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It’s hard to use words like “unprecedented” to describe what has happened this last week, but the disarray the government currently in has no precedent to my kn

• silisili 2y ago
  Certainly. I for one am curious how this turns out. I give it an 80% chance of failing spectacularly, 20% chance of 'wow, we were wasting that much money?' The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend without any limit or regard to logic. It doesn't -feel- like much has ever been done to address it. Well, now someone decided to just sledgehammer the whole thing. I'm both horrified and hopeful at what comes from that.
  • chii 2y ago
    but with sledgehammer comes the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, i understand the need to remove unnecessary costs like DEI etc, but actual productive output like science fundings etc are important in nation building. What i dont like is how trump is looking to (or is being manipulated to) move a lot of public spending into private entities. For example, the recent ai stargate announcements. How is the public spending meant to benefit all americans, rather than the few that own those companies?
    • ReptileMan 2y ago
      > but actual productive output like science fundings etc are important in nation building. But it seems to me that DEI has so pervasively infiltrated the academy and scientific community, that excising them is extremely hard without drastic measures. There was an open letter in 2020 summer from a lot of "prominent scientists" that claimed that suddenly social distancing didn't matter because BLM. I think that any such people that are viewing the world trough this lenses shouldn't touch federal money on account of being idiotically political or egregiously stupid.
      • neuronexmachina 2y ago
        > There was an open letter in 2020 summer from a lot of "prominent scientists" that claimed that suddenly social distancing didn't matter because BLM. If you're referring to this letter, that characterization is pretty much the opposite of what it says: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette...
        • ReptileMan 2y ago
          >While everyone is concerned about the risk of Covid, there are risks with just being black in this country that almost outweigh that sometimes. Does it? >White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19. >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. Do you think that anyone that has put his name under such idiotic sentence deserves state money in any form - except payments under ADA?
          • defrost 2y ago
            > Does it? Sure .. All the risks of being black in the USofA and the additional risk of being even more likely to contract COVID while black. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/11/22-0072_article#:~:text=The%20percentage%20with%20more%20exposure,reported%20differences%20were%20statistically%20significant. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/11/22-0072_article#:~:t...
    • blackqueeriroh 2y ago
      > I mean, i understand the need to remove unnecessary costs like DEI etc, but actual productive output like science fundings etc are important in nation building. So you don’t believe there should be an attempt to reckon with the structural forces in play since the beginning of the country that have systematically lowered the wealth for Black Americans, trans and queer Americans, disabled Americans, neurodiverse Americans, and immigrant Americans?
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >What i dont like is how trump is looking to (or is being manipulated to) move a lot of public spending into private entities. Hey you finally found the Bailey. The DEI arguments were just to win your vote. Aka the Motte. He woulda said he'd fix whatever you hated to get your vote. Now we gave him the keys to the castle and gets what he's always wanted. What the richest people who donated to him always wanted.
  • voxl 2y ago
    Anyone who thinks the government should be "run like a business" does not deserve to be given an ounce of serious consideration in any sphere of intellectual discourse. A business does not get to print profit.
    • hermannj314 2y ago
      Most of my interactions with government take place with state and local governments and they are definitely not allowed to print profit as far as I recall. Public schools, police departments, parks, streets - I interact with these more than any other government service and no of them can print their own money and most of them work really hard to be run like businesses that care deeply about budgets and managing costs.
      • voxl 2y ago
        This is what we call a strawman in the business, as I'm clearly referring to the federal government. Yet, none of your examples should be run as a business either. They should be run as nonprofits. Not many nonprofit CEO oligarchs wreaking havoc in the government these days are there?
      • blackqueeriroh 2y ago
        What part of the federal government is “printing profit,” as you say?
        • hermannj314 2y ago
          I never said any part of the federal government is. Why am I being asked to a defend a position I never took?
    • pstuart 2y ago
      And they've clearly never worked for a large business. Any organization comprising large numbers of people are going to be inefficient and unwieldy.
    • honzabe 2y ago
  • pgodzin 2y ago
    > The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend without any limit or regard to logic. It doesn't -feel- like much has ever been done to address it. In terms of "growth", the number of federal civilian government employees has basically never been lower as a percentage of the population. https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/report_580_high_dpi/public/atoms/files/1-12-17bud-f1.png?itok=UGLVQAwc https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/report_580_h...
    • silisili 2y ago
      OK, now do spending?
      • mjamesaustin 2y ago
        It's all consumed by the military industrial complex, which no doubt will have a continual budget increase as it does every year regardless of the administration.
        • honzabe 2y ago
          Military analyst Ryan McBeth argues the military industrial complex is nowadays a lot smaller and less influential than people think - he even uses a mental shortcut "military industrial complex does not exist" [1] - make of it what you will. His arguments seem pretty convincing to me. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2gIId1dpDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2gIId1dpDs
          • nxobject 2y ago
            Yes and no – I do believe that the MIC, explicitly stated, doesn't exist now as it has before: he illustrates it by noting the fact that the top five legacy arms and defense manufacturers don't earn as much, or have the same market cap, as the top five in other companies (say, tech.) But arguably a lot more companies that aren't on the face of it defense and arms manufacturers are getting a larger and larger piece of the pie. Tech companies rely on defense – and "national security" – spending as key revenue streams, and they've built the connections with the government to match. (I think both SpaceX and Oracle are very much obvious examples now.) So, perhaps the definiton of the MIC has to be updated for the 21st century to include "national security" spending and other significant technical suppliers.
  • stevage 2y ago
    The thing is, clumsy attempts to save money by randomly shutting down departments or firing staff can easily end up costing much more, by creating expensive problems that the departments were in charge of preventing. Or when a couple of years later it turns out you needed those things, and it's very expensive to try to start up a thing again, replace all the lost knowledge and institutional experience etc.
    • pstuart 2y ago
      It's not an accident. The whole point is to destroy these institutions, they've made no secret of that. I get that there's plenty to not like about the Federal Government (and by plenty I mean a lot), but the answer to addressing that is to fix the problems rather than burn everything to the ground.
      • mycall 2y ago
        Too late now, the voters asked for this.
        • anon7000 2y ago
          Sure, by 3M votes. Fact is that no, most of the country did not ask for this. In fact, Trump explicitly lied about project 2025 during the campaign. So many may have been swayed to vote Trump, with the understanding that project 2025 was not on the table. Those people did not ask for this.
          • buddavis_ 2y ago
            Oh, but they did. Trump has been spewing out his plans for 10 years. His inability to understand complex situations, lack of world knowledge, ignorance of history. The voters knew exactly what they were voting for.
            • pstuart 2y ago
              Just like economics has been found to have far from rational actors, it's clear that there are millions of "low information voters". Many of them likely voted for him because he's that actor on tv who entertains them. But yes, plenty of his voters heard what he had to say and liked it. Tangent: in the United States, more people believe in angels than in evolution (69% vs 60%).
  • anovikov 2y ago
    >The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend without any limit or regard to logic. That's not the case really. In the last 50 years there was no trend in federal spending vs GDP, with widest movements being a growth from ~19% in FY2001 (which ended with 09/11) to almost 25% in 2009, with subsequent decline to the same average as before. Nothing catastrophic. In the immediate postwar era of course, the spending has been much lower at around 15% but that was when the population was 9 years younger and no Medicare or Medicaid existed, i.e. old or poor sick people were just left to fend for themselves. In 2024 out of 6.8T in federal spending, Medicare and Medicaid was 1.9T. Remove that and you are back to a typical 1950s level of 16-17% federal spending to GDP.
    • silisili 2y ago
      Two points. First, that's not true. Ignoring COVID, it keeps going up, slowly but surely. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S Secondly, why does the government need to spend to match GDP? The more productive we are, the more the government spends?
      • anovikov 2y ago
        In theory, it should grow faster than GDP. Because government spending is inefficient but it is able to do things that the free market can't, so poor/less developed country should try to minimise it to enable fast, efficient growth, while a rich country should try to achieve the best results for everyone and that is done through government spending (fast growth is impossible anyway because it's done by adopting someone else' technology and when you are already the richest it's not possible as yours is the best one - fast growth is a catch-up growth). In addition, it becomes inevitable because with high per capita GDP there is a lot of excess income which people want to invest because their needs are covered, and varying outcomes of those investments (even if purely random, by chance), tend to compound, which results in entrenched, systemic inequality, that might even crystallise into caste system. Only way to counteract it is more taxes and more government spending, so that there's less excess income left to invest, and outcomes of those less lucky are compensated by gov spending.
  • root_axis 2y ago
    Using a sledgehammer is reckless and dangerous.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • iancmceachern 2y ago
      No doubt people have already died here
  • metamet 2y ago
    Musk et al.'s plan has been out in the open for a while. Lots of interviews and opinions from them the last few years, so I wouldn't even consider it an open secret. This video is probably the most succinct summary of it I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no It was made two months ago and has been right on the nose so far in terms of the phases in their process.
    • honzabe 2y ago
      Well... that will give me nightmares. And I am not even an American.
    • archagon 2y ago
      I.e. Curtis Yarvin’s playbook for turning the country into a corporate-flavored monarchy: https://archive.is/iAtnM https://archive.is/iAtnM Note that “run openly on authoritarianism” is step one.
  • napierzaza 2y ago
    [dead]
  • phonon 2y ago
    Federal discretionary (non military) spending in 2023 was around $917 Billion. Of that, $131 Billion was Veteran Benefits, and $100 Billion was Health related. That leaves $686 Billion. [0] Total US GDP in 2023 was $27.3 Trillion...so around 2.5% of total GDP. GDP grows (inflation adjusted) around 2.3% per year. US Health Care is 17-18% of US GDP. So while federal discretionary spending is important, it's not nearly as important as keeping growth up, and getting a handle on health costs. [0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59729 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59729
  • gniv 2y ago
    I give it a higher chance of succeeding in saving money while at the same time destroying a lot of things and creating problems that will take decades to fix.
  • throw__away7391 2y ago
    Even if they managed to find 100% savings in the spending they are targeting, they will not make a dent in the budget. Doing that and cutting all military spending would not balance the budget. Most Federal discretional spending is on Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. I'm all for cutting this, reducing benefits to current recipients to bring spending to sustainable levels, but to date I haven't found a politician to vote for who endorsed this position.
    • silisili 2y ago
      I'm sure I've already made tons of not so friendlies in this thread, why not more. Why not just cut and run on social security? I've paid in my whole life and probably won't even take a cent from it. We realize it's a mostly unsustainable ponzi scheme dependent on huge population growth that nobody wants, why not just tell us 'sorry, your money is gone, we're ending the program'? Single payer I'm all for. Just in case you thought I was picking a side :).
      • Volundr 2y ago
        > Why not just cut and run on social security? There's no appetite for this for the exact same reason social security was created in the first place. Without it you have a bunch of senior citizens out on the street unable to work and unable to afford basic necessities. For all the gnashing of teeth on "entitlement spending" the reality without it is pretty unpalatable to most.
    • neuronexmachina 2y ago
      Prediction: The US deficit will be higher in 2028 than in 2024.
      • matwood 2y ago
        As long as we fire all the people who measure these things, they won't exist. /s
    • cycomanic 2y ago
  • nxobject 2y ago
    That's certainly the country (or at least the stock markets) as a whole. I'm not sure whether individual agencies – like the FBI(*) or the Inspector Generals – will ever get what integrity they had back. (*) I say this as someone who thinks COINTELPRO was a key example of a law enforcement agency getting high off its fumes and shredding human rights, of which the list is endless.
    • buddavis_ 2y ago
      The 'brand' of the FBI is worthless. For half of the country it was investigating the criminal. For the other half of the country it is the result of the purge. No-one will trust the FBI from here on out. Need to delete it and re-create the function with a different name.
  • me_again 2y ago
    I don't believe there is really any interest in balancing the Federal budget or saving money. It's a flimsy pretext for purging every person and program not ideologically aligned with the incoming administration. Would anyone like to bet whether the national debt will be lower in 2029?
    • nxobject 2y ago
      God, if it's a purge, I hope someone has a "corrupt government contractor" index fund out there I can throw whatever severance I'll get in so I can at least hope to have a retirement.
    • eastbound 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • nxobject 2y ago
        How is #metoo equivalent having a series of private citizens sideline officials in every government department, including the Treasury, to get access to federal administrative and financial databases to unilaterally conduct mass layoffs [0] and give the president ammunition for whatever funding fight he's going to have with states next? And promise to suspend normal conflict-of-interest rules in a completely unfunded deferred resignment offer? And forcing senior civil servants to resign throughout all departments and agencies, including firing checks-and-balances mechanisms like Inspectors General while they're at it? [0] It looks like OPM is targeting at least a 30% reduction in workforce this year.
        • eastbound 2y ago
          [flagged]
      • relaxing 2y ago
        [flagged]
    • int_19h 2y ago
      If they really wanted to save money, Israel would be the first foreign aid recipient to cut, not one of the few left untouched.
  • neuronexmachina 2y ago
    How much do you think the deficit will be reduced by the digital information-scrubbing described in the post?
  • system7rocks 2y ago
    WE ARE A HUGE COUNTRY. There is a disconnect with how big we are and what infrastructure is needed to support it. Let's say we cut everything but Senate, House, President, VERY basic defense. Our military is larger than probably anything else. I think the naivety is hilarious. Our employees and government bloat is big because our nation is big. There is no way around this. It's time to impeach, Trump. Good night.
  • thayne 2y ago
    How much money will be wasted in all the lawsuits springing from Trumps actions?
  • throwaway4220 2y ago
    You’ll save 5% on your gas bill if you toss out your spare tire.
  • ineedasername 2y ago
    *> chance of 'wow, we were wasting that much money?' Do you know where I could get some data on that topic?
• dragonwriter 2y ago
  > It’s hard to use words like “unprecedented” to describe what has happened this last week, but the disarray the government currently in has no precedent to my knowledge. Certainly, there is no precedent in US history for an authoritarian, law-flouting executive takeover centering illegal purges of the executive branch as a whole (and a particular focus on illegally purging federal law enforcement and internal government accountability officials), racial scapegoating, and massive "deportation" efforts that rapidly encompassing setting up massive concentration camps, almost all done by executive fiat, with the tacit support of a Congressional majority that is ideologically aligned with both the policies of the executive and the decision to execute them without regard to existing law rather than through legislation. There are a history of similar things one might point to in other countries, but it's a first for the USA.
  • palmfacehn 2y ago
    The hyperbole is a bit much for me. It shouldn't amaze me, but here we are. Partisans are able to construe spending cuts and shrinking the purview of the state, with authoritarianism. Although I am not inclined to agree, it is fair to dispute specific funding cuts or firings. It would also be reasonable to temper those arguments against the futility of general cut-backs without specific cuts. Consider a few hypotheticals: If we accept that special interest groups exist for spending, then it would also be reasonable to accept that these groups would protest cuts in the most hyperbolic way imaginable. If we accept that the Federal gov. is not free from corruption, selective enforcement, what is in effect "legislation from unelected bureaucrats", or entrenched bureaucracies which oppose the will of the people - If we accept that any of this exists or is possible, it is not unreasonable to accept that some of these bureaus would be cut or eliminated. It is reasonable to expect that these bureaus and special interest groups would stand in solidarity. They have every incentive to join together and expand the largess of the central government. It makes sense that partisan media groups would paint any criticism or cuts in the most hyperbolic and odious terms. All of these things are easy to reason about. It is also easy to take cursory glance at the historical record. It is easy to examine the economic and political ideologies of the odious authoritarians which the partisans are so quick to invoke. Where did these odious authoritarians cut spending? Where did they reduce the purview of the state? If we examine this, we will find that cuts and reductions are entirely antithetical to the authoritarian platform. It is a contradiction in terms. For these reasons, I regard the comparisons as ridiculous hyperbole. Humor me here. How is the following not a non-sequitur, "Cutting spending and regulation is authoritarianism. What we need are more regulations, central planning from unelected bureaucrats and socialism"? Can anyone here explain that?
• Aeolun 2y ago
  > the disarray the government currently in has no precedent to my knowledge I would like to refer you to what happened slightly more than 8 years ago when a new president took office.
  • prpl 2y ago
    I worked at a national lab for 11 years, including all 4 years of the previous term and through multiple government shutdowns. This is much, much more disarray. I no longer work work at a national lab, but am well connected with those who do
• gadders 2y ago
  Trump was elected on a mandate to dismantle the deep state. This is what people voted for.
  • _y5hn 2y ago
    [dupe]
    • derangedHorse 2y ago
      > Billionaire ransacking the Treasury Your article summaries already reek of bias. The article link was truncated but I found and read it. It claims conflicts of interest and makes the assumption that it poses national security risks without knowing how DOGE is accessing the data or how much access Elon himself has.
    • gadders 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • drawkward 2y ago
        lol @ taking Trump at his word.
  • drawkward 2y ago
    The deep state does not exist. It is a bogeyman, so that Trump can rip up whatever he likes.
    • gadders 2y ago
      LOL. You must not read papers.
      • drawkward 2y ago
        If the deep state existed, Trump would have been convicted of treason for January 6th and shot like a dog, not impeached-but-not-removed. Rub those brain cells together and use your logic organ, dude.