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Comment by TomK32 | Hacker News Reader

Just think of Yosemite National Park firing their only(?) locksmith. It sounds like the most boring job but such a big park and many buildings. As soon as someone locks themselves into or out off something it becomes highly lucrative for a contractor to do this task. Replacing broken locks or cutting new keys won't get cheaper. It will be the same on many other levels. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/1... https://www.instagram.com/natevince/p/DGLxMKbyKwq/

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I think that’s true on the very low end, but also on the high end. If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building, most of its software then maybe the Obamacare rollout wouldn’t have been bungled so badly. A competent senior software engineer in the room might have been able to prevent a horrible contractor from being hired in the first place, and they might have been able to tell the bureaucrats that they need to relax some of their impossible or impractical requirements.

Which was basically the point of the USDS, which has now been gutted of its original purpose and turned into DOGE

Yes, USDS was responding to a need for tech professionals inside the government _after_ the (IIRC) 1990s purge. But the scope is even bigger than just digital services (it's just the domain I'm most familiar with)--the same applies to domain experts (e.g., accountants and tax lawyers to oversee the digital services built for the IRS, aerospace engineers to oversee the systems built by the DOD, etc). "Small government" isn't an unreasonable goal, but when you stupidly hack away at existing government, you end up writing blank checks to contractors and consultants ("welfare for consultants" doesn't even do it justice). Trump supporting Americans are about to find out why expertise is a real, valuable thing, although I'm skeptical that they will connect the dots between their policy and its outcomes.

> If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building

I hadn’t heard about this before, would love to learn more. Got any good links?

In the 90s, the Clinton Admin pushed a government efficiency program similar to DOGE (except much more organized). Around 250k federal employees were laid off.

It destroyed a significant portion of local economies (as several military base towns/cities like Rantoul IL, Lynn MA, and Pittsburg CA saw their economies collapse) and caused our defense industries (Aerospace, Shipbuilding, etc) to be forced to consolidate and ossify.

IMO, we need to re-look Clinton's legacy and see how much of a negative impact his policies had over the long term, just like we are now doing so for Reagan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Rei...

I might be misremembering, but I think Congress had passed a law mandating "buy, not build". Was Clinton pushing that policy, or was he implementing it, or am I conflating multiple distinct "small government" initiatives?

The Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 ("buy not build") was a part of this.

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