I'll say it. The federal government is not bloated and it is broadly efficient; therefore a DOGE-like effort to fire people at the executive level is unwarranted, and itself an instance of waste, fraud, and abuse. So far we've given the people saying the government is inefficient too much latitude and deference without having to prove their position.

One thing we keep letting slide, even on this site where we value precision of words and evidence, is letting them say "efficiency" without defining it. Whenever someone says something is "efficient" you have to ask "by what metric?" Saying something is efficient or inefficient is meaningless on its own, it needs further specification to draw conclusions.

So by what metric is the government efficient? These charts say it all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_employees_in_the_Un...

This paints a picture of a federal government that's able to stay a fixed size as the country grows by offloading critical functions to local governments. That's exactly what everyone here wants the government to do, and it's doing it.

We also let the people saying the government is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse to keep saying that without contending with the IG system. How has that system failed so badly at policing fraud and abuse? I know the answer (they haven't failed at all, they're very good at what they do) but the people supporting DOGE efforts seem to not be aware of IGs at all. How much fraud has been persecuted by DOGE versus the IG system? The answer is DOGE has not prosecuted any fraud whatsoever.