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Terence Tao is an inspiring person in a field we all find compelling. He's formalized the plight of such field here as a result of the administration's approach to cost-cutting. That doesn't mean that it isn't necessary. Sure, there are better theoretical ways to reduce spending, but it doesn't take a tremendous amount of experience to recognize the incentives just don't align with accomplishing that goal. A cross-the-board stop/cut also neuters the pork-barreling and self-serving political advocacy that would kill more nuanced reductions.

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> A cross-the-board stop/cut also neuters the pork-barreling and self-serving political advocacy that would kill more nuanced reductions.

I doubt that in the long run. This is just a grab of control that will likely result in one set interested parties being replaced by another.

What mechanisms prevent the "pork-barreling and self-serving political advocacies" to take effect when re-instating some of these spendings?

A great question! I can't think of anything that will. I think one idea would be to trim the budget broadly every year in a similar vein to align with receipts and let the people periodically decide anew what to fund.

So stability has zero value?

Definitely not, but there don't seem to be any structures which counter the political incentives to continuously increase spending. And only one federal government in the last 50 years has run a balanced budget.

So a party which has almost absolute control of the political system but can't be trusted in setting up said structures is the party you trust with slashing and burning spending in a way that "balances" the budget.

Why do you think there aren't incentives at play here in whats being cut?

> Why do you think there aren't incentives at play here in whats being cut?

Because it seems across-the-board with some limited exceptions.

> A: No, the pause does not apply across-the-board. It is expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the President’s Executive Orders, such as ending DEI, the green new deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.

> Any program not implicated by the President’s Executive Orders is not subject to the pause.

The Executive Orders listed in the guidance are:

Protecting the American People Against Invasion

Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid

Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements

Unleashing American Energy

Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing

Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government

Enforcing the Hyde Amendment

Sure does seem like it's across the board...

I’m not normally anti-sarcasm but it’s really unhelpful here.

For pork-barreling, there is (or could be, it is not yet the law on the federal level) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_rule

It is such an absurd take. That essentially implies that out of three options

1) Do nothing 2) Try to have detailed review of different programs 3) Stop everything

The latter is the most beneficial.

Yep. Sure, call it what you want, but (1) and (2) have proven not to work. The federalist political system has a weakness in that it incentivizes politicians to advocate for endless spending on behalf of their constituents. That means a perpetual state of either higher taxes or inflation. Over the last 50 years only a single federal government has operated with a budget that didn't increase the national debt.

> Over the last 50 years only a single federal government has operated with a budget that didn't increase the national debt.

Oh really? And who was executive then?

I’m sure that the people depending upon the services for survival will ultimately agree.

Here's an idea: give federal employees tax breaks relative to the financial efficiency of their department.

How do you quantify that efficiency? How do you ensure they don’t game it?

Even if this take has merit, the approach taken here is simply cruel. There are ways the Administration could have implemented a "cross-the-board stop/cut" that would not be so devastating to so many /millions/ of people. The fact that they chose to execute in this chaotic, "effective immediately" manner suggests a certain un-seriousness to the whole thing. In other words, this is less about reducing spending and more about deliberately destroying institutions, which is the stated goal of many in the Administration.

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