21 ms·

The story of DOGE, as told by federal workers

• mlinhares 1y ago
  Utter and complete disgrace, I hope people don't forget what was done here.
  • tines 1y ago
    You can't forget what you never knew. Nobody's paying attention and nobody cares. If you disagree, then explain how we got here in the first place.
    • foogazi 1y ago
      It’s easier to destroy than to build I see hollowing out of institutions but no one is building anything
  • benjiro 1y ago
    > I hope people don't forget what was done here Read some of the LeopardsAteMyFace stories on reddit, and there are tons of federal workers that voted for this, and still are on the Kool-Aid, even as they are financially struggling. One federal worker that voted for Trump, had his wife die during the mess, crossed multiple layers of hell to be rejected aid, dropped into poverty levels ... he still thinks that it was not Trumps fault. Trump just need "guidance", "temperance"... Side note: he is also heavily religious so the overlap was not hard to spot, between religion and zealot worshiping.
• miltonlost 1y ago
  Remember: if anyone supported DOGE or still supports DOGE, they (both DOGE and their supporters) were not ever serious about the debt or government efficiency.
  • tester5555 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • miltonlost 1y ago
      I highly highly highly highly highly doubt that website and their data. It also doesn't mention how much was lost in those contracts because they were actually valuable science, health, diplomatic, or medicinal. For instance, $3 billion saved from cancelling "Increasing Community Access to Testing, Treatment and Response (ICATT). The ICATT program provides access to no-cost COVID-19 testing in U.S. communities to people that are uninsured and no-cost COVID-19 vaccines to people that are underinsured and uninsured." That is shortsighted, evil, inefficient (better to keep pandemics from not happening), and idiotic to cancel. Again, anyone supporting DOGE is not a serious thinker or actually cares about what is "waste"
      • tester5555 1y ago
        [flagged]
        • miltonlost 1y ago
          Do you think we should have cut funding for giving out COVID vaccines for free to the uninsured? Do you think that is actually helpful? See I can ask questions too. And the number I propose is 0%
          • shadowgovt 1y ago
            DOGE is, I think, a response to a real issue Americans have with their government: its process of evaluating cost and benefit is glacial in a world that is moving ever faster. Unfortunately, it's glacial for a reason; there's 380 million people in the country and 8 billion in the world. That's a lot of effect to weigh when making changes to the status quo. There's a three-panel comic about a person deciding they need change in their life and getting it by taking a chainsaw to their room. Panel three is them looking around and going "oh no." That is, unfortunately, sort of how I conceptualize DOGE.
• GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  https://archive.is/TiaSF https://archive.is/TiaSF
• exe34 1y ago
  The whole point of Doge was to fire the agencies that were investigating all of Musk's companies that were breaking laws. That and getting rid of competent people who might stand up to the orangefuhrer.
  • corralal 1y ago
    Do you have an example of a cut to something that was investigating Musk? I'm not saying you're wrong - I have no clue and I'm truly curious.
    • trymas 1y ago
      One internet search away: https://qz.com/elon-musk-doge-nhtsa-tesla-neuralink-spacex-fda-faa-1851765781 https://qz.com/elon-musk-doge-nhtsa-tesla-neuralink-spacex-f...
      • parineum 1y ago
        Which one was "investigating" musk?
        • exe34 1y ago
          https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025.02.13_fact_sheet_re_musk_investigations.pdf https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025.02....
          • parineum 1y ago
            Broken link.
            • exe34 1y ago
              Apologies, it seems to move every few months. https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-judiciary.house.gov/files/migrated/UploadedFiles/2025.02.13_Fact_Sheet_re_Musk_Investigations.pdf https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/dem...
• brandonb 1y ago
  For those curious about a more thoughtful model of government reform--which is still sorely needed--the original US Digital Service team just published a bunch of interviews: https://usdigitalserviceorigins.org/interviews/ https://usdigitalserviceorigins.org/interviews/
  • nxobject 1y ago
    I hope a similar oral history will be done for 18F – it ran very, very lean.
  • codyb 1y ago
    The US Digital Service has done a ton of great work in a thoughtful manner. Thanks Obama!
  • arcbyte 1y ago
    I was working for a federal contractor when we had a release go out that had a problem. Some digital service folks got sent in, arriving about the same day we figured out the environmental problem planted by the previous contractor for the program. The digital services folks were extremely useful in getting us in contact with other gov folks to speed up releasing the fix, but otherwise they didn't do anything. They took all the credit afterward though.
    • fifilura 1y ago
      Thats what seniors do. For good and bad, but they can be invaluable. Lots of problems are primarily people problems.
    • zbentley 1y ago
      In many ways, the fact that Digital Service intervention was useful/necessary there, and the fact that you thought that other than liaising with other feds they "didn't do anything" is indicative of a major--perhaps the major--issue with the government's overreliance on contractors for technical projects: since the contractors are tasked with building, and the non-contractor feds are tasked with approving/releasing/delivering, nobody wins. Contractor teams end up staffed largely with builders who are held accountable for what they build not shipping, but it usually isn't shipping because it's held up by approval processes outside of the sphere of influence in which the contractor operates. Outside that sphere, feds tasked with releasing on a timeline end up frequently confused by perceived reticence on the part of the contractor--"why aren't they getting this bugfix out the door ASAP?" (answer: they are only often staffed for/limited in authority to building the thing and throwing it over the wall, not making sure it goes live). What you get as a result is a situation where a cross-context group like the Digital Service is often the only way to speed up those bottlenecked processes. In other words, the problem was the failure at "getting us in contact with other gov folks to speed up releasing the fix", not the coding of the fix itself. The larger solution to that failure mode is to fix the accountability matrix (I'll never stop linking to this article, which sums it up so well: https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/understanding-the-cascade-of-rigidity https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/understanding-the-cascade-of-...). That can mean a lot of things. It might mean that contractors are staffed/expected to work with fed shareholders running the release/approval processes to get their changes actually shipped. It might mean that federal departments bring more "build" or "technically own product delivery" expertise in-house. It might mean fixing/streamlining approval processes (this is lot harder than it sounds).
• Covzire 1y ago
  What's certainly not going away is that Government waste and bloat is a home-run bipartisan issue where the size of the government has vastly and consistently outgrown the private sector in both times of feast and famine. Everyone left and right instinctively knows this is, that it's a problem that they're both taxed directly for and (I hope) many people know they're also indirectly paying for it through inflation caused by government borrowing beyond their actual tax income. DOGE may not be the right answer, but it's the first actual reduction in spending in my lifetime.
  • nxobject 1y ago
    > they're also indirectly paying for it through inflation caused by government borrowing beyond their actual tax income. Don't worry – unless we stop giving out tax cuts as well, we'll still be running deficits until Social Security and Medicare become insolvent. For the average taxpayer, it's about fiscal sustainability - "smaller government" may as well be a feel-good abstraction compared to that.
  • ChocolateGod 1y ago
    People are having a tough period where they think their government doesn't care about them, to see so much wastage ignites the hard feelings that the "elite" has prioritised others than their own people. I believe that is the reason why DOGE was supported by Trump, but I do think something like DOGE is needed but perhaps for better and less egotistical reasons.
    • actionfromafar 1y ago
      And there was.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • walls 1y ago
      > People are having a tough period where they think their government doesn't care about them, to see so much wastage ignites the hard feelings that the "elite" has prioritised others than their own people. Have you considered that maybe a segment of the population feels that way because of decades of propaganda targeted at dismantling the government?
• rendx 1y ago
  I often find myself guilty of not reading the article but only the comments here myself, so in case this is you: Go take the time and read it, even if it's painful. I read a lot of heavy stuff, but this collection of quotes makes me sick to my stomach. And even more so: how this inhumane, perverted treatment of fellow human beings, regardless of whether you fantasize/reason that DOGE does net good for the planet, finds no mention yet in the comments here, at all. To add to that, these are people who have spent much of their life in public service, for the benefit of society. To be honest, I don't even know what is worse; the quotes, or that.
  • 47282847 1y ago
    Even if you don’t give a f*ck about decency, it is simply irrational to do it like that if it were about cost cutting. The only goal of this can be to create trauma and more violence, like one person in the article rightfully quotes. This is to provoke people into violence, plain and simple.
    • 0xy 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • actionfromafar 1y ago
        The useless grifters are in the Trump administration.
        • phkahler 1y ago
          I suspect they transcend political party. Joe Rogan asked Elon about the worst of it. Elon paused, reflected, and said they couldn't cut the worst of it or he might get a target on his back - like get shot. That was a very disturbing moment.
          • timeon 1y ago
            [flagged]
• debo_ 1y ago
  Lyn Alden had a good, terse analysis of why DOGE was unlikely to be effective in this newsletter[0]. The math was simple, the folks behind DOGE must have themselves known that their stated mission was impossible. It starts with these paragraphs, if you want to seek to it: "This is the goal of the newly proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. This is an advisory commission rather than an official government department. Musk has famously vowed to cut “at least $2 trillion” in federal spending—roughly 30% of last year’s federal budget. Although this sounds good on paper, achieving such a target will be quite challenging, given the composition of government spending. Last year, the government spent $6.75 trillion, with $4.1 trillion (61%) classified as mandatory spending." [0] https://www.lynalden.com/full-steam-ahead-all-aboard-fiscal-dominance/ https://www.lynalden.com/full-steam-ahead-all-aboard-fiscal-...
  • AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    Classifying some spending as "mandatory" is a ruse to make people ignore the potential for any savings there. The largest component of "mandatory" spending is health spending (e.g. Medicare), and it certainly isn't the case that Medicare is fully optimized. For example, is it overpaying for anything? Paying for things that are ineffective or unnecessary? Would it be better to means test certain benefits so that the government isn't making big social assistance payouts to recipients with a net worth over a million dollars? Is there any Medicare fraud? The next largest and almost as big is social security, so what happens if we means test that program, or even just get rid of the reverse means testing in the existing program which makes larger payouts to people who made more money? These things would all reduce "mandatory" spending, potentially by a significant amount, and there is nothing preventing that from happening except for the false insistence that it can't be done.
    • rincebrain 1y ago
      The problem with means-testing benefits is that it often will cost more to means-test than to just accept nonzero fraud rates past a very minimal point, and there is a significant amount of friction introduced when you add more friction to people who do not have time or energy to spare. e.g. if I ask you to submit receipts for literally everything that you bought in the last week, in order to give you a $20 stipend weekly, you will probably not bother, even if you could use the $20, and it will probably cost more than $20 to pay me for the time processing that. I'm not saying there's no waste, but I am saying that the optimal amount of waste to reward is nonzero.
• charcircuit 1y ago
  >She was literally wailing, inconsolable, because she could not get into a childcare facility she could afford on such short notice. She literally had to choose between her little child and working. People need to understand that the world doesn't revolve around themselves. Your employer doesn't have to bend to your every will and need. She also had the opportunity to get 8 months of severance if she was that short on money.
  • zugi 1y ago
    This is the quote that bugged me the most too, as it's an obvious attempt at pure emotional manipulation. Working from home as a federal employee was always a limited time privilege, not some sort of fundamental right. And it sounds like she actually did find a place to drop off her child: "Her explaining to her manager the way her child cried and begged Mommy to stay home broke me." Yeah, most employed adults have to leave their children somewhere when they go to work.
• hkhanna 1y ago
  a16z and certain Sequoia partners specifically supported this during the 2024 election. If haphazard, cruel dismantling of state capacity bothers you, avoid raising money from venture capital firms that supported it.
  • delusional 1y ago
    > If haphazard, cruel dismantling of state capacity bothers you, avoid raising money from venture capital firms that supported it. And maybe (just maybe) raise your voice in _actionable_ support for dismantling the complexes these money ghouls use to wage war against you and regular society.
    • codyb 1y ago
      Peaceful protests, calling your reps, voting, and donating to organizations that have lawyers in the courts and lobbyists on Washington repping your interests are all super helpful relatively low effort steps that have impact when done en masse.
      • Mc_Big_G 1y ago
        Respectfully, I've not seen any of these actions make a measurable difference in the last 10 years.
        • otikik 1y ago
          I have seen not making these actions not make a measurable difference.
        • pstuart 1y ago
          That is an issue, but it's important to signal to those paying attention that the resistance is there and to not give up. We've entered Civil War II and I fear it will have to get much worse before there's any chance of turning things around. Regardless we can never give up.
• carabiner 1y ago
  These are sad stories but you have to wonder how many such stories you might collect from any mostly-functional organization. Certainly there were people who had unjust firings, toxic interactions before Trump and Musk. People who work at big tech companies also have experiences like this (layoffs while on maternity leave, while getting treated for terminal illnesses etc.). This isn't a sign of any grave malice and is inevitable in a large org. What I do wonder is whether DOGE achieved any significant savings, and that is not addressed in the article.
  • tedmaj0rPeye 1y ago
    Apples and oranges. The fallout of a few employees being screwed by Google or similar is a lot different than the fallout of everyone being screwed by government. Your concern for an illusory fiat ledger is noted.
  • estearum 1y ago
    > What I do wonder is whether DOGE achieved any significant savings The answer is no.
  • zugi 1y ago
    Indeed the article is less an article and more a random collection of gripes and quotes. The third paragraph betrays that they're not really doing any analysis... > The government would likely end 2025 with about 300,000 fewer employees... The total figure amounted to one in eight workers... In recent weeks, hundreds of the employees DOGE pushed out have reportedly been offered reinstatement. "Hundreds" coming back is portrayed as if it offsets the 300,000 gone. They continue: > The true scope of DOGE’s attack on the federal government remains unknown. While there is no reason to think it achieved meaningful cost savings or operational efficiencies... and then go on to complain about an immigrant database, which has nothing to do with the reduction in the federal workforce. Simple quick math would suggest $60 billion or so a year in savings from the workforce reduction. Of course the larger savings is in the whole programs that were eliminated, not just the salaries and benefits savings. DOGE saving $2 trillion / year is indeed impossible. That kind of savings would require a national conversation about what federal roles we no longer need. But DOGE likely achieved hundreds of billions a year in savings. USAID alone had a $50 billion budget that was mostly eliminated, though a few billion just moved over to State.
• Drunkfoowl 1y ago
  I hit my senator very hard with information when this happened. It was clear to anyone with a brain and understanding of physics that they had no plans of doing anything other than installing crawlers and access control permissions. Our leadership is so inept it hurts.
• dimal 1y ago
  I still feel like people are missing the deeper problem with DOGE. Yes, they’re dismantling the government, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s stupid, reckless and cruel. But most Americans want the government reduced, and so we end up arguing over “effectiveness”. Notice how half the comments here follow that track. The deeper problem is that the richest man in the world bought his own department of the federal government of The United States and was allowed unchecked power within it. Nothing like this has ever occurred before in American history. The only thing that got him out was that Washington isn’t big enough for two egos as big as Musk and Trump, and one had to go. And since Musk’s people are still embedded in there, I would bet that he still has plenty of influence. For those in the red tribe that support this, would you support George Soros or Bill Gates buying their own department and using it to rearrange the government to fit their will? Well, shit like that is now on the table. Good job.
  • lovich 1y ago
    Yea man, I cannot fathom why they would carry out actions like this knowing that their opponents could do the same thing next time they are in charge. It’s almost like they’re governing with the expectation of never losing an election
    • nebula8804 1y ago
      Or they expect the other side to fold like a wet towel since that is all that they have seen since forever?
      • malshe 1y ago
        Exactly this. Democratic politicians are beyond incompetent.
        • nebula8804 1y ago
          Incompetent is the wrong word. They showed excellent strategy and cunningness when derailing Bernie Sanders's campaigns. They have repeatedly shown excellence in strategy when outsiders threatened them. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to Mamdani's campaign. What trick will the Democrats pull out of their bag to derail him?
• JackYoustra 1y ago
  Still looking for the people on hn who eight months ago said that this would be a good thing to come out and admit not only that they were wrong, but the model of the world and their way of absorbing info that led them to such a conclusion is also wrong. Looking at you, geohot.
  • ohyoutravel 1y ago
    The venn diagram of that group and the group that immediately, with zero evidence, following the Charlie Kirk incident, declared war on “the left” is a circle.
    • SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
      > with zero evidence I mean… what additional evidence would it take? Police, DBI, his discord messages, the texts to his trans boyfriend?
      • ohyoutravel 1y ago
        I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. At the time of the original post, where people were condemning “leftists” and saying “this means war against the left,” there was zero evidence. No one had been caught (I guess they may have piled drived a poor janitor or something at this point), no idea who it could even be. This was days before it was revealed to be some MAGA splinter group.
        • SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
          > This was days before it was revealed to be some MAGA splinter group. Wow, that’s amazing, can you please post a source for that completely made up nonsense?
  • nenenejej 1y ago
    They will never admit they are wrong.
• zazar 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • nenenejej 1y ago
    How much money did they save? And how much money did they waste by penny pinching on essential work?
  • programmertote 1y ago
    >DOGE did great work, and continues to do great work. Ok, prove it. Your claim warrants that. From what I've seen, DOGE's claims of savings are mostly made-up or erroneous. Not saying the federal government doesn't need efficiency improvements. I'm just saying the way DOGE (and musk) went about is just the typical musk's way of doing things (b.s. claims not backed up by actual facts). P.S. I rarely get involved with political discussions on HN. But you got me interested first time.
    • ModernMech 1y ago
      > Not saying the federal government doesn't need efficiency improvements. 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_United_States 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.
• hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  One thing that really disgusted me about DOGE is that we did have a very successful reduction in the scope of the federal bureaucracy 30+ years ago, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Rei... . But we didn't want a thoughtful, respectful plan for reducing the scope of government, we wanted a WWE bomb thrower. Side note, I think Al Gore was one of the most effective politicians of the last 50 years who wasn't president and he got tons of shit for it: 1. He never said he "invented the Internet", but he did give critical federal support to the Internet in its early days when he was a Senator, and technologists who actually know what they are talking about credit him with this, 2. He implemented the most successful reduction in the federal bureaucracy since WWII, 3. He conceded the 2000 election for the good of the country - he did not foment an uprising to try to fulfill his narcissistic supply, 4. He made many people aware of the dangers of climate change (though this may have admittedly backfired as some people interpret anything that comes from a Democratic voice as a "liberal hoax").
  • icepush 1y ago
    He said "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet, I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country", which is very very close to being indistinguishable from "inventing the internet"
    • dboreham 1y ago
      > very very close to being indistinguishable from "inventing the internet" For a native English speaker, no it isn't. Also fwiw, if you weren't working in the field at that time, experiencing the process of connecting to the then Internet, I don't think you can comment on this authoritatively.
      • icepush 1y ago
        What is the difference between creating something and inventing it?
• eleumik 1y ago
  I wonder if any of them knew what is a Doge, in Venezia style, not the acronym. It could not end well.
• t1234s 1y ago
  Any downside to DOGE canceling unused seats, software licenses or phone lines?
  • Spooky23 1y ago
    Depends on the contract. Anytime you do something fast and drastic, you fuck up, and those are often expensive.
    • Our_Benefactors 1y ago
      As the saying goes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
      • geoka9 1y ago
        This looks more like they razed the chicken coop to make an omelette.
        • Our_Benefactors 1y ago
          This too has the potential to lower your operating expenses.
          • AlecSchueler 1y ago
            Only until it's market day and you have no eggs too sell.
        • johnnyanmac 1y ago
          >"Making the mother of all omelettes, Jack! Can't fret over a few eggs" Sadly, the competence and conviction of DOGE does not match the namesake of that quote. They do match the insanity, though.
      • magicalist 1y ago
        Broken eggs being necessary but not sufficient. Very easy to break a bunch of eggs and not get an omelette, just a mess.
• thordenmark 1y ago
  [flagged]
• thordenmark 1y ago
  The comments here are crazy. Excuse me if I don't find Wired and a bunch of disgruntled ex-fed employees to be a credible unbiased source. The US Govt is so clearly bloated and inefficient it had to be trimmed and optimized. At least some here recognize that cuts in the 90's also worked. And I'm old enough to remember people crying bloody murder then too. People hate to be pulled off government's gravy train.
  • cman1444 1y ago
    I think the main point is the manner in which these cuts were conducted. These were chaotic, very quick, and reckless. Very little empathy was shown. They were conducted by 19-23 year olds with the world's richest man (who bought his position) in charge of them.
    • thordenmark 1y ago
      Sure, but if they weren't done quick they wouldn't be done at all. Have some empathy for the middle class that has to carry this terrible tax burden.
      • ModernMech 1y ago
        This is not true, as it's been done before by a previous government, the Clinton administration, which actually did post a budget surplus in the 90s. Their method was to go slowly and methodically, so you are not correct to say that it cannot be done unless it's done quickly. However, you're also wrong about "what's been done" -- this year the government will not only post a deficit but the highest deficit in US history. So to the extent that you support this administrations effort to cut the deficit, they have abjectly failed to do so. So perhaps it's more true that you cannot cut costs if you try to do it quickly, because doing it quickly has not worked. My prediction is in the next 4 years, the deficit will increase every year. Moreover, you stated in your earlier reply that it is "obvious" the government was "inefficient it had to be trimmed and optimized". This is not obvious. For starters, you (and also DOGE) neglected to define "efficiency", so we are left wondering what is being optimized. Efficiency is a weasel word -- it doesn't mean anything on its own -- so using it without measuring anything is immediately suspicious. How can you say you've made it more efficient by cutting spending if you don't have a metric for efficiency? I'll give you a metric: in 2024 there were as many government employees as there were in 1970, despite the population growing by 140 million people, a 70% increase. Population explodes, yet government does not... that's efficiency. So no, it's not "obvious" the government as it existed in 2024 is inefficient. Look at these two charts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_employees_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_employees_in_the_Un... First chart shows where the extra work is being handled, it's at the local level. That's what should be happening, so nothing to correct there. Second chart shows what is actually growing: government dependents. So when you say "Have some empathy for the middle class that has to carry this terrible tax burden." I direct you to the following collection of lamentations of middle class people, his supporters, pleading for the President to stop the economic damage he's doing to the middle class: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace Actually what you're suggesting is that we have to save the middle class by cutting lower class social support systems. But Trumponomics (all tariffs all the time, crony capitalism, mob-like strongarming of private companies) is driving a reduction of the middle class to the point where they need more social services.
• jmward01 1y ago
  The honest real question is what to do? We are at a turning point in history. Right now you are either polarized or asleep. The question is not only what can you do but what will you do. Now, not tomorrow. I personally am starting to get active locally in my city government. Commenting on the downfall isn't enough. Do something.
• nobodyandproud 1y ago
  Good old hubris: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
  • ponector 1y ago
    >> The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It’s harder to read code than to write it. And now people are pushing for AI coding where no one is going to write a code but only read it (with auto accept changes).
    • depuebenas 1y ago
      [dead]
    • nobodyandproud 1y ago
      Yes, but the context here is government. I feel software systems and lawfully started institutions share many characteristics. There’s a certain naivete coupler with arrogance required to believe one knows better, then push ahead to destroy older institutions and practices.
• rr808 1y ago
  Did anyone figure out about the social security fraud claim? I figure the 135 year old people were a dumb mistake, but surely they must have found a bunch of people who were cheating? We didn't hear anything so maybe not, but would be good to know.
  • 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
    Yes, that was covered a while back by Planet Money I think when interviewing one former DOGE worker. It turns out there are different lists of people, in different formats, maintained by different departments, for different purposes. What happens is, one group comes up with a list of people who are supposedly ripping the govt off. They send that list to another department, who comes back and says, no, some of those people are supposed to get benefits, some of these forms were just filed incorrectly, some records are out of date, some ancient database has a short integer that rolls over, etc. Like any complex bureaucratic process, there will be errors, and they know that, so there are checks to correct those errors. And you need a lot of people (with a lot of tribal, historic, or contextual knowledge) to deal with that complexity. But you don't hear that full story. You hear a sound bite of a partial truth selectively repeated by people who want to pass off a specific narrative. Another way to think about it: think of the oldest legacy computer system at a company you're aware of. Now realize the US government has computers going back to 1965, and paper records from way, way before then.
• moonshotideas 1y ago
  The story of Athens as told by Sparta
• insane_dreamer 1y ago
  Made me sick to read that. It really makes me despise Musk, and Trump, and Vought, for their psychological violence towards our federal employees, and causing so much destruction that will take a long time to rebuild and restore.
• supongo 1y ago
  I'm a federal employee, working as a software engineer for the Department of Defense on embedded systems which are used on aircraft. The first few months of DOGE were complete chaos. The senior executive service received conflicting information from one week to the next. Our operations were severely impacted without any benefit. We couldn't even go to test ranges for field testing.In addition to that, the five bullet points were a major security issue due to classification by aggregation. Although DOGE is gone, we're still experiencing the fallout. There's more red tape than ever before. Everything requires multiple levels of approval - even ordering a replacement capacitor has to go up three levels of management. We're forced to bring defense contractors to our field tests because it's a fight to bring more than one federal employee, almost doubling the cost of any trip. It took half a year for us to even be allowed to mail equipment to various depots. Now, we're effectively forced to pay contractors for tasks we could do organically. More privatization will drive up cost in the defense industry up significantly. I.E, an unnamed military contractor wants more than 5 million dollars for a line item breakdown for a quote they gave us.
  • mothballed 1y ago
    "Unnamed military contractors" should be forced into competitive bids. Ditch the favoritism and let any US corporation bid on it and including bidding on the jobs where you need 3 layers of management to buy a capacitor when done by government employees. You can go out and buy a $500 Ar-15 on the private market that's about as good as an M4/M16 the military is paying thousands for -- that's the result of an actually free market for M-16/Ar-15 and the same thing can be brought to the rest of defense contracting.
    • supongo 1y ago
      Correct. The majority of "DoD waste" goes into expensive, overpriced purchases. DOGE villainized the average federal employee rather than addressing the true waste - overpaying Defense Contractors.
      • pdonis 1y ago
        Not defending DOGE, but it should be noted that much of what DoD pays for when it buys weapons is not the weapons, but reliable weapons and the logistics of supporting them under combat conditions. The apparently inflated unit costs often are given without looking at what's actually included contractually in those costs. Sure, any citizen can buy an AR-15 for $500, but that citizen isn't paying for a support structure that has to be able to deliver ammo or spare parts or spare units in a combat zone in time of war. Nor is that citizen paying for the guarantee that the contractor will be able to continue to produce all those things in the necessary quantities in time of war. Nor is the citizen paying for reliability guarantees about the weapon working under adverse conditions. It's unfortunate that the reporting around such things doesn't actually dig into all this, but just gives quick sound bites without any real analysis.