Doge Is Putting Major Government Efficiency Projects at Risk | Hacker News Reader

Doge Is Putting Major Government Efficiency Projects at Risk

wired.com

110 pointsdoener84 comments

The conservative thesis is that DOGE is going through and eliminating wasteful spending, which is simple and, if you trust them, a good goal.

The liberal thesis is that DOGE is like an army going through government institutions, replacing the old guard with new loyalists, and then removing safety nets, which results in people having to sell their assets (like housing, farms, or small businesses) when disaster (not being able to pay for fertilizer, not being able to pay for healthcare, suppliers costs going up 25%, etc.) hits them.

It certainly feels like GOP policy is to cause disaster, and that makes sense if you understand that it costs money to deal with a disaster, people sell assets to pay for disaster response, and then rich people are able to buy those assets. Those assets are then rented back to the sellers, creating a persistent system of wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, which is very consistent with tax cuts for the rich.

The liberal thesis is that DOGE defines anything they don't like as waste / fraud / abuse.

Claiming something is "fraud" removes opposition to cancelling it. This isn't 5d chess, it is 1d chess.

Fraud is also a crime that can be prosecuted. The lack of prosecution exposes they have not found any fraud, and probably aren't even looking.

The president was convicted of fraud and that doesn’t seem to matter. Let’s maybe stop acting like the rule of law is getting applied evenly in these times.

the 'fraud' will come out around midterms when it's politically advantageous to have publicity.

IANAL. I would think fraud needs investigation much deeper than; "This $200 million is being spent on <insert program> that we don't need at the moment."

First you find where the money is being spent and if it doesn't match the goals of the administration, you turn it off. If there is potential for fraud, you mark the case for further evaluation and investigation. The most important first step is always to stop the bleeding and in this case, bleeding money.

You can come back to investigate at a later time. Prosecuting fraud before the bleeding has stopped is a waste of time imo.

> First you find where the money is being spent and if it doesn't match the goals of the administration, you turn it off.

If you're attempting to illegally seize control of the government's spending from Congress, sure, you do that.

> First you find where the money is being spent and if it doesn't match the goals of the administration, you turn it off

The executive doesn't appropriate funds, Congress does. So that's completely wrong.

> think fraud needs investigation much deeper than...

Exactly but DOGE isn't doing that.

> "This $200 million is being spent on <insert program> that we don't need at the moment."

That's "waste" (in their opinion), but they keep saying "waste, fraud, and abuse".

Fair enough, prosecuting takes time but announcing what happened doesn't. So far we seem to get them claiming that 160 year old people are claiming social security which turned out to be them just defaulting to an old date of birth if they didn't know the actual one. Have there been any announcements of actual fraud found that stand up to a common sense look at what they are saying?

Never mind the prosecution, if you work on the hypothesis there probably is some government expenditure that is at least slightly unnecessary, the shitshow where DOGE look for the most obvious examples and end up bragging about saving money until someone points out that budget was spent last year or that the billion is actually a million or that maybe the people on probation due to recent promotions probably weren't the most dispensible employees, or oops, can we unfire the Ebola staff presents a surprisingly positive impression of how good actual auditors have been at weeding it out...

And if there is fraud, there's this thing called the "Inspector General" whose sole job is to find and prosecute fraud.

Guess who they fired first?

I am deep blue, but if you accept the premise that the government is spending money inefficiently, which is a rational thing to think (after all, the government doesn't pass audits which means no one really knows how DoD money is spent at minimum), then it stands to reason that inspector generals were doing a poor job and therefore their removal is a good thing because they were complicit in the inefficiency.

Firing the policemen so you can commit crime is what's happening, but your argument isn't a convincing one, neither is the age one. We can do better than that, and by focusing on those as the problem, we disempower ourselves and our message.

"There will be a revolution, and it will be bloodless if the left allows it to be." We are going through a revolution.

DOGE is the revolutionary force purging the old government, just like every other revolution. Just like Stalin, just like the bolsheviks, just like Mao. The only reason it's not violent like those yet is because power was peacefully transferred to them, and FBI agents, generals, US marshals, and other agents of enforcing the law aren't completely replaced with loyalists yet.

There's a reason historians are freaking out.

> if you accept the premise that the government is spending money inefficiently, which is a rational thing to think (after all, the government doesn't pass audits which means no one really knows how DoD money is spent at minimum), then it stands to reason that inspector generals were doing a poor job and therefore their removal is a good thing because they were complicit in the inefficiency.

No it does not stand to a reason. Inspector general is not even supposed to deal with efficiency, he is supposed to deal with fraud. Those are two different things.

Second, no, there being a crime does not imply you need to fire all cops. Or cops boss. There would never be any stable enforcement body if you applied that standard.

Third, random decision making creates inefficiency.

> Those are two different things.

They are not orthogonal. Even if they were, you are wrong.

Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency.

> there being a crime does not imply you need to fire all cops

I think you misunderstood. DOGE is a purge of all the "cops" in the government (such as inspector generals) so that crimes can be more easily committed. I was stating that it's rational for someone who is in favor of DOGE to want inspector generals fired which makes the argument that was being made a very weak argument.

> . I was stating that it's rational for someone who is in favor of DOGE to want inspector generals fired which makes the argument that was being made a very weak argument.

Not really. People who are in favor of DOGE seek destruction of goverment and democracy. People who care about efficiency or fraud are not in favor of doge, because doge itself is braking laws and something designed to make the government less efficient.

> government is spending money inefficiently, which is a rational thing to think (after all, the government doesn't pass audits which means no one really knows how DoD money is spent at minimum), then it stands to reason that inspector generals were doing a poor job and therefore their removal is a good thing because they were complicit in the inefficiency.

That doesn't follow.

First, the existence of inefficiency doesn't mean the IGs are doing a poor job. It's rational to expect the optimal amount of inefficiency and fraud to be nonzero, so it could be the case they are performing as good as they possibly can be expected.

Second, government agencies do routinely pass audits. You highlighted the one that doesn't routinely pass audits, but that doesn't mean others don't. Incidentally DoD is the one with the most bloat, and the one DOGE isn't really going after. In fact, they went after USAID first, which just passed an audit.

It's not even 1d chess. It's like playing War with a deck of cards.

The right's take on this also seems premised on the idea that the bureaucracy has just grown and grown (it's been fairly steady over time, and leans small when compared to our international peers, so...) and that nobody's worked on efficiency or tracking work that whole time, when in fact there's been a shitload of that and, while you can find waste or even, rarely, fraud, it is not rampant, unless you define waste or fraud as "doing things I don't want them to, even though it's in the budget". In fact, on the fraud front, a lot of government inefficiency has been deliberately introduced—to fight fraud or corruption. So even if you find something inefficient, you better be careful or you'll be undoing an anti-fraud or anti-corruption measure.

You see stuff like Elon asking for those dumb-ass "five things" emails when a large proportion of government workers already have their productivity tracked multiple ways, many of them quite objective and hard to fake, because people who are not complete morons have already worked on these problems.

This is government based on dumb right-wing misconceptions about how government works. Or, if the people doing it aren't true believers, at least playing to those incorrect notions among voters.

DOGE on government: tech-style "This would be easy to fix if you just..."

It tracks with their opinion of elections. They're sure there's fraud everywhere, but they can't point anything substantial whatsoever. Nevertheless, we have to spend a ton of money to combat it, and wouldn't you know, all the things the propose are designed to do nothing more can fix "problems" that don't exist.

Might be less complicated than that. DOGE are vandals destroying the government because they hate the government.

Or indeed, they are soldiers and they're destroying the government because they're working for/with people who'd be unable to destroy it with direct military action.

In that light, the absence of the 'profit' stage is sort of the point. It's mysterious if you have to come up with a narrative where somebody benefits from the destruction. If it's just sabotage, it serves as its own purpose and nobody around here needs to benefit or indeed survive it.

For some of the cuts there could be a profit angle. You can fire government employees and replace their functions with favored contractors.

Russell Vought, who was installed as head of OMB, should face treason charges after this is all over.

And I'm not one who says such things lightly.

Imho, a willful, intentional impairment of US government functioning as a result of documented philosophical beliefs and statements of intent should be prosecutable.

It's apparent by this point that OMB and DOGE have no intention of making government better and are instead simply shrinking it by any means necessary.

... which is why true believers (in anything) should never be allowed to hold the reigns of power.

Doubt might be the foundation of morals. A zealot can convince themselves anything is acceptable in reference to their goal.

I’m not sure if what you’re proposing as a libel thesis actually is. Keep in mind the Heritage Foundation wrote the literal playbook (Project 2025) that the Trump admin is clearly following. In P2025 they clearly call out the intent to dismantle the U.S. government, remove safeguards and checks against presidential power and replace career public servants with Trump loyalists by the 10s of thousands.

That’s not some liberal talking point. That’s straight from conservatives. Feel free to see how far along they are in implementing P2025 here:

https://www.project2025.observer/

Project 2025 architect and current head of the office of management and budget said, on video:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.

Even Vought & 2025 didn't expect such a blunt chainsaw approach, just firing any and everyone who technically could be fired without cause.

But man they are still seemingly getting so much of the teardown of this nation that they wanted.

There's still a huge amount of America alseep or worshipping those bringing the end of America, but my hope is still that eventually the endless lies and obfuscation wear thing. That we can conclusively see who the villains are. That was a huge part of Project 2025, and I think it was always a fantasy, that America abandoned our allies and starting trade wars and joining with the Russians isn't going to make us think the past was the villains here (you awful monsters).

> Russ Vought Got His Trauma — But Not the Villains He Imagined

https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/02/28/russ-vought-got-his-tr...

all those perspectives have truth to them but you're missing a third: they are preparing for automation.

you can drastically reduce workforce sizes at all companies. AI hasn't done this yet because there's no hole to fill; people fill the hole happily. but.. it's coming and we all know how behind gov (and many businesses) navigate compared to our best tech companies. this reduction in gov size will happen first, then maybe 2026 or whenever you'll hear stories of legislation to increase pay for gov workers and congress to attract better talent.

Wouldn't automation and layoffs be synchronized, in such a plan ?

Also, how do we plan automating park rangers ?

pragmatically, costs. to do it right you need to promise the data isn't leaving, so you'd need to deploy your own stack (costly but not too much). you're explicitly replacing 'people' which left or right probably don't have much support for and people already are incensed when they hear about Musk/Trump, now bring in Machines taking Jobs.

it could happen in the next 4 years, i wouldn't write it off. but all cabinet members need to bring themselves up to speed. trump appears to be moving quickly but it's because he spent 2+ years thinking up everything he's doing. i doubt cabinet picks spent similar time - they probably weren't even sure he'd pick them.

They fired the people helping with automation, and the people with domain knowledge to enable automation.

We know the hack and slash method leads to more corruption and doesn't produce savings.

The resources like 18f would have been critical for what you are describing above.

'Agentic AI' is still a pipe dream, context is still required for application of what we know it can do anyway.

Nothing shows any inkling that DOGE has the appropriate SME's in place. If they do they better start communicating intent and proving themselves.

Right now it seems that they are rank amateurs who are nothing more than an impediment to efficient, effective government.

you bring up good points. but you should also keep in mind sometimes young kids who don't know any better often do a pretty good job.

any attempt to 'do it right' is also meetings and panels and... more ways to slow down and avoid being removed. it's tough

> but you should also keep in mind sometimes young kids who don't know any better often do a pretty good job.

At entry level positions in their field. Not at taking a damn axe to the internal workings of a government they know nothing about.

> sometimes young kids who don't know any better often do a pretty good job.

At greenfield projects.

I'd love examples of where young kids who don't know any better have improved legacy systems already in production.

The entire idea of 18F and USDS was that you needed to fuse {young talent} with {help navigating government requirements} to produce good outcomes. Take away the latter, and you end up with broken things.

My $0.02: Elon and DOGE are being encouraged to be publicly excessive and will then be politically blamed for any negative outcomes in 2026 or '28, if things turn south.

> they are preparing for automation.

This isn't preparing in the slightest. This is impulse-response. Taking a sledgehammer to our institutions and seeing what happens. A cruel child picking apart the legs of a spider just to see how many it can before it dies.

Adding performance guidelines has been done before. It was done in a systematic way that tried very carefully to avoid disruption to functions[1]. DOGE is forcing its way into offices and physically compromising internal data systems in order to feed data into an experiment.

1. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/bkgrd/bri...

i don't have any experience in high level CEO stuff, but i heard when companies are purchased (takeover's etc.) they say consider what you need to cut; then cut double what you initially think.

i think you should keep in mind that both parties have very smart people in them that care about the country and are trying to do the right thing.

it's a shame the best gov employees are probably non-partisan but you'll never see them in those jobs.

>i think you should keep in mind that both parties have very smart people in them that care about the country and are trying to do the right thing.

I think this is an absurd claim that is not supported by the facts. DOGE staff are young Elon sycophants[1] that have openly and explicitly supported eugenic policies[2]. There is no reason to believe that they are trying to do the right thing.

1. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engin...

2. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-...

They said they want "shock and awe" applied against the bureaucracy, to break it down and make it so it can't resist illegal directives. Plus they want to remove its ability to effectively regulate industry.

Why speculate about this when they said exactly what they're gonna do, and why, and then started doing what they said they would?

And will anyone talented enough to put all the pieces back together want to work for the federal government after all this? Feels like a good way of ensuring the only path forward is to pay large sums to private enterprise to fill the gaps.

That's assuming that the expectation is that the government keeps the same services afterwards. It seems the strategy is closer to making services dysfunctional to the point where they're unsalvageable, then cut funding for them because they don't work.

Very telling what he said on The Joe Rogan Experience, that he has found things that are so jaw dropping that he can't point them out because it would get him killed.

But then he has some young nerds with no history dealing with that "sensitive" information putting them in a place where they can then extort those people, or sell that information to others.

That it would then go against the cause, because it would stop his important work, he said.

So I wonder how he's treating Republicans with dirt on their hands, if the then gives them a pass, "for the cause".

Because the real thing he should be doing would then to anonymously blow the whistle on them in such a way that it can't be traced back to him. I'm not sure if he'd do that, even if it's what "the people" he's working for, that is, the American taxpayers, deserve. And he says he's doing it all for them.

OR, it's really easy to prove the government doesn't do anything valuable when you run the government.

My concern is that they don't believe this across all pieces of the government, and they do believe it in ways that only impact everyone else negatively.

Department of Graft for Elon working exactly as designed.

This will be flagged any minute.

It is frustrating that the conversation around DOGE becomes "well we can all at least agree that efficiency is needed, right?"

The government is openly lying about nearly every aspect of its efficiency efforts, and this is not debatable. The only debate is whether they are lying to the courts or to the American public.

They tell the public that Elon Musk, the leader of DOGE, is conducting mass firings, canceling contracts and programs, canceling building leases, etc. Then they go to court and say that Elon Musk is not in charge of DOGE (and not even a part of DOGE at all), that DOGE and OPM do not make any directives about firings in other agencies, that federal agencies are independently determining which contracts to cancel, etc.

Republican Senators have been talking about needing better communication with Musk as he cuts programs, but the government tells federal judges that it's outrageous to suggest that Musk is cutting programs.

Anyone is free to believe that this is good or acceptable, but then they should say that. Say that reducing the deficit is a valid rationale for lying to the courts, lying to the public, obscuring the chain of command, violating duly enacted laws, and violating lawful court orders. It's dishonest to look at criticism and say "what, do people have a problem with efficiency?"

I wonder if some of these humanitarian projects are "wasting the money" on helping three letter agencies manage and finance foreign activities. Then there comes some tech billionaire with a chainsaw and thinks it's funny how he stopped the funding and was cheering about it without noticing what he just did.

To paraphrase someone else, one of the purposes of those projects was to put the "Necessary" in "The United States is a necessary evil."

I believe it was a vaccination drive and DNA sequencing that located Bin Laden in abbottabad.

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