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I knew some people that were initially very optimistic, and I tried to keep an open mind when DOGE got started despite the outlandish claims that they would be

I knew some people that were initially very optimistic, and I tried to keep an open mind when DOGE got started despite the outlandish claims that they would be able to cut $2 trillion dollars from the budget, but it's apparent at this point that the project has been an extreme failure. It'll probably take a few years to really sort out their damage and overall impact though. It's also imperative to mention in every DOGE-related discussion and conversation that the funding freeze to USAID is directly responsible for killing thousands of people [0]. Most of the damage done by DOGE can probably be reversed, but the thousands of death as a direct result of actions taken by the richest man in the world should not be forgotten. (Although I'm told there is a bit of uncertainty with any specific figures because the funding disruption also impacted the mechanisms for tracking and reporting deaths.) [0] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/the-shutdown-of-usaid-has-already-killed-hundreds-of-thousands https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary...

denkmoon 11mo ago
It is not remotely a failure. As a vessel for achieving project 2025 goals, the clear purpose of DOGE, it was successful. It's just that the successes it achieved are reprehensible.
- gmd63 11mo ago
  That was not the clear purpose of DOGE. The Trump campaign deliberately distanced itself from Project 2025. If they had been honest about their intent to enact Project 2025 to voters, they would have lost.
  - FireBeyond 11mo ago
    It was the clear purpose. It just wasn't the openly described purpose.
    - gmd63 11mo ago
      No, it wasn't clear. I know several Trump voters who either didn't know Project 2025 existed or believed the lies that it was a liberal hoax. To anyone paying an ounce of attention, yeah it might have been clear.
      - JojoFatsani 11mo ago
        Ignorant voters do not excuse the actions of elected officials
        gmd63 11mo ago
        I'm not excusing elected officials. I would go further and blame Vivek Ramaswamy for playing a huge part in pitching the failed DOGE. I'm just pointing out that the Trump admin deliberately lied about its connection to Project 2025, which made DOGE's connection unclear to people who consume Fox News etc. People are downing my comment for suggesting that many people who don't take the internet straight into their veins every day might have had a hard time connecting the dots between DOGE and Project 2025.
        phantasmish 11mo ago
        All they had to do was skim any decent daily, weekly, or monthly newspaper or news magazine in 2024. Folks whose only news sources are Facebook shares and Fox News are simply stupid. The reason they don’t know WTF is going on may be due to their news sources, but they chose those. That’s a really stupid thing to do.
        lotsoweiners 11mo ago
        > Folks whose only news sources are Facebook shares and Fox News are simply stupid. Maybe or maybe not. What I do know is that they are large in number and a political opponent should realize this and strategize accordingly.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 11mo ago
    > The Trump campaign deliberately distanced itself from Project 2025. The Trump campaign lied. Just like Trump mostly lies any time his lips move.
- arcastroe 11mo ago
  For those less informed, such as myself. Could you provide a quick summary of those project 2025 successes achieved by DOGE?
  - estearum 11mo ago
    https://www.project2025.observer/en https://www.project2025.observer/en DOGE was the bludgeon that crippled most of the targets on this list. Not the only one, but a major player.
  - jimmydddd 11mo ago
    They want to to shut down large portions of the government. For example, they want to completely eliminate all public education, not make it more efficient.
deleted 11mo ago
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kineticdaffodil 11mo ago
[dead]
wonderwonder 11mo ago
[flagged]
- mintplant 11mo ago
  The implication is that the death toll is under-reported due to the disruption of the means by which those deaths would be reported and logged. In other words, those thousands of deaths are just the ones we know about.
- alwa 11mo ago
  I’m not totally sure what point you’re making, but I don’t see an inconsistency between the two portions of comment that you quoted here. “Thousands of people” covers at least 3 orders of magnitude, depending how loose you get with the language… I don’t see the contradiction in “the error bands are wider without the high-fidelity surveillance, but even from fuzzier sources, the absolute minimum is definitely in the thousands.” [ETA: A June study in the Lancet estimates the cuts to USAID (if sustained) will result in 14 million deaths by 2030: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ]
- danparsonson 11mo ago
  That's what honest discourse looks like.
- TheAceOfHearts 11mo ago
  From the article I linked: > Brooke Nichols, the Boston University epidemiologist and mathematical modeller, has maintained a respected tracker of current impact. The model is conservative, assuming, for example, that the State Department will fully sustain the programs that remain. As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children. Which links to Impact Counter [0], if you want to read more on how they reached those figures. I think it's fair to say with absolute certainty that thousands of people have died as a direct result of dismantling USAID, but that we aren't certain of the exact magnitude. One model estimated it's around 600 thousand, but we don't have exact figures because of the disruptions. Do you think there's a way this could be communicated more clearly? I'm not trying to be deceptive in how I present this information, and I could be persuaded to re-evaluate the exact figure if presented with a better analysis. [0] https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=interval_minutes&order=asc https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=inte...
USAID_SUCKS 11mo ago
[flagged]
phantasmish 11mo ago
Any “we’re going to fix waste in the government and reduce the deficit” project that doesn’t lead with “… so first we’re going to review the last twenty years of recommendations from the CBO and GAO and start implementing what they say or imply we should do to meet those goals” is almost certainly bullshit. Being optimistic about this one was one of those “having a mind so open your brain falls out” sorts of things.
- estearum 11mo ago
  Yep. There’s an entire catalog already built of deeply researched inefficiencies in the government. What a shame that DOGE burned a huge portion of this generation’s willingness to take a bold approach to said inefficiencies. Similar efforts will be tainted for years.
biophysboy 11mo ago
I work @ the nih, formerly at the cdc... can I politely ask why they were optimistic? When I first started seeing rumblings about this a year ago, my first thought was "the deficit is entitlement spending; this is a political problem, not a bureaucratic one". Anyways, like you, I genuinely wish the DOGEsters would have asked us what we thought was inefficient about gov work. I have been in many meetings where 90% of it was spent complaining about compliance. I personally hate the USAJOBS system. Like any big company, there's a lot that can be improved. Instead, they went scorched-Earth and assumed we were all deep state leeches. Elon acted like he had just done a leveraged buyout of the US government. For me, he remains the most embarrassing man on Earth.
- stackskipton 11mo ago
  Agreed, anyone who just glanced at federal budget would know, it's Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/Defense. Touching anything else is just tinkering at edges.
  - phantasmish 11mo ago
    Social Security comes from its own budget paid by a separate tax. When its savings (accrued by that same dedicated tax) runs dry it has to cut spending. It will not, under current law, deficit spend. The only problem to solve there is whether we want to adjust its funding so benefit levels don’t drop in the nearish future. People bringing it up in discussions of the general budget usually either don’t understand how it’s funded, or are presenting it inaccurately because they want to end it.
    - biophysboy 11mo ago
      This is part of what I meant by "political problem". People see the mainline deficit number without thinking about the underlying stocks/flows of the system. There are feedback loops embedded in this that are unavoidably political (nobody wants to take grandma's retirement money). There's no "founder's mentality" that can avoid this basic fact.
p3rls 11mo ago
[dead]
matheweis 11mo ago
We should also not ignore the fact that USAID was responsible for many hundreds of millions (if not more) in fraudulently directed contracts and spending [1]. [1] https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/usaid-official-and-three-corporate-executives-plead-guilty-to-decade-long-bribery-scheme-involving-more-than-550-million-in-contracts-two-companies-admit-criminal-liability-for-bribery-scheme-and https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/usaid-...
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- soco 11mo ago
  And that makes those deaths fine and dandy, or what do you mean now? When I go to the hospital I don't expect to be killed to fix my cancer, even though it would indeed make me cancer free.
FranzFerdiNaN 11mo ago
> the project has been an extreme failure. It has been a rousing success, if by success you mean Musk stealing a boatload of information he had absolutely no right to have.
michaelbarton 11mo ago
I think this article is correct in spirit but a little disingenuous in parts. Would it not be more fair to blame Russia as the primary cause for the deaths in Ukraine due to the collapsing health care system rather than USAID subsequently intervening to stop easily preventable deaths. I say this not to defend DOGE but rather to emphasize that we should always make abundantly clear the humanitarian disaster in Ukraine lies solely with Putin
billy99k 11mo ago
[flagged]

denkmoon 11mo ago

It is not remotely a failure. As a vessel for achieving project 2025 goals, the clear purpose of DOGE, it was successful. It's just that the successes it achieved are reprehensible.

gmd63 11mo ago
That was not the clear purpose of DOGE. The Trump campaign deliberately distanced itself from Project 2025. If they had been honest about their intent to enact Project 2025 to voters, they would have lost.
- FireBeyond 11mo ago
  It was the clear purpose. It just wasn't the openly described purpose.
  - gmd63 11mo ago
    No, it wasn't clear. I know several Trump voters who either didn't know Project 2025 existed or believed the lies that it was a liberal hoax. To anyone paying an ounce of attention, yeah it might have been clear.
    - JojoFatsani 11mo ago
      Ignorant voters do not excuse the actions of elected officials
      - gmd63 11mo ago
        I'm not excusing elected officials. I would go further and blame Vivek Ramaswamy for playing a huge part in pitching the failed DOGE. I'm just pointing out that the Trump admin deliberately lied about its connection to Project 2025, which made DOGE's connection unclear to people who consume Fox News etc. People are downing my comment for suggesting that many people who don't take the internet straight into their veins every day might have had a hard time connecting the dots between DOGE and Project 2025.
        phantasmish 11mo ago
        All they had to do was skim any decent daily, weekly, or monthly newspaper or news magazine in 2024. Folks whose only news sources are Facebook shares and Fox News are simply stupid. The reason they don’t know WTF is going on may be due to their news sources, but they chose those. That’s a really stupid thing to do.
        lotsoweiners 11mo ago
        > Folks whose only news sources are Facebook shares and Fox News are simply stupid. Maybe or maybe not. What I do know is that they are large in number and a political opponent should realize this and strategize accordingly.
- FranzFerdiNaN 11mo ago
  > The Trump campaign deliberately distanced itself from Project 2025. The Trump campaign lied. Just like Trump mostly lies any time his lips move.
arcastroe 11mo ago
For those less informed, such as myself. Could you provide a quick summary of those project 2025 successes achieved by DOGE?
- estearum 11mo ago
  https://www.project2025.observer/en https://www.project2025.observer/en DOGE was the bludgeon that crippled most of the targets on this list. Not the only one, but a major player.
- jimmydddd 11mo ago
  They want to to shut down large portions of the government. For example, they want to completely eliminate all public education, not make it more efficient.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

kineticdaffodil 11mo ago

[dead]

wonderwonder 11mo ago

[flagged]

mintplant 11mo ago
The implication is that the death toll is under-reported due to the disruption of the means by which those deaths would be reported and logged. In other words, those thousands of deaths are just the ones we know about.
alwa 11mo ago
I’m not totally sure what point you’re making, but I don’t see an inconsistency between the two portions of comment that you quoted here. “Thousands of people” covers at least 3 orders of magnitude, depending how loose you get with the language… I don’t see the contradiction in “the error bands are wider without the high-fidelity surveillance, but even from fuzzier sources, the absolute minimum is definitely in the thousands.” [ETA: A June study in the Lancet estimates the cuts to USAID (if sustained) will result in 14 million deaths by 2030: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ]
danparsonson 11mo ago
That's what honest discourse looks like.
TheAceOfHearts 11mo ago
From the article I linked: > Brooke Nichols, the Boston University epidemiologist and mathematical modeller, has maintained a respected tracker of current impact. The model is conservative, assuming, for example, that the State Department will fully sustain the programs that remain. As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children. Which links to Impact Counter [0], if you want to read more on how they reached those figures. I think it's fair to say with absolute certainty that thousands of people have died as a direct result of dismantling USAID, but that we aren't certain of the exact magnitude. One model estimated it's around 600 thousand, but we don't have exact figures because of the disruptions. Do you think there's a way this could be communicated more clearly? I'm not trying to be deceptive in how I present this information, and I could be persuaded to re-evaluate the exact figure if presented with a better analysis. [0] https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=interval_minutes&order=asc https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=inte...

USAID_SUCKS 11mo ago

[flagged]

phantasmish 11mo ago

Any “we’re going to fix waste in the government and reduce the deficit” project that doesn’t lead with “… so first we’re going to review the last twenty years of recommendations from the CBO and GAO and start implementing what they say or imply we should do to meet those goals” is almost certainly bullshit. Being optimistic about this one was one of those “having a mind so open your brain falls out” sorts of things.

estearum 11mo ago
Yep. There’s an entire catalog already built of deeply researched inefficiencies in the government. What a shame that DOGE burned a huge portion of this generation’s willingness to take a bold approach to said inefficiencies. Similar efforts will be tainted for years.

biophysboy 11mo ago

I work @ the nih, formerly at the cdc... can I politely ask why they were optimistic? When I first started seeing rumblings about this a year ago, my first thought was "the deficit is entitlement spending; this is a political problem, not a bureaucratic one". Anyways, like you, I genuinely wish the DOGEsters would have asked us what we thought was inefficient about gov work. I have been in many meetings where 90% of it was spent complaining about compliance. I personally hate the USAJOBS system. Like any big company, there's a lot that can be improved. Instead, they went scorched-Earth and assumed we were all deep state leeches. Elon acted like he had just done a leveraged buyout of the US government. For me, he remains the most embarrassing man on Earth.

stackskipton 11mo ago
Agreed, anyone who just glanced at federal budget would know, it's Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/Defense. Touching anything else is just tinkering at edges.
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  Social Security comes from its own budget paid by a separate tax. When its savings (accrued by that same dedicated tax) runs dry it has to cut spending. It will not, under current law, deficit spend. The only problem to solve there is whether we want to adjust its funding so benefit levels don’t drop in the nearish future. People bringing it up in discussions of the general budget usually either don’t understand how it’s funded, or are presenting it inaccurately because they want to end it.
  - biophysboy 11mo ago
    This is part of what I meant by "political problem". People see the mainline deficit number without thinking about the underlying stocks/flows of the system. There are feedback loops embedded in this that are unavoidably political (nobody wants to take grandma's retirement money). There's no "founder's mentality" that can avoid this basic fact.

p3rls 11mo ago

[dead]

matheweis 11mo ago

We should also not ignore the fact that USAID was responsible for many hundreds of millions (if not more) in fraudulently directed contracts and spending [1]. [1] https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/usaid-official-and-three-corporate-executives-plead-guilty-to-decade-long-bribery-scheme-involving-more-than-550-million-in-contracts-two-companies-admit-criminal-liability-for-bribery-scheme-and https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/usaid-...

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
soco 11mo ago
And that makes those deaths fine and dandy, or what do you mean now? When I go to the hospital I don't expect to be killed to fix my cancer, even though it would indeed make me cancer free.

FranzFerdiNaN 11mo ago

> the project has been an extreme failure. It has been a rousing success, if by success you mean Musk stealing a boatload of information he had absolutely no right to have.

michaelbarton 11mo ago

I think this article is correct in spirit but a little disingenuous in parts. Would it not be more fair to blame Russia as the primary cause for the deaths in Ukraine due to the collapsing health care system rather than USAID subsequently intervening to stop easily preventable deaths. I say this not to defend DOGE but rather to emphasize that we should always make abundantly clear the humanitarian disaster in Ukraine lies solely with Putin

billy99k 11mo ago

[flagged]