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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

> This is much more than any DOGE savings

DOGE is an 18 month project. Confidently asserting the end result after a few weeks is bold.

I confidently asserted the results before it even started. Haven't been wrong yet.

DOGE is a complete farce and has been from the beginning. The fact that so many people are okay with regular folks being laid off and plunged into chaos is beyond me. I guess since we're all living through screens these days, it's easy to remove yourself from the heartache and turmoil that goes into being fired, without real cause. But it's okay, these are just federal workers, not real people. They don't have real jobs. They're all the same stereotypical DMV workers we've come to make caricatures out of.

A bit off topic: end result and how to measure it is often the point against DOGE - that their “move fast and break things” approach would in fact break things, causing unexpected and excessive long term costs.

I get your point, they are still active and there will be more to evaluate.

Side note here in the unread downvoted realm:

"Move fast and break things" was an early FB motto, that they abandoned in 2014. Pretty sure Musk has never said it.

He doesn’t need to say it if he acts like it. At least this is what nbc news claims:

> Musk has embraced Silicon Valley’s most notorious instincts to “move fast and break things” in a lightning battle to muscle into the computer systems and power structures of federal agencies.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna190450

FWIW, this is what ChatGPT says:

Me: Has Elon Musk ever used the phrase "move fast and break things"?

ChatGPT: No, “Move fast and break things” is a phrase famously associated with Mark Zuckerberg, not Elon Musk. It was Facebook’s internal motto for many years, reflecting their approach to rapid innovation and iteration, even at the cost of breaking things along the way.

Elon Musk, on the other hand, has used phrases like:

• “The best part is no part” (referring to simplifying engineering designs)

• “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

• “Move fast and fix things” (sometimes attributed to Tesla/SpaceX as a counter to Zuckerberg’s phrase)

Musk does value speed and iteration, but he tends to focus on engineering precision and iterative improvements, rather than outright breaking things recklessly.

It's not a bold prediction.

DOGE cut all the easier stuff first -- such as firing employees on probationary status, shuttering USAID. To achieve any meaningful cuts they have to gut Social Security/Medicare, Medicaid or the Military. SS/Medicare is off limits. Cutting Medicaid would not only break Trump's promise to "not touch Medicaid", but would directly hit his prime voter base. And cutting the Military won't be allowed by Congress (who as I mentioned, wants to raise, not lower, the defense budget).

He already got their votes, I doubt he would really care about his voters now, especially in his second term.

But Congress does -- and they're the ones who set the budget, not POTUS.

Having said that, of the three, Medicaid is the most likely to get cut and in fact the GOP is already proposing this, which is abominable.

He could touch social security/Medicare or Medicaid by purging the rolls of the deceased https://www.foxnews.com/politics/elon-musk-says-millions-soc... Elon Musk says millions in Social Security database are between ages of 100 and 159. If they purged millions of 120-160 year olds from the social security database and limited it to only people who were currently alive they could make progress

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