The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
916 comments
·February 2, 2025xnx
Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US? The US probably hasn't been this economically dominant since after WWII.
Feels like Chesterton fences are getting torn up left and right by people too young and incurious to possibly understand why those fences might be there.
afavour
Never appropriate. The actions are entirely unconstitutional. If the US decided to disband USAID it would have to be an act of congress, unelected friends of the president don’t come close to being able to make that call.
jaggederest
In a sensu stricto it's illegal, but practically and regrettably they are able to make that call, because though there are rules against it, unless the sergeant at arms of the senate goes out and handcuffs them, nobody is going to stop them. When the executive branch and the judiciary both decide to ignore the legislative branch, what is the legislative branch going to do?
efitz
Our legislative branch is unable to even minimally fulfill its Constitutional duties.
We haven't declared war since WWII, but we've waged a number of them.
The Congressional budget process is fundamentally broken and increasingly nondemocratic - the leadership of both parties get "continuing resolutions" passed while they draft a mountainous "omnibus" bill that includes all their pork and graft, then they whip the members of the majority party to pass it without reading it.
The Congressional oversight committees are usually captured by the industries and/or agencies they oversee.
Congressional hearings are not used to inform Congress or the people; they're nakedly partisan acting gigs for committee members.
Congress has unconstitutionally delegated much of its authority to a bureaucracy run by the executive branch, intending to have it operate independently of the president. Now we have a president who is choosing to exercise his authority over the executive branch.
Of course, it is illegal and unconstitutional for the president to eliminate programs that are established by law. But remember the executive branch bureaucracy ONLY exists to allow the president to implement the laws passed by Congress. If the laws aren't explicit or delegate to an executive branch agency HOW they law/program will be implemented, then the president has enormous authority over how to implement it, and there is nothing Constitutionally wrong with that. So if the president says "we don't need 10000 people to implement CFR 1.2.3 section 4, we only need 10", and he can implement the law/program as passed by Congress with 10 people, then he's allowed to do that.
The big problem is that Congress MUST depend on the executive branch to, er, execute. Whatever is required to implement the law, that isn't specified in the law, is up to the executive branch, and the President is the head of that branch.
And all this BS about "classification" again only exists to enable the president to do his job. If the president says someone can have access to something, that is non-negotiable, as two USAID folks found out over the weekend. The bureaucracy has for decades used classification to make a currency out of secrets and to try to avoid oversight. Looks like that ride has ended.
jghn
Not to mention the majority of the legislative branch is at a minimum going to pretend they're all for it
reissbaker
Why do you think it's illegal? USAID was established by an executive order by JFK, not by Congress; Congress only mandated that some agency for aid should exist, not that it specifically be USAID. Closing it and not replacing it with anything would be illegal, but closing it doesn't seem obviously illegal.
Edit: not only that, but they didn't close USAID entirely: they just closed the USAID headquarters, and installed Marco Rubio as the new head of USAID. While this may or may not be desirable, I don't see how this is actually illegal. The specific organization of USAID was established by executive order; this is one of the many consequences of the Republicans winning control of the executive branch of government.
_petronius
Impeach! That's the prerogative, and the enforcement mechanism, of the legislative branch.
epgui
RIP rule of law.
vlan0
At some point the military needs to remember their oath to the constitution. And act accordingly
toomuchtodo
Send the US Capitol Police? Might makes right apparently, so why would you not act as such?
sandworm101
>> is the legislative branch going to do?
Impeach. Subpoena. Then arrest if subpoena ignored. Pass laws (supermajority to bypass veto). Cut funding to executive office. Then go nuclear with things like amendment putting the armed forces under legislative control. Lots options. All require a united front.
brtkdotse
> The actions are entirely unconstitutional.
For all the fetishization of the constitution popular media has led me to believe Americans engage in, when push comes to shove it doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it’s written on.
beAbU
Does the US have a constitutional court?
In some constitutional democracies there is a court that sits above the apex court, and they rule on constitutional matters only. I feel this is is an effective check/balance, as it makes the interpretation of the constitution completely unambiguous.
readthenotes1
It'd be interesting to find out why people think moving the USAID organization under the Secretary of State is unconstitutional.
If they do not disperse the money as directed by Congress to specific causes by the end of the fiscal year then there is a problem, but not until September 30th
billfor
Totally appropriate. Everytime congress would ask USAID for information on their spending or audit what they were doing, they would just ignore the requests and say they were apolitical. They're not apolitical. The state department is by definition political, and responsible for the US interests. Totally reasonable to roll it under the state department where they will have to answer questions and not refuse audits. It's not going away it's just going to be accountable to the public that pays its budget (the US taxpayer).
null
ahmeneeroe-v2
Strict constitutionalists would call many of these programs unconstitutional.
This is a problem for the left and for neo-cons; they flouted the constitution for so long, that now that someone else (Trump) is doing it to them, the left/neocons don't really have a base that responds well to cries of "Unconstitutional!".
eightman
Strict constitutionalists would only apply the 2nd Amendment to barrel loading smooth bore muskets.
aaomidi
Doesn’t matter if laws don’t matter and aren’t enforced.
afavour
OP asked “is it appropriate”. Will they get away with it? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.
pessimizer
This is silly. USAID was established by executive order. While the president's drinking buddies aren't allowed to close it down, the president himself can do it on a whim. So if the president decided to shut it down because his hairdresser advised him to, it's up to him.
> The actions are entirely unconstitutional.
It would be bizarre if an executive agency could be established by executive order, but then couldn't be closed down by the executive without permission from Congress.
That's not how US government works, at least. Maybe that would work in a parliamentary system where the separation between the executive and legislative isn't so sharp.
edit: why is the level of discussion about anything Trump-related always so low? If you want to defend USAID, defend USAID. If you can't defend USAID, make an entirely specious process argument.
stetrain
USAID as the specific agency was established by executive order, in response to legislation (the Foreign Assistance Act) passed by Congress requiring such an agency to exist, and other legislation that continues to fund its operation.
If the goal is reorganization then it could be argued that the president has the power to do so provided it still meets the requirements of the legislation passed by Congress.
If the goal is to simply delete the agency with no replacement and let the funding stop indefinitely, that is not so clearly within the president's power and has precedent against it.
afavour
> make an entirely specious process argument
That’s an absolutely absurd response. Even if your argument were correct (it isn’t) there is no executive order shutting down USAID. It isn’t “specious” to want actions like the shutting down of entire government agencies to be done legally.
Of course process matters.
johnobrien1010
USAID was established by an executive order and then also created by law by Congress: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/cha...
msarvar
Based on some googling sounds like you're partially right, it was established as EO by JFK in 1961. But it was established as an agency via Congress in 1998. So the assertion that President can't dissolve USAID without Congress is in fact true. At least as of 1998.
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stetrain
> edit: why is the level of discussion about anything Trump-related always so low? If you want to defend USAID, defend USAID. If you can't defend USAID, make an entirely specious process argument.
Who is making specious arguments? Your comment was about process, while omitting congress’s role in that process, and people are responding accordingly.
null
nomel
> Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US?
With the debt ceiling ever increasing, approaching a trillion dollars in interest per year, nearing $6k/year per working individual, I would say the correct time to put any effort, whatsoever, into reducing spending, was 20 years ago.
I think the fundamental problem is we lack adversarial systems within the government: it doesn't like to hurt itself. Trying to cut jobs/waste/find fraud is political/career suicide for anyone in government. Accountability requires a true adversary/"outsider". Should that be DOGE, or its current implementation? Probably not. Should the adversarial concept of DOGE exist? I would enjoy seeing arguments against the concept. It seems like it's severely needed.
derektank
US debt as a percentage of GDP (i.e. our ability to pay off our debt) has basically remained static since COVID. I agree that the US requires a serious debate about our fiscal priorities and the appropriate levels of spending and taxation, particularly with automatic social security cuts looming. But it is nowhere near an emergency and fiscal decisions are the responsibility of Congress, not the executive.
cheald
Another way to look at that time series is that US debt as a percentage of GDP has doubled from 62% to 121% since 2007.
roenxi
"Since COVID" is a bad baseline, I would draw a parallel with someone who'd condition "stayed stable since they entered the hospital a few days ago". It is too recent and the situation pre-COVID was quite bad. The US is the most indebted entity [0] in history. But it is not obviously the most productive; since that title may sit with China now. It is a precarious position.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...
Aloisius
Surely taxes/fees represent our ability to pay off debt, not GDP?
kristjansson
You’re describing the independent Inspectors General. That were summarily fired. Could they have had more power and independence? Sure. But there were real independent offices doing what you describe.
The problem is EM and DOGE are equating “fraud and waste” to “I think it’s wasteful”, which is a judgement the adversarial auditor should not be allowed to make.
ChicagoDave
Our national debt is directly related to the 45 years of regressive tax policy.
mc32
What was the national debt to GDP ratio before income taxes were instituted? It wasn't even 10% between 1890 and 1910 --that's without the income tax.
rurp
Any remotely serious attempt to balance the budget will have to involve serious cuts to some or all of Defense, Medicare, and Social Security; along with tax increases, either new taxes or closing loopholes. Trump and Elon are completely uninterested in doing any of those things, and are in fact going to make them worse.
Indiscriminately firing federal workers whose salaries will collectively make up maybe one tenth of one percent of the budget is not at all about reducing debt, that's just the thin justification they are using the destroy any independence and competence within the government that might get in the way of their looting and corruption.
Anyone who thinks that Trump and Musk are serious about reducing the federal debt at this point aren't likely to be swayed by anything I say. But for anyone who genuinely believes that I hope you will look at what the national debt and deficit are right now, and then to check on them in a few years when both are dramatically worse. You will find that two of the most prominent bullshitters in the world are in fact bullshitting on this topic as well.
throwitaway222
Easiest thing to do IMO is fund anyone that is over 18 that has paid into Social Security. Anyone younger - simple, reduce taxes to not include it. Phase that fucker out. Get rid of all but 10% of federal income tax.
Also, make all black budget projects that involve underground alien bases public and move it all private, so Elon and other people can just directly invest in those instead of coming out of our taxes through the DOD.
mlinhares
Fast tracking into Banana Republic, Canada and Uruguay will remain as the last bastions of Democracy in the americas.
KennyBlanken
And guess whose fault that deficit is? Answer: Bush and Trump.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primar...
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax...
https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump
https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/extend...
He campaigned (first time) to reduce the national debt and instead exploded it by giving massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest of the wealthy.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-plan-boosts-bud...
Something something promises something kept?
watwut
There is about zero chance Trump and Musk will make debt smaller.
xnx
Actual debt won't get smaller, but reported debt can get smaller when they fire whoever is responsible for reporting that.
XajniN
Why?
wahnfrieden
> Trying to cut jobs/waste/find fraud is political/career suicide for anyone in government
US Government Accountability Office already existed to do this, without it being career suicide for those involved (at least until Trump began attempting to end it despite being nonpartisan)
nomel
They exist to report an ever increasing number and list of actions each year. The GAO needs more teeth to be effective.
skywhopper
You are way underreacting to what’s going on here. This is not about saving money, or trying to cut waste or fraud. Elon Musk has been posting wild conspiracies on X to justify what he’s doing. But the actual changes are reactionary and political. Accountability is long gone if someone like Elon is in direct charge of what bills get paid. Fraud and waste will skyrocket in these conditions.
preters
I am not a fan of Elon, but his companies are run very capital efficient. So why would "fraud and waste" skyrocket under him?
riskable
You said it! How long before a lot of small countries start leaving treaties like the Berne Convention? Why would they bother protecting other big countries copyrights when they're no longer getting support through programs like USAID and there's no longer any guarantee that the US will protect them in any way.
The first country to pull out has the chance to make like $100 billion by creating the next TikTok competitor that never takes down content for violating anyone's copyright. It'll be like Edison moving to Hollywood all over again! Let the gold rush begin!
derangedHorse
By what metric do you think the U.S. is as “economically dominant” as it was in the period after WWII?
immibis
Most of the world's currency is backed by the currency they print? The USA has to spend a few cents to gain a hundred dollar bill, but any other country has to exchange a hundred dollars of actual goods and services (to the USA!). Losing this privilege would be devastating.
curt15
The economic power of the US is also largely due to its reputation for rule of law (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zaImTF92g) when contrasted with other regimes like the CCP. Once that image goes out the window, it becomes no more attractive to foreign investment than any other banana republic run by thugs.
screye
USD as reserve currency is a hen that lays golden eggs.
The US maintains monopoly on this free money cheat through goodwill driven manufactured consent, diplomacy, financial bullying and military might. Each subsequent tool being more heavy handed & less preferred than the last. Heavy handed tools while effective, break more than they fix. This prudence sustains Pax Americana.
In 2025 America, good will is at an all-time-low. Mechanisms for classical diplomacy are being actively dismantled by Elon-Trump. Financial bullying is now the cudgel of choice. Pax Americana is under threat.
Post-WW2 peace is among mankind's most remarkable civilizational achievements. It isn't self-evident and it definitely isn't the historic norm. How long until nations start questioning the deal ? How many decades of work is being dismantled within days ?
May be hyperbole, but the locks on Chesterton-Pandora's box are being opened. It might work out, but Elon's aggressiveness seems so unnecessary at a time when the American economy is doing exceedingly well.
nine_k
I don't think these fences are being torn down by inexperienced engineers by their own initiative. They have a mandate (or so they think), a direction, and maybe specific orders from much more experienced folks, AFAICT.
jimmydddd
US National Debt Adds $1 Trillion Every 100 Days.
mindcandy
76 of those days are social security, medicare/medicaid, vet benefits, income security for the poorest citizens and interest payments.
15 of those days are national defense.
9 of those days are what Elon hopes to cut in half.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
The deficit is a huge problem. I don't know how to fix it. But, what DOGE has done so far is exactly the opposite of what makes sense.
ahmeneeroe-v2
I agree with your numbers. If we're seeing this much resistance to cutting down mostly foreign-focused programs, would you really be making this comment if Elon/Trump were trying to cut social security, medicare/aid, etc?
wyager
Have to start somewhere. Pork barrel patronage slush funds are an easier jumping point than welfare benefits.
tyre
Yes and it is fine. That’s a scary number with zero context, but given the borrowing rate and the investments we’re making in future GDP, this is good borrowing!
it isn’t good when a group of people tries to destroy the entity that’s making those investments. These shitheads are basically corporate raiders coming in to tear things apart for personal gain.
Ironically, it is the “fiscally responsible”, “WhY nOt RuN gOvErNmEnT lIkE a BuSiNeSs” gang who want to destroy any fiscally responsible investment.
If they want to reduce spending meaningfully, they need to cut defense, social security, and Medicare. They won’t, because it’s political suicide.
schnable
Which investments in future GDP do you mean?
caspper69
Who holds the vast majority of the debt of the government of the United States?
Hint: it's not China, the UK or any other foreign government.
It's us silly. We owe ourselves. :)
atq2119
Precisely.
The only potential problem here is that "we owe ourselves" simplifies things given that some individuals are owed much more than others, i.e. there's inequality. Other than that? The whole debt charade is just political groups weaponizing (and perpetuating) the lack of fairly basic macro-economic understanding in the population.
carlosjobim
It's the elderly who are holding that debt and enslaving the youth and the unborn with that wicked scheme. Any and all national debts should be defaulted on. If you lended money to the government, knowing fully well that your interest is paid by oppressive taxes, then you don't deserve your money back.
jacobjjacob
If a balanced budget led to a flat or negative GDP, reduced the USA’s power and influence globally, and/or lowered standards of living, then would it still be desirable? What exactly is the argument against a deficit besides that it might be giving some groups leverage over the USA, which is dubious?
SpicyLemonZest
The argument is that it inevitably gets you to a state like Argentina was in, where the government repeatedly defaults until eventually you're forced to crash the economy for years to escape the loop. I'd rather have a flat GDP than 95% annual inflation.
timeon
So US is trying Germany's austerity?
mempko
To put it another way, the private sector gets an income of $1 trillion every 100 days. Now suppose you stop that income. What happens to the private sector?
skywhopper
What is your point?
snapcaster
Their point (i assume because had same convo with my dad) is that the debt is such an emergency we should toss the rule of law
mc32
Stop unaudited government spending? Ukraine says it’s received only about half of what the Biden admin said it gave it.
It's looking like this was at least larping as a 40+ billion dollar slush fund. There may have been some legitimate (useful) spending, and they will find out after auditing the system, but it also looks like there was lots of waste and once-removed (one degree of separation) self-dealing.
ahmeneeroe-v2
Is this really a drastic action? As others in this thread have pointed out, these programs are a single-digit percentage of the Federal budget. We could delete these completely and still have a budget that is 90% the same as last year.
intended
Wow. That’s a refreshing take on the reducing the corruption angle.
If these programs are so small, why aren’t they going after the real grift? It’s too hard? Why the small, more relevant to citizens programs get cut first?
Because its easy to avoid the military spending and the black box that represents.
ahmeneeroe-v2
My guess is a few things.
First, these are symbolic, it is very hard to concretely argue that these programs are good for Americans, since even proponents of these programs say it's about "soft power". Corollary to this is that cutting something like social security is seen as cutting benefits to Americans (ditto with Defense)
Second, these programs are seen as funding "professional democrats" in a way that social security or defense are not. So this is also about cutting out their opponents support structures.
If these programs are so small, why do you care so much?
KennyBlanken
Military spending didn't explode the deficit. Bush and Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations did.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=trump+t...
affinepplan
“Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.
I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, just like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on…”
- The Handmaid's Tale
Thorentis
The same people who love to quote this, also love to tell you to trust the mainstream media which, you guessed it, broadcasts on television.
null
netbioserror
[flagged]
zzzeek
Fortunately we have an enemy this time, Elon Musk. He's it. He's also really bad at hiding what he's doing.
pietrrrek
I don't think that Elon Musk can be singled out as the source of these changes, he's didn't just magically appear lur of nowhere and start doing what he's doing.
pohl
That's a good question. I'm trying to apply the "but for" test: if he had been given a boat ride across the river Styx last week, would this even be happening today?
cookszn
“quote from fiction”
- Fictional work
affinepplan
life imitates art
vosper
Which art? The one that's cherry-picked? I read Harry Potter but I haven't seen too many wizards or dragons around lately.
l0t0b0r0s
a pop-culture reference in a political discourse. stunning, brave.
eutropia
There are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publicly mock individual federal employees on his twitter account, drawing the eyes of millions onto random government functionaries for no other reason than to capriciously taunt them about being fired?
I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter.
mrkeen
Sources:
When Musk does it:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963
When others do it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/comments/1igw3cs/elon_m...
sanderjd
People who work at the highest levels of our government are public figures. It is the job of reporters to report on who they are and what they're up to.
cgannett
Well if they are working on those systems I think they count then right?
concordDance
Both are quite bad. I expect better from Wired.
ian_d
Elon is also now claiming to have "deleted" 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/): https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520
paulgb
This is nuts, 18F was one of the few groups in the federal government that is/was good at making software! (login.gov is a good example of craft you don't generally see in commercial enterprise software, let alone government software)
According to that tweet they were apparently “far left” because they also worked on Direct File, which sought to cut out the middleman (TurboTax et al.) and let Americans file taxes directly. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, unless you're in bed with Intuit, this seems pretty hard to argue against!
freitasm
> this seems pretty hard to argue against!
Removing consumer protection would be something hard to argue against too, but yet, here we are: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/bessent-pauses-cfp...
"Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shut down a wide variety of operations inside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in his new role as acting director."
Nothing of this makes sense in that all these actions don't seem to make life easier or better for citizens in particular or the world in general.
munificent
It makes perfect sense.
The goal of Trump, Musk and co. is to make life better for the rich.
Rich people don't need to rely on the CFPB because they have enough invidual power to get what they want. They are often the owners of businesses doing the kinds of things that get them smacked down by the CFPB.
justin66
> This is nuts, 18F was one of the few groups in the federal government that is/was good at making software!
Hopefully it's obvious at this point: Musk and friends not there to do anything but enrich themselves, and destroy.
ianburrell
My brother works for 18F.
18F might also be "far-left" cause it was created by Obama folks. I also wonder if it is also bad in his mind cause conflicts with taken over Digital Service.
Trasmatta
>far-left
>Obama folks
Obama was not in any way "far left"
jf
login.gov is amazing software. Highly tested. Expertly implemented. It might be the most tested IdP available today.
jeffrallen
Then why did it send me to id.me to send my photo ID to some low cost outsourcer?
chinathrow
At this point, Elon is doing only damage while he thinks he cleans up. Someone will have to cleanup after the cleanup aka damage doen though, and it won't be pretty.
null
Cornbilly
Given his tech record, he probably dragged a file named 18F to the Recycle Bin.
This is the same guy that nearly tanked PayPal because he was obsessed with rewriting their entire system for Windows.
hinkley
I had a coworker who turned beet red when I put Musk and PayPal in the same sentence. You know that feeling when your parents didn’t yell and you wished they would? I was too afraid to ask for the full story.
His PR makes him sound like a founder but he was not.
jacobjjacob
Looking at the quoted post, what do they have against Direct File? It is really hard to keep track of their positions which I believe is intentional.
kelnos
Direct File competes with Intuit and other tax prep companies. Of course they're against it; DF threatens corporate profits.
_factor
Isn’t it wonderful when they make rules stating you must pay taxes, then they make it so convoluted and obscure that you’re forced to spend extra money to file them?
It seems almost like corruption.
neuronexmachina
Many in the GOP are generally opposed to federally-funded free tax return filing: https://pennsylvaniaindependent.com/politics/irs-direct-file...
> In December, however, Kelly and 28 House Republican colleagues wrote to President-elect Donald Trump to ask him to end the program: “We write to urge you to take immediate action, including but not limited to a day-one executive order, to end the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) unauthorized and wasteful Direct File pilot program. The program’s creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers’ freedom from government overreach, and its rollout and structural flaws have already come at a steep price.”
BryantD
It's referred to as Elizabeth Warren's Direct File project.
tsunamifury
He clearly wants to replace the US government technology platforms with X/XPay/etc
pityJuke
He got rid of 18F, a group within the Govt to improve usage of tech (and hopefully therefore efficiency), because of a tweet.
A tweet about IRS Direct File, a group that replicates the basic automatic taxation program of other advanced economies?
Over a fear that the Government would take over deciding what taxes people pay, despite a fact that such a program doesn’t necessarily block you from manually filing your own taxes (don’t know if the American implementation has that, but the UK one certainly allows you to override PAYE).
Yes HN commenters, this is the genius behind Government reform.
EDIT: Jesus Christ someone is going to convince him FedNow is a conspiracy and kill another basic system other countries have easily managed.
hondo77
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deleted a group that was devoted solely to making the government more efficient. Makes perfect sense, in Trumpistan logic.
baobabKoodaa
By your logic, having 100 of these groups must be even more "efficient".
hondo77
By your logic, having one small group would be most efficient. Which makes perfect sense, given the tiny size of the US government, in Trumpistan logic.
billiam
Why shouldn't a 19 year old college dropout have the power to fire any government employee responsible for national security or live-saving services by looking at their code for 5 minutes? Makes perfect sense.
bende511
No way a 19 year old could be tricked by a pretty woman into giving her secrets and access codes. Real level-headed and clear-eyed age
Cthulhu_
Yeah I mean Zucc was only 20 when he started Facebook and popularised the adage "work fast and break things", which was a great strategy for Facebook and its burnt out staff (or those that couldn't hack it) so of course it'll work for the biggest economy in the world too, it's basically the same as a startup, right?
disqard
Obviously
tenpies
The Founding Fathers had 18, 20, 21 and 25 year olds in much more important positions.
And just like DOGE, they were working in a team with older people too, but that sort of rational framing just doesn't get clicks.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United...
gtirloni
I'm no expert in US history but just looking at the signers list, 3/4 of them were >30yo.
Cthulhu_
The Founding Fathers were responsible for a population of... just under 3 million though, as opposed to the US' current ~350 million.
ahmeneeroe-v2
Thank you! I was looking to see if anyone made this point.
You are exactly right. "Inexperience" just means someone younger than you.
(Note I am middle-aged)
Svoka
It is very strange idea to equate life experiences gained before 18 of people born in 21st century in 18th century.
Also, as outsider, I would never understand US fascination with "Founding Fathers". Some folks born about 300 years ago and somehow having answers to all the questions for all the times. Back than this country was a backwater colony which barely started industrialization. Overwhelming majority of population lived out of sustenance farming and majority of trade goods were products of slave labour. I mean, it is what it is, but where this yearning for glorious past which never existed comes from? Like, life in USA became more or less good only several generations ago, after the country became giant economical winner of WW2. And it did it by investing heavily into helping allies, not building isolationist policies.
tines
> I would never understand US fascination with "Founding Fathers"
Have you read any of their writing? A lot of it is timelessly insightful and they were very intelligent men.
> having answers to all the questions for all the times
This gives away that you haven't read them, because they themselves explicitly denied having answers for all time, and stated that the government needed to evolve with the governed.
siliconc0w
If DOGE wants to be effective it really should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense, some estimates have medicare at 40% fraud and waste and the DoD can't even pass an audit so no one really knows what %. And that is just getting what we've paid for, not even evaluating if what we've paid for is effective.
Of course to do that would require actual coalition building, hard choices that upset voters, and congressional approval. Instead they'll going to disrupt some of the highest ROI small-money grants like food or medicine to impoverished countries because they don't have any representation.
It won't meaningfully reduce the deficit and means we we're signing up for warlords and global instability in the near future.
chrisgd
Medicare fraud perpetuated by individuals is u likely to be that high. Overbilling by hospital corporations and medical device companies could be possible. But corporations aren’t the target of DOGE.
indoordin0saur
He mentioned in an interview last night that they have evidence that there is fraud rings of people outside the US posing as citizens and collecting medicare and other welfare. Sounds like it'll be a big item they take on in the near future. Some evidence for this is that all manner of fraud ramped up during covid and since then the federal budget has ballooned from 4.5T to over 7T.
Cthulhu_
These kinds of vague rumours ("they have evidence" is weasel words) are used to legitimize the development of invasive programs (and software) that profile people; see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand... that affected tens of thousands of people (causing children to be removed from their parents, divorces, suicides, etc), mostly justified because of a small group of people defrauding the benefits scheme. The total cost of setting this right is in the billions and increasing, many times more than whatever they saved on fraud.
reaperducer
they have evidence that there is fraud rings of people outside the US posing as citizens and collecting medicare and other welfare.
They'll release that evidence right about the same time they release all the "evidence" that Giuliani had about election fraud. Which they've promised to release hundreds of times before. But never have. Because it doesn't exist.
Are there people outside the U.S. gaming the system? Sure. Are they "rings" or "gangs" or whatever scary name they're using this week? Based on past performance, I have zero faith we'll see any evidence.
indoordin0saur
> Are they "rings" or "gangs" or whatever scary name they're using this week?
As someone who is very into the "scambaiting" hobby of hunting down identity thieves, phone call scams, etc I would imagine they would look something like these operations you see in India or Russia where you get have an office full of professional thieves calling elderly people and scamming them out of their bank accounts, harvesting data or getting them to sign up for useless subscriptions. In 2023 alone there was $43 billion lost from identity theft. There was $200 billion in fraud from the various covid hardship assistance programs. These programs are huuuge and they have ballooned beyond what is logical in the past few years. Even democrats talk frequently about medicare fraud.
rasz
> should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense
ok, but just after he fixed twitter bots like he promised, or ships working Autopilot.
solatic
Catching Medicare fraud likely requires a level of automatic data anomaly analysis that's simply beyond all the participants involved, both in terms of getting access to the actual databases and in getting the qualified manpower to build such a system.
If the DoD's auditors can't track down all the expenses, then why would DOGE be any more successful?
Running after bullshit is the low-hanging fruit.
adamredwoods
I'm concerned about my US bonds, as the way to access them is through a government website. Are these people going to block my access and steal my money?
>> “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”
chasely
I'm trying to download my 1099 forms from TreasuryDirect and it's coming back as unavailable. Probably unrelated to everything going on now, but the fact I thought that it could be related for a second is crazy.
>>> TreasuryDirect is unavailable. >>> We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you try again later.
sanderjd
Investors' faith in US bond and equity markets is, unironically, the most powerful immediate-term check on the current administration. The longer-term check is the midterm elections in 2026. If they really screw things up, as they appear to be doing, that's their deadline for fixing them.
justin66
They are going to make it easier to get your money by making it available via X!
iAm25626
History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. Komsomol/Soviet, Red guards/China. Ideology fan the flame of youth into fanatic. Who/what is providing the necessary guardrail? God speed America. Future belong to the young. Make good/long term decision.
h197BQcV
They have interesting pedigrees: Meta, Palantir, Neuralink, xAI, SpaceX, Databricks, Energize AI.
It seems clear where this is going. Data mining and algorithmic (claimed!) efficiency improvements while working on an essential and critical production system.
Since these people claim that "AI" does not need to respect privacy and copyright, perhaps they'll also train a model on this.
Where are the Democrats on all this? There is hardly any opposition. Are they not interrupting their enemy while he is making mistakes? That would be the only explanation.
bee_rider
Like Democratic elected officials? They lost. They have no power. They don’t control any branch of government.
They have as much ability to pass laws as you or I personally do. They have as much ability to hand down a Supreme Court or direct law enforcement as you or I personally do. None. Where are we? Complaining on social media I guess.
I’m quite frustrated why my elected officials as well but it is kind of hard to blame them when we don’t give them any actual power to wield.
maximilianburke
Sure, but there's other things they can do. They can all stop trying to achieve bipartisan support on things, as the republicans do when they're in the minority. Senators can withdraw their unanimous consent. They can vote against everything. They can drag a bunch of reporters over to Treasury and start loudly asking questions
It sounds like some are finding a clue, like the ones who stomped down to USAID with reporters in tow today. They need to do more of this.
Just because they can't pass legislation doesn't mean they are out of ideas.
What you can do is write to or call them. Ask them to vote no on every senate confirmation. Ask them to not provide unanimous consent. Ask them to make a scene. Demand answers!
null
freitasm
> Where are the Democrats on all this? There is hardly any opposition. Are they not interrupting their enemy while he is making mistakes? That would be the only explanation.
You mean the same Democrats who were not given a majority on neither legislative houses, nor the Presidency?
Some people voted against their best interests. Consequences.
daedrdev
The democrats have effectively no power. They control neither the house, senate, or presidency, the courts have become more conservative, etc. They can only talk. The filibuster will prevent new laws, but that isn't much when the federal government acts according to the presidency, and the filibuster does not prevent government appointments
dml2135
And the filibuster is nothing more than a polite restriction that the majority of the senate places on themselves — they are free to remove it if they wish.
cma
I doubt they will maintain the filibuster
PhunkyPhil
I guess Elon believes that long wait times for government services is because of an O(n^3) function somewhere...
> Where are the Democrats on all this? There is hardly any opposition
I think because this is so unprecedented the structures to oversee simply don't exist. The article mentions that congress has no mechanisms for oversight, and Elon is moving too quickly in this area for any checks to take place.
lukev
The courts are just now beginning to order injuctions and restraining orders, for the stuff that happened last week. The process seems to lag by 2-3 business days. So hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more this week.
How the administration responds to those is going to define how this constitutional crisis unfolds. And it is a constitutional crisis: congress unambiguously has the power of the purse, not the executive.
If Trump gets away with this, it isn't clear that Congress has any power at all.
bobbylarrybobby
The democrats were there on Election Day. They were shown the door.
bb88
> Where are the Democrats in all of this?
I think there's a fear they'll end up on the Kash Patel FBI enemies list:
https://newrepublic.com/article/188946/kash-patel-fbi-enemie...
hashishen
I would look to c-span for some accurate real time reactions from dems
https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/congressional...
m463
Posts here talk about the legality of this, that what they are doing is not allowed, or that they're doing something naively without understanding.
But what is the goal? Maybe what goal to they think they're pursuing? This is hacker news, so I'm asking for an answer without political rhetoric.
tyre
The goal is to dismantle as much of the government as possible. Where possible, they can replace the existing people with their own people, then steer government contracts to themselves.
riskable
The way they're going there might not be a government much longer. I really do believe they're that stupid.
The entire stock market is premised on the stability of the US government. Without it all their wealth would disappear overnight. All the luxuries they love would cease being produced. They wouldn't be able to fly their private jets anywhere.
In the past the rich could stockpile easily-tradable goods like gold in order to maintain a luxurious life even if their government collapsed. When it comes to billionaires that's not possible. The logistics of keeping and moving that much physical currency/gold/etc don't work out in their favor.
If they keep this up they're going to lose almost all of their wealth as the world destabilizes. They're also setting themselves and their families up to be assassination targets for the rest of their lives (far, far beyond what they are already). There's people everywhere that will be severely impacted by their actions. There will be nowhere for them to go because the US really is the pillar of the world's economies.
indoordin0saur
Slightly shaky start to the market today but it largely recovered and is just as high as it was 10 days ago. Seems the markets are divided between worried and cautiously optimistic.
disqard
They can operate this demolition op from the safety of their bunkers in NZ.
All they need is a way to send messages to their "useful idiot" new college grad minions.
True, instigating a global collapse might eventually get to them, but AFAICT, they just want to personally profit from US dysfunction. Plus, it seems like the rest of the world will simply bypass the US and say "you're not dependable any more, so we're just gonna pretend you don't exist". Ostracism (of the US) seems more likely than the entire world destabilizing.
jacobjjacob
I would guess that part of it is to tear down what’s there so they can rebuild in their own vision. I think this is a desire that any engineer can understand- and also understand that it often has to be suppressed because it’s a common blunder.
How many engineers have walked into a legacy project and their first instinct is to rebuild? Of course this is sometimes warranted, but almost always costs way more than anyone expects and doesn’t necessarily lead to a better outcome.
Edit: I’ll also add that this mentality is more common in younger / junior folks, which fits the context here.
disqard
I think the word you're looking for is "immaturity".
It is not exclusively found in young people, as one can plainly see with the plutocrats in charge today.
FWIW, even when it is justified in a software context, we understand that there will be a (usually large) business cost.
When implementing this in a political context, there's no way to skim over the fact that there will be a huge human cost. But here we are anyway.
novia
The goal is to find government waste and to trim the fat. The goal is to make the US government lean, efficient, and effective at improving the lives of Americans while not prioritizing improving the lives of citizens of other nations. The view is that the government of those other nations should be responsible for taking care of their own citizens. The goal is to uncover fraudulent payouts, stop more from going out in the future, and to bring the fraudsters to justice. Overall, the goal is to do a thorough accounting of where exactly US tax dollars are going to, and to use that information to decide if they should keep going to those recipients in the future, to put it to a vote using congress to decide.
[Political bias report: I'm a liberal who has read Rand and who does not agree with The Republican Party's views in the vast majority of cases. I have been listening to Musk and Ramaswamy talking about DOGE on X. I also follow conservative meme sites to keep up to date with the way they are thinking about things.]
kelnos
If that actually was the goal, and if this function were being executed by a legally formed executive branch agency, with non-partisan career employees that have been properly vetted, hired, and granted security clearances, I might be behind this effort.
But that's not what's happening.
It's clear to me their goal is to dismantle as many "leftist" agencies as possible, like environmental protection, labor rights protection, securities laws enforcement, humanitarian aid, etc., and replace them with people who will enrich their friends and families and allow corporations to run roughshod over the rights of regular people.
It is bizarre to me that anyone could lack the critical thinking skills such that they'd accept DOGE's stated goals at face value.
bende511
they are looking for the line item that pays lefty protestors. they are looking, as they did when the bought twitter, for the button that makes things "woke". they are febrile lunatics pulling the copper out of the walls, and they all belong in jail, or better yet [redacted]
lm28469
Some people are about to learn about soft power, how important it is, how fast it's lost, how quickly alternatives fill the gaps
Trasmatta
None of that is the goal. That's the propaganda.
sanderjd
Those may be the stated goals but I don't see any reason to believe those are the goals. Trust is earned.
watwut
I don't believe Musk or Trum cares about "improving the lives of Americans". They would try to protect Americans if that was their goal. Their first targets are consumer protection, environmental protection and such.
they don't care about fraud either. Both are fraudsters themselves, both will enrich themselves and their families. They both surround themselves with fraudsters.
What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.
novia
They are currently in the process of tearing down USAID, which provides money to other countries to help with things like disease eradication.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-usaid-c0c7799be0b2fa7c...
justin66
> What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.
Hiring a bunch of guys who work at companies he or Thiel owns definitely counts as nepotism.
avs733
>The goal is to find government waste and to trim the fat. The goal is to make the US government lean, efficient, and effective at improving the lives of Americans while not prioritizing improving the lives of citizens of other nations.
Lets be clear, that is not the goal - that is what they say the goal is and reality shows it is not. The goal is grift and theft adn destruction. Properly naming things is going to continue to matter more and more. Because no matter your bias or perspective, repeating propaganda is an act of propaganda.
novia
The question I was answering was
> Maybe what goal do they think they're pursuing?
and I was answering that to the best of my ability. I'm not just repeating propaganda, I'm distilling down the intent of the actors to the best of my understanding. No one can ever know someone's true intent, but I've done the best I can with the information I have.
chinathrow
Right, I can't wait for the announcement that they cut down x in spending and will use some percentage of the "savings" to do y (Mars via Elons proxy Jared Isaacman, AI infrastructure via Oracle/FAANGs) and then claim it will benefit the whole world.
ahmeneeroe-v2
The goal is to overturn the system. The electorate is mad that nothing changes regardless of Dem or GOP in charge. They want something to change. They've wanted it for so long that at this point they're okay seeing it burn down.
philjohn
Until it directly impacts them ... and then it's "I didn't think the leopards would eat MY face!".
ahmeneeroe-v2
this is irrelevant to the GP's question
blfr
They're cutting their opponents' access to federal funds.
ahmeneeroe-v2
Also correct. These programs are seen as funding professional democrats who then vote for more funding
golemiprague
Why those funds were allocated to their ops and not equally to everybody? If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it.
joshstrange
> If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it.
Is there? I feel like there are many cases where this is not true. Supporting disenfranchised groups for one. If you are funding protection for a group of people you don't need to be funding their attackers as well to make it "fair", the funding of the disenfranchised groups is literally you putting your thumb on the scale to try and even things out.
"one side of the political spectrum" is pretty loaded and it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If we are talking about "funding democrats" then sure, that's not good but if we are talking about "funding women's health" then no, I'm not going to play "both sides" games. The sad thing is we live in a country where a large number of people think that "funding women's health" _is_ "serving only one side of the political spectrum".
auntienomen
They were allocated equally. The goal is to change that.
moduspol
Welcome to the club of "right wing extremists."
sanderjd
I don't think it's possible to answer this apolitically because their goals are political in nature.
bende511
They are looking for The Cathedral.
tonymet
Between Elon's stated goals, the systems under scope and my personal experience from state & local finance, they are performing a strategic efficacy audit of treasury spending. The US Treasury normally doesn't audit transactions -- they execute requests for transfers from other agencies and defer governance to congressional oversight.
The GAO doesn't even audit in the intuitive sense. They audit that spending is being recorded properly, and for many agencies even that low bar isn't met. In other words GAO is okay with you dumping money into a hole as long as you count how much.
DOGE is doing a practical audit of the spending. i.e. taking high-level spending principals from trump and identifying specific budget items to eliminate.
tonymet
It's worth noting the difference between Budget & expenses since families normally blur the two. Budgets are the plans developed by the President and approved by Congress, and expenses are what actually get spent during the year-- and they vary widely.
DOGE's unique approach is to use the Treasury as the "chokepoint" for telemetry so they can cluster and classify all of the transactions .
Imagine a massive microservices platform with 10k services and you want to know which ones are viable ( cost/benefit). Rather than survey all 10k, you would surveil a router or LB chokepoint to measure the input & output of all 10k services. That seems to be their approach with the treasury.
fifilura
Most Scandinavian countries are required to make any communication in public departments (including all coworkers emails) public on request by journalists or anyone interested.
This is to make any doubts regarding e.g USAID public instead of making such drastic measures necessary.
But also make work of an entity such as Doge transparent. They are after all funded by my money (as a taxpayer).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_public_access_to_...
reaperducer
Most Scandinavian countries are required to make any communication in public departments (including all coworkers emails) public on request by journalists or anyone interested.
In the U.S., too. In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age.
But it's all happening so quickly that nobody can keep up with it. And the people who are supposed to take care of these things have been fired.
Also bad, when requests are made by legitimate parties, they are being ignored or dismissed by the new regime.
Let what's happening in the U.S. serve as a warning to you that no matter what laws you pass, electing lawless people brings lawlessness. And the law you passed cannot help you against people who don't respect the law.
null
writebetterc
> In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age.
This was instituted in Sweden in the year 1766. Source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offentlighetsprincipen
That's 10 years before the USA declared independence.
reaperducer
I guess we have different definitions of "modern" age.
vkou
> instead of making such drastic measures necessary.
These drastic measures are neither necessary[1] nor legal (Well, they are a necessary step in carrying out a self-coup...) But there's nobody left to prosecute or enforce the law.
First they came for the judges and made sure that the courts were stacked... And then they could do what they want, because they have the police, the army, and the courts.
[1] It's actually wild how people here are actively arguing for shredding the constitution because the country is carrying a debt. America truly is done.
https://archive.ph/QYBhK