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I bet you a beer Musk and Vivek will not be able to prune anything significant in 4 years, because a) neither has an understanding of how the money is spent b)

I bet you a beer Musk and Vivek will not be able to prune anything significant in 4 years, because a) neither has an understanding of how the money is spent b) actual cuts need to be approved by the same people who introduced the expenses in the first place c) they might not even stick around for 4 years.

Timber-6539 2y ago
a) Accounting is not that hard. Also you can't be seriously making the argument that one of the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are spent... b) I don't think that's true. And even if were to suppose that it were true then your accounting problem would be so easy to solve. c) Agreed. That outcome is more likely.
- riffraff 2y ago
  > a) Accounting is not that hard. Also you can't be seriously making the argument that one of the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are spent... Politics is hard. Government spending is death by a thousand cuts, so the easy things to do are two: remove whole departments (remove all of the education, veterans, and defence, that will net you 1.5T) or ask the heads of each department to do the cuts. But then each one will face the same issue, and the deeper you go, the more you encounter people who want a specific spending e.g. reps who got elected supporting veteran support or education spending or a specific factory in Springfield, Illinois. People favor spending cuts the way they favor tax breaks: don’t cut you, con’t cut me, cut that fellow behind the tree.[0] everyone's is for them in the abstract as long as they don't touch them. And yes, I think the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are being spent, based on the fact that he thinks he can cut "at least 2T" out 6.5T. To save 2T you'd have to erase the Department of Health[1]. If you cut 50% of Social Security, Health and Defence, you'll not get that, and people will riot. Also, I point you to X, where Musk managed to save money by firing 70% of the workforce and <checks notes> losing 80% of the company value. The fact SpaceX and Tesla are successful[2] does not automatically translate in Musk being good at everything. [0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/04/tax-tree/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/04/tax-tree/ [1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... [2] both, let me point out, with massive help from government expenditures
  - Timber-6539 2y ago
    > Politics is hard. Government spending is death by a thousand cuts ... If the solution is not to cut excessive and unchecked spending, you tell us your solution for the dealing with the problem? > remove whole departments (remove all of the education, veterans, and defence, that will net you 1.5T) AFAIK DOGE or rather Elon hasn't specified how they are going to cut $2T from the annual budget so all this is speculation and we don't actually know which sectors might receive the cuts. For all we know it could be a goal setting figure. Even if they don't reach this target, the endeavour is still worthwhile. They have 4 years to sell their plans to Congress after all. In summary you fail to make a good case for why DOGE is a bad idea other than Elon bad. I challenge you to remove this bias from your thinking, it alone just may help you avoid missing the forest for the trees on the issue of government overspend and the relation to uncontrollable public debt.
    - filoeleven 2y ago
      DOGE is bad because the Government Accountability Office already exists, and “auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively” is already part of its mandate. There is no need to create another new program instead of improving what already exists, except that GAO is non-partisan so it won’t cut whatever the new administration says it should, and Musk wouldn’t join it unless he’s at the top.
      - Timber-6539 2y ago
        GAO claims to have saved a paltry $70B [0] in taxpayer dollars last year. Here's them in 2022 saying $247B [1] got lost in that year due to "payment errors". Looks like their job is to only make recommendations on spending and nothing more. [0] https://www.gao.gov/blog/gaos-scorecard-how-we-saved-federal-government-70.4-billion-year https://www.gao.gov/blog/gaos-scorecard-how-we-saved-federal... [1] https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-payment-errors-known-improper-payments-are-continuing-concern https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-payment-errors-known-improp...
        2y ago
sumedh 2y ago
> neither has an understanding of how the money is spent Stop the funding and see what breaks?
- acdha 2y ago
  That’s what you do if your goal is trying to cut costs at your top 20 social media network after accepting it’ll never be in the top 10, not when things actually matter. People depend on government services and you can’t easily undo things like impacts on livelihoods, the environment, the economy, etc.
  - sumedh 2y ago
    If it actually matters then they should make take the auditing seriously and report where the money is going. They don't want the transparency.
    - acdha 2y ago
      They are taking auditing seriously by all accounts since the Obama era but it takes time to dig through an organization that large with such a variety of complex tasks. Not to rehash Chesterton's fence but when lives are on the line you really do want to make sure that you understand how the status quo happened before making changes. This is especially true of an organization designed for unusual events where you don’t have the luxury of rebuilding capacity in the middle of a crisis. I’m sure there is plenty of waste to be found but also that only a tiny amount of that won’t involve significant political wrangling.
- OKRainbowKid 2y ago
  yeah just push to prod and see what happens, understanding the problem is for nerds
  - krapp 2y ago
    "let this sink in."

Timber-6539 2y ago

a) Accounting is not that hard. Also you can't be seriously making the argument that one of the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are spent... b) I don't think that's true. And even if were to suppose that it were true then your accounting problem would be so easy to solve. c) Agreed. That outcome is more likely.

riffraff 2y ago
> a) Accounting is not that hard. Also you can't be seriously making the argument that one of the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are spent... Politics is hard. Government spending is death by a thousand cuts, so the easy things to do are two: remove whole departments (remove all of the education, veterans, and defence, that will net you 1.5T) or ask the heads of each department to do the cuts. But then each one will face the same issue, and the deeper you go, the more you encounter people who want a specific spending e.g. reps who got elected supporting veteran support or education spending or a specific factory in Springfield, Illinois. People favor spending cuts the way they favor tax breaks: don’t cut you, con’t cut me, cut that fellow behind the tree.[0] everyone's is for them in the abstract as long as they don't touch them. And yes, I think the richest man in this world does not know how federal funds are being spent, based on the fact that he thinks he can cut "at least 2T" out 6.5T. To save 2T you'd have to erase the Department of Health[1]. If you cut 50% of Social Security, Health and Defence, you'll not get that, and people will riot. Also, I point you to X, where Musk managed to save money by firing 70% of the workforce and <checks notes> losing 80% of the company value. The fact SpaceX and Tesla are successful[2] does not automatically translate in Musk being good at everything. [0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/04/tax-tree/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/04/tax-tree/ [1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... [2] both, let me point out, with massive help from government expenditures
- Timber-6539 2y ago
  > Politics is hard. Government spending is death by a thousand cuts ... If the solution is not to cut excessive and unchecked spending, you tell us your solution for the dealing with the problem? > remove whole departments (remove all of the education, veterans, and defence, that will net you 1.5T) AFAIK DOGE or rather Elon hasn't specified how they are going to cut $2T from the annual budget so all this is speculation and we don't actually know which sectors might receive the cuts. For all we know it could be a goal setting figure. Even if they don't reach this target, the endeavour is still worthwhile. They have 4 years to sell their plans to Congress after all. In summary you fail to make a good case for why DOGE is a bad idea other than Elon bad. I challenge you to remove this bias from your thinking, it alone just may help you avoid missing the forest for the trees on the issue of government overspend and the relation to uncontrollable public debt.
  - filoeleven 2y ago
    DOGE is bad because the Government Accountability Office already exists, and “auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively” is already part of its mandate. There is no need to create another new program instead of improving what already exists, except that GAO is non-partisan so it won’t cut whatever the new administration says it should, and Musk wouldn’t join it unless he’s at the top.
    - Timber-6539 2y ago
      GAO claims to have saved a paltry $70B [0] in taxpayer dollars last year. Here's them in 2022 saying $247B [1] got lost in that year due to "payment errors". Looks like their job is to only make recommendations on spending and nothing more. [0] https://www.gao.gov/blog/gaos-scorecard-how-we-saved-federal-government-70.4-billion-year https://www.gao.gov/blog/gaos-scorecard-how-we-saved-federal... [1] https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-payment-errors-known-improper-payments-are-continuing-concern https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-payment-errors-known-improp...
      - 2y ago

sumedh 2y ago

> neither has an understanding of how the money is spent Stop the funding and see what breaks?

acdha 2y ago
That’s what you do if your goal is trying to cut costs at your top 20 social media network after accepting it’ll never be in the top 10, not when things actually matter. People depend on government services and you can’t easily undo things like impacts on livelihoods, the environment, the economy, etc.
- sumedh 2y ago
  If it actually matters then they should make take the auditing seriously and report where the money is going. They don't want the transparency.
  - acdha 2y ago
    They are taking auditing seriously by all accounts since the Obama era but it takes time to dig through an organization that large with such a variety of complex tasks. Not to rehash Chesterton's fence but when lives are on the line you really do want to make sure that you understand how the status quo happened before making changes. This is especially true of an organization designed for unusual events where you don’t have the luxury of rebuilding capacity in the middle of a crisis. I’m sure there is plenty of waste to be found but also that only a tiny amount of that won’t involve significant political wrangling.
OKRainbowKid 2y ago
yeah just push to prod and see what happens, understanding the problem is for nerds
- krapp 2y ago
  "let this sink in."