[idopmstuff]

I applaud the idea of DOGE - we have this issue in government where once you create something (a process, organization, law, etc.), it's exceedingly difficult to get rid of it. That's really bad! Even if something proves to be obviously very stupid once it's implemented, it stays around forever and creates an ongoing tax on society.

California's Prop 65 is the perfect example of this. It seemed like a good idea at the time (put a label on anything that could cause cancer), but it turns out when implemented that you have to label so many things that people just completely ignore it. Businesses are still required to put on these labels that serve absolutely no purpose, though. It should be deleted, but we'll probably be stuck with it forever.

At the federal level, I'm incredibly supportive of killing NEPA. Good idea, but in the end more detrimental to the environment (by slowing/blocking/increasing the cost of good projects) than helpful to it. Ideally they'd take the lessons learned from what went wrong and craft something better, but given the choice between keeping NEPA and killing it, I think killing it is right.

That said, DOGE's execution has been very poor. Just look at the people they've fired (nuclear safety, people actively working on the bird flu epidemic, etc.) and then rehired. That is clearly incompetent execution.

Also, Musk's approach of cut, cut, cut and then add back when you realize you cut too much clearly has problems when applied to government. Cutting all the various science funding meant that research had to be stopped, and even if it's restarted later, there will be damage from stopping that can't be recovered.

So yeah, as with all things from this administration I am attempting to think positively (largely for my own mental health). There is probably tremendous value to getting rid of a lot of the bureaucracy that has built up over the last 250 years, and I greatly hope that value exceeds the damage that's done with the ham-fisted execution.

[mpalmer]

It's illegal, it doesn't matter if you think it's a good idea.

The executive branch cannot "kill NEPA". It's a law. Congress has to repeal it. Vote for congressional candidates who support your position.

Laws exist for a reason. It's incredibly dispiriting that so many people seem not to understand or care about the division of power made absolutely clear in the Constitution.

[idopmstuff]

The post I was responding to was asking about how the HN community feels about DOGE, not for a legal analysis. So yes, it does matter whether I think it's a good idea - that is what the question I was responding to was asking.

I certainly understand the Constitutional division of powers - you shouldn't accuse people of not understanding things simply because they don't address them in a question that doesn't ask about them.

[mpalmer]

I said that people seem not to understand OR care about the separation of powers.

So sure, you might understand it, but you didn't include the legality of what DOGE is doing in your analysis of whether it's a good idea.

It doesn't seem to me like you care.

[medvezhenok]

Legal rules are just "good ideas" that we've inherited from previous generations :)

[beej71]

I'm beginning to question whether or not it being illegal matters.

[mpalmer]

It matters, regardless of how bad things get. That's how to think about it.

[staplers]

  There is probably tremendous value to getting rid of a lot of the bureaucracy that has built up over the last 250 years.

Only when you have competent and highly qualified people making the decisions at lower levels. If those people are fired and/or swayed to avoid government jobs then you just end up with incompetence with no oversight.

This whole operation is to dismantle government programs so corporations can swoop in and fill the void.

[idopmstuff]

I agree with you on this (thus my comments about the ham-fisted execution), with the caveat that in a lot of cases it's a very difficult thing to find people that are really good at making these decisions - they'd need to be well-informed but also apolitical and removed from the bureaucracy they're making decisions about. You can't really trust the decisions to the people in the organizations, because of course they have a huge bias towards protecting the status quo.

Ideally you'd get people who have some experience in them but are far removed. Like I've heard Casey Handmer talk about his time at NASA (I think it was NASA, at least) and how the organizational cruft made it hard to get anything done. I'd love to get him in there to make some change, but he's otherwise occupied. I am optimistic about Jared Isaacman, though.

In terms of corporations swooping in, that might happen, but in practice what I expect will happen is that the Democrats will return to power and will rebuild a lot of regulation. It seems to me like that's sort of the ideal cycle - add regulations and add regulations and add regulations, then do a cycle of cutting things, then return to adding regulations, ideally informed by the failure of past regulations.