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Comment by 9283409232 | Hacker News Reader

I still don't understand what getting rid of 18F accomplished. Someone on HN said they were "openly partisan"[0] but neglected to explain how.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43059187

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Anything that prevents government contractors from extracting maximal taxpayer dollars for their shareholders is in opposition to current partisan goals.

As a result, simply being nerds committed to principles like "software should work" or "government information should be accessible, as required by law" is now considered "openly partisan": https://technical.ly/civic-news/18f-profile/

According to a GSA forensic audit, 18F was losing money, had billing issues, and spent too much time on non-billable activities (52% versus 48% billable). One of the partisan activities referred to was a pronoun replacing slack bot referenced in this GSA report...

https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20...

The GSA conclusion was...

  1. Establish a viable plan to ensure full cost recovery of ASF funds expended by 18F. 
  2. Ensure that internal 18F projects have appropriate supervisory review.  
  3. Implement controls over 18F’s reimbursable agreement process to ensure that work is not performed outside of a fully executed agreement.  
  4. Ensure that GSA CIO reviews and approves, in writing, all 18F IT-related work performed for GSA internal organizations. 
  5. Implement a comprehensive review of 18F’s past work to ensure accuracy of all billings.   
  6. Establish reliable internal controls to ensure that 18F’s future billings are accurate.  
  7. Ensure that 18F’s billing records are retained in accordance with GSA records management standards.

None of this justifies getting rid of the team entirely. The GSA's plan is reasonable and 18F facilitated projects that saved more money than they spent. IRS Free File is a great example of that.

"losing money" is a canard when it's a self-producing government entity that was using not public dollars but instead user fees from a GSA Fund. There were lots of folks who had incentive for that thing not to work: https://insider.govtech.com/california/www-techwire-net/form...

Also, that IG report is a comedy show compared to the last 3 weeks of chaos from these people doing what they're doing flouting laws, rules and the common order.

18F was staffed by a bunch of young tech folks who lean left. That makes them enemies subject to persecution. I really don't think there's any more complexity than that. Expect this kind of thing to be the norm in the future.

Not young people at all, actually. Mostly mid-to-senior people.

Unfortunately things like accessibility (which 18F provides guidance on) has been rolled into 'DEI' by the current administration, and is therefore a partisan issue.

18F was also designed for remote work, which oddly has become another partisan issue.

They promoted things like "accessibility", which is woke of course.

Free tax filing software is "anti-establishment" because it robs huge corporations (who lobby extensively!) of their profits. Ergo, leftist/Marxist/woke/etc.

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