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Time will tell. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of DOGE, and I was well aware of those reasons prior to this action. I think most people agree that

Time will tell. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of DOGE, and I was well aware of those reasons prior to this action. I think most people agree that fat needs to be trimmed; we disagree about how the trimming should happen. All the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth seemed (and still seems) to me to be overblown, but we will see.

mcphage 2y ago
> I think most people agree that fat needs to be trimmed; we disagree about how the trimming should happen. It feels like you're falling for the Politician's Fallacy here ("Something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done."). You're right that there's broad agreement that the fat needs to be trimmed, but that doesn't make DOGE a good idea, and I don't think we've heard anything about them that isn't terrible, illegal, or both.
nobodyandproud 2y ago
It's not overblown. Why isn't “DOGE” dealing with the elephant in the room? https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer stopped working, but I did comment on some of the costs here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562822 Medicare and Medicaid is the single biggest cost--it's quite large in fact--but paying for the actual services (private services) is where the bulk of the costs comes from. The actual fat is private industry over-charging and over-billing Medicare and Medicaid, but this is the same parasitic problem that we see in private health care in the US. Why? Because of regulatory capture and lobbying by the health lobby; the same lobbyists who also double-dip by having both employers pay for the plans as well as having the insured pay out of pocket through "high deductibles". This is the "fat" that MAGA politicians refuse to touch, because they're just as corrupt as every other politician in the so called swamp. PS I doubt you'll see this, but I've been meaning to respond for some time now.

mcphage 2y ago

> I think most people agree that fat needs to be trimmed; we disagree about how the trimming should happen. It feels like you're falling for the Politician's Fallacy here ("Something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done."). You're right that there's broad agreement that the fat needs to be trimmed, but that doesn't make DOGE a good idea, and I don't think we've heard anything about them that isn't terrible, illegal, or both.

nobodyandproud 2y ago

It's not overblown. Why isn't “DOGE” dealing with the elephant in the room? https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer stopped working, but I did comment on some of the costs here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562822 Medicare and Medicaid is the single biggest cost--it's quite large in fact--but paying for the actual services (private services) is where the bulk of the costs comes from. The actual fat is private industry over-charging and over-billing Medicare and Medicaid, but this is the same parasitic problem that we see in private health care in the US. Why? Because of regulatory capture and lobbying by the health lobby; the same lobbyists who also double-dip by having both employers pay for the plans as well as having the insured pay out of pocket through "high deductibles". This is the "fat" that MAGA politicians refuse to touch, because they're just as corrupt as every other politician in the so called swamp. PS I doubt you'll see this, but I've been meaning to respond for some time now.