Both Obama and Clinton tried to do what DOGE is doing. Albeit, not as loud and fast, but they had roughly the same goals. Obama even signed an EO specifically to circumvent Congress so he could make cuts faster.
That is very interesting. Are you talking about this?
Source:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/goodgovernment/actions/campaign-cut-waste
External Quote:
The President
signed an Executive Order on June 13, 2011 establishing the Campaign to Cut Government Waste which includes two key initiatives:
1.
New Oversight and Accountability Board: Building on the successful execution of the Recovery Act, the Vice President announced the establishment of a new oversight and accountability board to help federal agencies improve their performance and reduce waste, fraud and abuse across government.
The Recovery Act's use of unprecedented transparency to drive accountability and prevent fraud is a success story that needs to be replicated across federal government spending. The mission of the new Board is to allow taxpayers the sam eability to track where their dollars are going and to have the same confidence that the dollars are not being lost to waste, fraud, or abuse, not just for Recovery Act dollars, but more broadly.
The Board will be composed of 11 members, including agency Inspectors General, agency Chief Financial Officers or Deputy Secretaries, an official from the Office of Management & Budget, and other such members the President may designate. The new Board will work closely with Chairman Devaney and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to expand the benefits of this new, more effective way of doing business.
2.
Regular Cabinet Meetings to Report Progress to the Vice President: The Executive Order also strengthens accountability, directing Cabinet members to report progress cutting waste and delivering results directly to the Vice President. Just as he did with the Recovery Act, the Vice President will be holding regular meetings with Cabinet members to make sure that we are doing all we can to eliminate government waste, save taxpayer dollars and make government work better. The order also requires agency Chief Operating Officers, generally Deputy Secretaries, and Chief Financial Officers to report progress regularly to the Office of Management and Budget.
As one of the campaign's first steps, the Administration will be targeting duplication and waste among federal websites. There are almost 2,000 separate websites across the Federal Government. With so many separate sites, Americans often do not know where to turn for information. The Administration will immediately put a halt to the creation of new websites. The Administration will also shutdown or consolidate 25% of the 2000 sites over the next few months and set a goal of cutting the number of separate, stand alone sites in half over the next year.
In this link, I cannot see anywhere about him bypassing Congress. He's stipulating they can't create new websites while the web review is underway, but that isn't cutting their budgets without congressional approval. Is there evidence of Obama cutting the budgets of departments or otherwise how is he circumventing Congress? I'm not from the US, so I don't really understand the ins and outs of the separation of powers if it is non budgetary.
My question is: What is wrong with fast? (or faster than normal?) I've heard quite a few people (political voices) in opposition to DOGE say things like "these tactics may work in the private space, but they don't work in government", but they don't explain themselves, they just assert it. Where do they get this from and why is it so bad?
If you're asking for an opinion....
- If you have rookies making decisions in government, they will be unaware of historical legal precedent and changes in law going back decades. This will open up a government organization to serious legal exposure.
- Firing experienced people can make you more susceptible to fraud. A good nose for fraud comes from experience. I've seen rookies miss obvious signs of fraud and uncovered hundreds of thousands in fraud fixing their mistakes.
- I've personally saved many times my wages every year while I was working in government, just due to experience and intellect. The point at which I left was the point where stupid people 'reformed' our organization (ie tripled the staff while halving productivity). They were all new. They all moved fast. Some of them have been fired already. IMHO, which has been right on most of the predictions I've made thus far, the rest will be fired over the next 12 months. Regardless, the damage has already been done. The department is now haemorrhaging cash.
- Smart people with a lot of experience in government can see problems before they happen and circumvent them. You are not going to be able to distinguish people like that from people who are incompetent by scouring a database or otherwise moving fast.
- When DOGE fired people working on nuclear safety, many of these people were unable to be rehired due to contactability issues, new jobs etc. That is avoidable permanent damage.
- When DOGE destroyed USAID, they opened the door to China and Russia further infiltrating Africa. America's strong position of influence has been eroded. That cannot easily be undone.
- You can easily break things in a Corporation and go bankrupt or another Corporation can take over. In government, you cannot afford to bankrupt the country. You do that, you are living in the third world.
It is possible to reform governments, but you need very intelligent people working for a very long time. If you want a more thorough answer to your question, I recommend the television serious Yes Minister. You may see it referred to as satire, however it is most certainly a documentary series.
External Quote:
Source:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080306/
We all know gov't moves like a snail. I have first hand experience with this because I've done state and federal contract work and it's probably 5 times slower than doing work with the private sector. Why is it such a bad thing to try to speed some of this stuff up?
There is nothing wrong with it. I've seen government operations that are incredibly efficient. The key thing is to have very good vetting of inbound staff (for intelligence and psychological screening).
These are great finds and, perhaps, I should have helped you with some of this. My apologies. It's amazes me how many evil people are out there. To me, protection of SS should be a primary focus because of its importance. It's not just a small, supplemental check that goes out. Many of the people who receive this check couldn't survive without it. My own grandmother is one of those. So, I understand when you say it's not lucrative for fraudsters so it probably doesn't happen that often, but to me even one case of SS fraud is too much. And I appreciate DOGE trying to end it.
Closing the loop on identity theft of deceased people is possible. Australia does it automatically (see below). The interesting thing for me is if DOGE is cutting government staff overall, new initiatives like the one below are very hard to get off the ground. There are two sides to the push toward small government. On one hand you have the problem of government waste. On the other hand, if you reduce government spending on Social Security and law enforcement, you lose some of you ability to govern and to enforce the law.
Source:
https://www.australiandeathcheck.gov.au/
External Quote:
The Australian Death Check allows businesses to cleanse customer data against over 3 million official government death records for the first time.
By keeping accurate customer data, the Australian Death Check helps businesses to adhere to privacy legislation, verify identity and protect against identity fraud.
It also reduces the burden on bereaved families, who will no longer have to notify a business when a loved one passes.
For me the takeaway is that DOGE made a few claims:
- Deceased people >150 years of age were claiming <disproved>
- People stealing ID to steal social security checks of deceased people is common and a big problem <It appears to be very rare>
- 40% of people calling Social Security are doing so fraudulently <There appears to be no evidence to support this>
What we do know is:-
- The statement about many people getting Social Security when >150 years of age
is an accusation directed at Social Security recipients.
- The statement about people stealing deceased people's ID to obtain Social Security
is an accusation directed at Social Security recipients.
- The statement about 40% of people calling Social Security trying to be fraudulent
is an accusation directed at Social Security recipients.
That's the concern I have. Each statement has the effect of demonizing recipients of Social Security and the truth of the statement is questionable. Given DOGE's record of making mistakes and worrying later (eg the nuclear regulator teams), I'd be more worried about DOGE cutting your grandmother's check by accident than protecting it. She's got much more chance of a criminal stealing her income tax refund than stealing her check.
The other thing that worries me is that Equifax has not been punished, but rather rewarded for their incompetence and the government has done nothing to fix the problem of the Equifax hack and generally protecting taxpayers from tax refund fraud. On one hand, you wonder how the US government can have a multitrillion dollar budget and not be on top of this and on the other hand, if you cut funding, they will do even worse. I don't know what the solution is.