually resistant to technological advancements that could enhance democratic processes. This reminds me of the early days of IT, when it was merely a peripheral division in most organizations. Over time, IT evolved into a core strategic function, transforming how businesses operate. Could a similar shift happen in politics?

My perspective is that if done correctly, the federal budget should stay roughly the same. Although I am worried about the federal budget being more devoted to debt servicing overtime. Perhaps it would be possible to boost service level while reducing budgetary load.

The reason is simple. Fast and efficient bureaucracy requires adequate and well trained manpower to operate. It's not just about eliminating busywork, but also having the manpower to manage the queue.

Bet you a dollar the bureaucracy has already thought of this and has multiple internal committees that have been working on those exact words for years. Any issues aren't going to be lack of good people or ideas, government is swimming in those. The issue is incentives at the systemic level and the patchworks of powerful interest groups. Adding, effectively, a new interest group doesn't look like progress to me. Especially since the incentives don't seem to be well aligned - why would Musk care about how efficient individual workers are? It might be, but it is far too early to say if it is.

“Fast and efficient bureaucracy”: can that even exist?

Yes, and the fact that you cannot even conceive of it tells you that you might be a victim of propaganda.

what example can you give?

It's a group with no real authority. Their only option is to create reports. In some cases the Administration may act directly on them. In the majority of cases it will be a report delivered to the legislature that they will then completely ignore.

The largest budget programs are entitlements which the Trump team seems powerless to change and thus has no stated desire to engage with them at all or the Pentagon which is _the_ pork barrel machine as far as congress is concerned.

DOGE mostly looks to be a PR distraction.

> DOGE is a lobby group with no plan

That Elon hasn't published a plan doesn't mean he doesn't have one.

He's done the "impossible" many times before, so I expect a very serious effort. Can it fail, sure. But betting agains Elon is historically a terrible strategy.

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