3 ms·

Nope, can't all agree. DOGE was great and you should expect to see a lot more of it in future, even more systematized. Look at it like this: > About half of t

by qcnguy 11mo ago

Nope, can't all agree. DOGE was great and you should expect to see a lot more of it in future, even more systematized. Look at it like this: > About half of the rehires, Kamarck estimated, “appear to have been mandated by the courts.” So of the employees the government actually wanted back, there were maybe 10,000 - according to Ars which is an enemy of DOGE and Musk. Probably far fewer in reality. But this was always the plan, it's what worked at Twitter too. The theory is that you can't easily know if you can cut more until you start finding that you needed people. And the US Gov is in so much debt, drastic measures are absolutely required. Any argument to the contrary ignores the fiscal situation.

ben_w 11mo ago
> And the US Gov is in so much debt, drastic measures are absolutely required. Any argument to the contrary ignores the fiscal situation. When your household expenses are 38% higher than your household income, you don't fix it by eliminating the 3% you spend on refuelling your car. The USA federal budget in 2024 was 38% higher than its income, DOGE claims to have saved about 3%: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Fy2024_federal_budget.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Fy2024_f... When "your household" is a metaphor for "a government", the obvious other things they can do include: • Just directly ordering itself more income (taxes) • Literally printing more money to reducing the burden of existing interest payments that are 4 times what DOGE claims to have saved • Increasing the pension age, broadening the tax base and reducing the expense for whatever the USA's federal pension is. Every year of increase to the federal pension age makes about as much difference as DOGE claims to have made. • In the USA's case sorting out the mess that is how Medicare (12.7% of federal spending) and Medicaid (9% of federal spending) spend more per person than the UK spends on the NHS despite Medicare and Medicaid being in addition to all that private healthcare and also despite the combination of public and private American health spending giving worse average life expectancy. This would free up by far the largest amount of money in the overall economy, but you may have to pretend in this already hypothetical scenario that the federal government first nationalised all the insurance payments before you see it impact the combined budget of taxes-and-insurance. • Even just shrink the armed forces (12.5% of federal spending) from "biggest by a large margin" to "biggest by a smaller margin". • Encouraging as many working-age foreigners as possible to come and do work while being registered as taxpayers.
johnnyanmac 11mo ago
There's a lot wrong here, but I'll just cut to the meat here: >the US Gov is in so much debt, drastic measures are absolutely required. Any argument to the contrary ignores the fiscal situation. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... https://i.imgur.com/cm4yvbL.png https://i.imgur.com/cm4yvbL.png (for preservation of FY2026) As always, 60% of government spending is in 3 categories. Anyone who is touting a ned to balance the budget and is not taking moves to hit on these 3 (Medicare, Social Security, National Defesnse) is not seriously interested in balancing the budget. - SS is political suicide and no one is even fancying touching it (and to be fair, it's hard to touch). Just kicking it down the road until it's too late. Ideally we remove the contribution caps from this so we can keep it funded, but alas. - Medicare is the health plan for the old people, so it's equally risky to touch that politically. Any backlash seen from making healtchare cuts this year would be 10-fold if they touch medicare - So then there's national defense. Not as unpopular to touch, but instead we keep pouring more money into it. So no. Playing penny slots with all this turmoil isn't helping the budget. Pretty sure the ICE funding boost alone cancelled out even the most optimistic reports of DOGE savings.
- spwa4 11mo ago
  The problem with DOGE savings is that they had the typical Musk promise progression: October 2024: Musk: “at least $2 trillion” promise. January 20 2025: DOGE officially established by executive order. February/March 2025: Revised target up to $1 trillion. 10 April 2025: $150 billion savings expectation announced. By April 2025: Claim of ~$160 billion saved. 23 November 2025: Reuters reports DOGE disbanded ahead of schedule. Independent reports of the actual result ... well claim negative savings. Musk increased spending instead of decreasing it: A analysis by CBS News reports DOGE claims to have saved US$ 160 billion, but estimates that the cuts may instead cost taxpayers around US$ 135 billion. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-analysis-elon-musk-department-of-government-efficiency/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-anal... The Washington Post showed that many of the announced savings were inflated: for example, of 1,125 contracts listed as cancelled, only ~US$ 7.2 billion in savings could be verified; many reflected zero savings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/22/doge-savings-found-list-analysis/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/22/doge-savi...

by qcnguy 11mo ago

ben_w 11mo ago

> And the US Gov is in so much debt, drastic measures are absolutely required. Any argument to the contrary ignores the fiscal situation. When your household expenses are 38% higher than your household income, you don't fix it by eliminating the 3% you spend on refuelling your car. The USA federal budget in 2024 was 38% higher than its income, DOGE claims to have saved about 3%: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Fy2024_federal_budget.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Fy2024_f... When "your household" is a metaphor for "a government", the obvious other things they can do include: • Just directly ordering itself more income (taxes) • Literally printing more money to reducing the burden of existing interest payments that are 4 times what DOGE claims to have saved • Increasing the pension age, broadening the tax base and reducing the expense for whatever the USA's federal pension is. Every year of increase to the federal pension age makes about as much difference as DOGE claims to have made. • In the USA's case sorting out the mess that is how Medicare (12.7% of federal spending) and Medicaid (9% of federal spending) spend more per person than the UK spends on the NHS despite Medicare and Medicaid being in addition to all that private healthcare and also despite the combination of public and private American health spending giving worse average life expectancy. This would free up by far the largest amount of money in the overall economy, but you may have to pretend in this already hypothetical scenario that the federal government first nationalised all the insurance payments before you see it impact the combined budget of taxes-and-insurance. • Even just shrink the armed forces (12.5% of federal spending) from "biggest by a large margin" to "biggest by a smaller margin". • Encouraging as many working-age foreigners as possible to come and do work while being registered as taxpayers.

johnnyanmac 11mo ago

There's a lot wrong here, but I'll just cut to the meat here: >the US Gov is in so much debt, drastic measures are absolutely required. Any argument to the contrary ignores the fiscal situation. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... https://i.imgur.com/cm4yvbL.png https://i.imgur.com/cm4yvbL.png (for preservation of FY2026) As always, 60% of government spending is in 3 categories. Anyone who is touting a ned to balance the budget and is not taking moves to hit on these 3 (Medicare, Social Security, National Defesnse) is not seriously interested in balancing the budget. - SS is political suicide and no one is even fancying touching it (and to be fair, it's hard to touch). Just kicking it down the road until it's too late. Ideally we remove the contribution caps from this so we can keep it funded, but alas. - Medicare is the health plan for the old people, so it's equally risky to touch that politically. Any backlash seen from making healtchare cuts this year would be 10-fold if they touch medicare - So then there's national defense. Not as unpopular to touch, but instead we keep pouring more money into it. So no. Playing penny slots with all this turmoil isn't helping the budget. Pretty sure the ICE funding boost alone cancelled out even the most optimistic reports of DOGE savings.

spwa4 11mo ago
The problem with DOGE savings is that they had the typical Musk promise progression: October 2024: Musk: “at least $2 trillion” promise. January 20 2025: DOGE officially established by executive order. February/March 2025: Revised target up to $1 trillion. 10 April 2025: $150 billion savings expectation announced. By April 2025: Claim of ~$160 billion saved. 23 November 2025: Reuters reports DOGE disbanded ahead of schedule. Independent reports of the actual result ... well claim negative savings. Musk increased spending instead of decreasing it: A analysis by CBS News reports DOGE claims to have saved US$ 160 billion, but estimates that the cuts may instead cost taxpayers around US$ 135 billion. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-analysis-elon-musk-department-of-government-efficiency/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-anal... The Washington Post showed that many of the announced savings were inflated: for example, of 1,125 contracts listed as cancelled, only ~US$ 7.2 billion in savings could be verified; many reflected zero savings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/22/doge-savings-found-list-analysis/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/22/doge-savi...