[dmix]

It’s still worth looking and finding that stuff out (carefully and transparently). There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. GWB created a small version of DOGE with almost the same mandate that never really did anything notable because it was small and never ambitious (it also still exists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_Gene...).

Most large wasteful private organizations are often the ones who get comfortable in their existing market, employees get hardened in their ways, and eventually are threatened by changes in the market and competition and die off. There is no competitive pressure on gov agencies. It’s almost always a one way street after an agency gets formed that it continues as is indefinitely with only occasional changes in leadership. The number of agencies (>400 federally in US) only increases. Congress rarely looks backwards with spending, they only challenge demands for new spending plans to expand agencies. Otherwise budgets only go up with new line items as US tax revenue forever increases each year.

[nullstyle]

> There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past.

Citation needed. The OMB has been around for a while.

[dmix]

It’s partly true OBM saved $25 billion once a decade ago in 2014 when they proposed 215 cuts https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/Building_a_21st_Cen...

But those big wins were rare. It’s mostly small stuff like during Biden admin they banned single use plastic and reducing food waste. No one has ever really done large scale data analysis on spending and made it a major priority across the federal government in recent history.

[nullstyle]

>> But those big wins were rare.

Citations needed. I found this with almost zero effort and it seems like the program saved $60 billion over four years: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/briefing-room/2024/...

I feel like your confidence is just ignorance

[dmix]

I didn’t say they never did anything I’m saying the big wins were rare. Your own link says the $100B number was aggregate since it started in the Obama admin. That’s over a decade ago.

The US federal gov spends almost $ 7 trillion a year. I’m sure they can find a whole lot more than a few billion here and there each year.

I also don’t know why it’s so controversial to want the gov to spend money wisely and make efficiency a core value. It’s funny what people will defend because the current people doing it are controversial and unprofessional so the whole idea gets dismissed. I’m not a political extremist like that, I just think it could and should be done better and done right.

[acdha]

> I also don’t know why it’s so controversial to want the gov to spend money wisely and make efficiency a core value.

It’s not. Consider that people who do believe in efficiency might be upset about political purges which increase inefficiency being conducted under the guise of efficiency – for example, illegally breaking contracts or firing people will cost more and cutting things which are useful (the vast majority of what DOGE has done) is not only failing to deliver savings but also throwing out the past investment. Research funding and cuts to researchers are a great example: an NIH, NASA, EPA, etc. scientist represents millions of dollars in training even if they’re “just” a probationary hire. Firing them to save 0.00000002% of the federal budget means giving up the money which was already invested in them and the programs they support.

Similarly, people who actually study government efficiency often highlight the high cost of reducing unnecessary spending. For example, we could try to drive down the number of Social Security payments sent to people who are dead but decades of auditors have found that would be a massive _increase_ of inefficiency because the vast majority of payments are legitimate and it would require a huge number of people to validate each one, not to mention the mission failure and costs of falsely denying payments when that process fails (old people are allowed to live in remote areas or not pick up the phone, and you’ll hear from their congressional representatives if you decide that means they’re not a real person or dead).

There are ways to improve efficiency considerably but none of them are easy and most will require legal changes by Congress.

[nullstyle]

getting close to two days without a response, dmix. Are you sure you aren't a coward? Even worse, an internet coward who can't even account for their nonsense?

Maybe you wanna make some trash claims about 150 year olds collecting social security checks? Just looking for efficiency....

Why don't you care about nuclear safety, dmix?

[nullstyle]

> I also don’t know why it’s so controversial to want the gov to spend money wisely and make efficiency a core value

This is a rank and disgusting assumption, and should show anyone else reading this how dmix isn't an honest participant in this discussion.

It's not controversial that an administration is trying to spend money wisely, but that isn't what is going on here. Firing NNSB staff because you don't know what the NNSB does isn't trying for efficiency, it's pure and utter stupidity.

Now time for my assumptions: I don't know why it's so controversial to want the government to act with care, diligence, and common fucking sense when nuclear energy or weapons are involved. Why don't you care about nuclear safety, dmix?

[nullstyle]

And yet still no citations supporting your position. Tell me, how little did the PART program and its successor save?

[rat87]

Trump has also attacked parts of the goverment doing anaylsis/oversight of the budget as well as hobbling prosecution of corrupt politicans

[dmix]

Yes DOGE would be much better as an independent agency created by Congress with all the controls that comes with it. It’s inherently a bit toothless as an executive advisory council without further increasing executive power which is dangerous.

[jjeaff]

toothless? they have arbitrarily axed entire departments and fires tens of thousands without cause. they apparently have far too many teeth.

[dmix]

So far firings were mostly just from the subset of executive agencies they directly control, for ex USAID is legal because it wasn't create by legislative branch like the hundreds of other agencies. They can only fire probationary employees in those, with the exception of 'with cause' firing - a newer executive power as of 2020 supreme court ruling.

But I don't think employment is the primary waste issue. Federal employment has grown relatively slowly compared to local and state administration.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Go...

Which is why my point was about doing macro spending analysis. Most of the waste is in gov cost-plus contracts/procurement (feds outsource everything which is why employment hasn't grown much), how agencies operate (large duplication, old systems, etc), and more generally the unwieldy 1000 page congressional budgets no one reads.