I don’t think DOGE is about either of the things you mentioned in the last sentence, considering the agencies they’ve gone after. It’s about destroying oversight.
Agree with Liz’s take here. In addition, I think a primary motivation is finding any excuse at all to zero out as much funding as possible from any department for a mix of ideological reasons and a desire to free up revenue for cronyism and tax cuts
I learned a new word when I worked at a MARC House: perseveration. It's a characteristic of spectrum dwellers. A new solution, or the promise of one, ignites a blindered approach where more effort is the only answer. It sometimes works for technical problems, but Twitter and DOGE are people problems, and the move fast and break things philosophy doesn't work.
People aren't things. For instance, we can drive a car anywhere, anywhen. FSD can't.
As others have said, the goal is to take over the specific pieces of the government that are useful for Musk's agenda, weaponize them, and dismantle the rest. "Efficiency" was always a half-hearted excuse; this was never a technocratic army of consultants coming to increase the bottom line, but an ideological operation from the start. (Otherwise you'd see McKinsey all over this, and they're not.)
But even that is giving too much credit. It assumes Musk knows what he's doing, that he has enough foresight and self-control to execute this malevolent plan. Perhaps the Musk of 10 years ago could. The Musk of today is high on power and ketamine, worn out by decades of sleep deprivation and the anti-woke mind virus, and making decisions purely on vibes and tweets.
The worst thing to do is to set up quotas for expected amounts to discover. The current administration has set up quotas for numbers of illegal immigrants to be detained. I hope that the quotas are just an early idea and will not be rigid because non-immigrants might be caught up in last minute quota accomplishing sweeps.
All of that is about reducing the capacity of government to do anything, not reducing the regulatory and bureaucratic burden on the American people.
For example, there are now threats to fire a bunch of people at FDA. This "reduces bureaucracy" only if you equate bureaucracy to the number of government employees. But there are still many federal laws and regulations that have to be followed, so firing FDA folks means that companies will face even longer timelines to get drugs approved, because there won't be enough people to handle the work. That INCREASES the burden of bureaucracy on the American people.
This is unfounded speculation: that the number of regulations will stay the same. Both Musk and Trump have explicitly stated that they want to reduce the regulatory burden.
You are assuming they will leave the # of regulations the same, which is wrong.
They might someday reduce the number of regulations. But as of now, they have proposed zero deregulatory efforts at FDA. If they start out with wantonly cutting the number of employees while waiting to do deregulation over the next 4 years, that will mean a higher burden on companies and the American people in the meantime.
My point: If you want to reduce the burden of bureaucracy, START with deregulation. And when that plays out, THEN think about cutting government staff that are no longer needed.
There's an old DC saying, Stuart: "Personnel is policy."
If you have a bunch of personnel who are wedded to the current regulations AND who are viscerally opposed to Orange Man, then you'll never get anywhere. They will team up with their allies in Congress and in the industry (the three of them composing The Iron Triangle), and oppose every deregulatory effort.
Your approach is idealistic and takes no account of DC realities.
Twitter may technically still work as a website, but it has became a cesspool of conspiracy theories and hate, causing it to lose 90% of its advertisers, and the platform itself is unstable and features break all the time. And last I checked, Twitter isn’t responsible for the healthcare of millions of Americans, funding scientific research, or safeguarding a nuclear arsenal. Hardly a good model to follow, IMO
I don’t think DOGE is about either of the things you mentioned in the last sentence, considering the agencies they’ve gone after. It’s about destroying oversight.
Agree with Liz’s take here. In addition, I think a primary motivation is finding any excuse at all to zero out as much funding as possible from any department for a mix of ideological reasons and a desire to free up revenue for cronyism and tax cuts
When are you gonna be less of a baby and stop saying dumb stuff on X? Then block anyone that disagrees.
There are many people who disagree; I only block the ones who use curse words or are otherwise overly derogatory.
I learned a new word when I worked at a MARC House: perseveration. It's a characteristic of spectrum dwellers. A new solution, or the promise of one, ignites a blindered approach where more effort is the only answer. It sometimes works for technical problems, but Twitter and DOGE are people problems, and the move fast and break things philosophy doesn't work.
People aren't things. For instance, we can drive a car anywhere, anywhen. FSD can't.
Not adaptable enough, and won't be.
Like Musk.
As others have said, the goal is to take over the specific pieces of the government that are useful for Musk's agenda, weaponize them, and dismantle the rest. "Efficiency" was always a half-hearted excuse; this was never a technocratic army of consultants coming to increase the bottom line, but an ideological operation from the start. (Otherwise you'd see McKinsey all over this, and they're not.)
But even that is giving too much credit. It assumes Musk knows what he's doing, that he has enough foresight and self-control to execute this malevolent plan. Perhaps the Musk of 10 years ago could. The Musk of today is high on power and ketamine, worn out by decades of sleep deprivation and the anti-woke mind virus, and making decisions purely on vibes and tweets.
The worst thing to do is to set up quotas for expected amounts to discover. The current administration has set up quotas for numbers of illegal immigrants to be detained. I hope that the quotas are just an early idea and will not be rigid because non-immigrants might be caught up in last minute quota accomplishing sweeps.
"Indeed, I've written many pieces about how to reduce bureaucracy in one area (science funding).
The problem with DOGE is that they are barrelling headlong in the exact opposite direction:"
What??? Are you not paying attention? What do you think offering the buyout, and putting entire agencies on administrative leave are all about?
He did that at Twitter. Yes, it WAS destructive, but Twitter still works, last I checked.
All of that is about reducing the capacity of government to do anything, not reducing the regulatory and bureaucratic burden on the American people.
For example, there are now threats to fire a bunch of people at FDA. This "reduces bureaucracy" only if you equate bureaucracy to the number of government employees. But there are still many federal laws and regulations that have to be followed, so firing FDA folks means that companies will face even longer timelines to get drugs approved, because there won't be enough people to handle the work. That INCREASES the burden of bureaucracy on the American people.
This is unfounded speculation: that the number of regulations will stay the same. Both Musk and Trump have explicitly stated that they want to reduce the regulatory burden.
You are assuming they will leave the # of regulations the same, which is wrong.
They might someday reduce the number of regulations. But as of now, they have proposed zero deregulatory efforts at FDA. If they start out with wantonly cutting the number of employees while waiting to do deregulation over the next 4 years, that will mean a higher burden on companies and the American people in the meantime.
My point: If you want to reduce the burden of bureaucracy, START with deregulation. And when that plays out, THEN think about cutting government staff that are no longer needed.
DOGE Is doing it in reverse. Makes no sense.
There's an old DC saying, Stuart: "Personnel is policy."
If you have a bunch of personnel who are wedded to the current regulations AND who are viscerally opposed to Orange Man, then you'll never get anywhere. They will team up with their allies in Congress and in the industry (the three of them composing The Iron Triangle), and oppose every deregulatory effort.
Your approach is idealistic and takes no account of DC realities.
Twitter may technically still work as a website, but it has became a cesspool of conspiracy theories and hate, causing it to lose 90% of its advertisers, and the platform itself is unstable and features break all the time. And last I checked, Twitter isn’t responsible for the healthcare of millions of Americans, funding scientific research, or safeguarding a nuclear arsenal. Hardly a good model to follow, IMO