Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

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Hot Take:

Maybe this DOGE approach of sledgehammering the bureaucracies is all there is left to do?

Look, I have family that works for the Feds. I have also collected money from federal programs. I know the pain that is coming and is here. It really really sucks, and it will suck for me too, though not as badly.

But the 'scalpel' approach where you go in, understand the system, take out the bad parts, leave the good, don't get rid of the best people and programs; yeah, it doesn't work very well either. I've seen it tried in a few organizations, some have had a little success, most have not. What usually happens is that the most politically connected programs and people stay and the least are cut, and only after years of twaddling and overspending anyway. THe people that are there to cut things get swamped in meetings and smoke blown up their ass from every direction; they are made incompetent by design, and so the cuts are incompetent too.

I'm not about to say that I have any idea of the history of NASA spending cuts or those of the US gov in general. I know SLS is a dumb program but only because I know people that say that.

But, again, Hot Take, maybe the only thing left to try is the sledgehammer?

My perception as one who works in space based climate research is that both have being done, mass firings of people that makes no account of their skills or value, plus targeted firings that are less about finding waste and more about advancing ideology - anti-diversity, anti climate and earth science. From my view it’s awful, as I opine that the goal is to starve all non-military or non-human spaceflight efforts.

Cutting all probationary employees or recent promotions was just an awful strategy. For every department in the government.

But why would you do that at all? If you want to save some money why not replace expensive healthcare system with one from some European country? That would save more money.

Sounds less like a hot take than a false dichotomy? The only choice is one of two non-specific analogies?

> Sounds less like a hot take than a false dichotomy? The only choice is one of two non-specific analogies?

It's several assumptions deep to get to that kind of statement which is even more.... Interesting.

First, you have to assume that all federal agencies are the same, so if one needs to be smaller or more efficient, clearly they all need to be. Or if you have experience with one agency, others must be the same. And that your personal experience is representative. This is hilarious for a category so broad that it includes homeland security and NASA.

Secondly, you have to get very reductive about the direction of these agencies. Big agencies? "Well we HAVE to do SOMETHING!" When of course "just leave it alone, go after the actually expensive and wasteful things in our economy like health insurance or the military" is ignored.

Thirdly you need to assume that anyone involved with actually managing this process gives a single shit about the issue at hand. And they don't. Nobody who gave a shit about efficiency, the size/budget of federal agencies, or the power of the federal government would vote to +265% the budget of ICE. that's year over year, by the way. Nor would they approve the largest deficit increase ever moved through congress.

These people are jangling keys in front of your face and taking the money out of your wallet. And by discussing these cuts in good faith at all, we are reaching for the keys.

Destroying things is easy building things is hard. In a six month term musk destroyed a lot. What is he rebuilding?

We are overspending! Let's, uh, sledgehammer a small part of the pie (non-military non-entitlement spending) while increasing military and law enforcement budgets and cutting taxes!

The only thing left to do was the sledgehammer?

You're onto something.

The issue is, if you do small targeted cuts, you'll spare the very people you want to cut. Because they're the best at playing office politics and finding ways to justify why they shouldn't be cut.

If you can't find a way to bypass that, your options are few. One of those options is the sledgehammer approach. Axe entire agencies, fire everyone and never hire of the fired people back. Rebuild an organization from the ground up, with new people and less rot.

It's what was done in ex-USSR countries after the fall of USSR. It wasn't pretty. It worked.

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