DOGE opinions

[flogger]

Social Security checks to people that are 200 years old? Generations of families raised on the government welfare tit? Schools closing to house immigrants and so much more.

This crazy spending has gone on for way to long, we get a President (just 2 months in office) who tackles it head on and he's facing another call for impeachment.

[tmckay2]

That is an honest answer.

Those are the programs that should be cut.

If a private company can do whatever a particular government department is doing, better and more efficiently, that department should be closed.

Within reason and of course there as exceptions, but governments are not supposed to be lifetime job creators. Leave job creation to the private sector where merit and initiative are more highly valued and rewarded.

I get the sentiment, i more or less share it myself, but it's usually not that simple. It's fairly uncommon to have a department that straight up could be handed over the the private sector without it's own major problems. If it's one the government is going to pay for but contract, it's almost worse than the federal bloat. Still have the same problem, someone else's money going to a person I don't know or care about. Thus, fraud waste and abuse runs rampant. Now you have another party involved who's goal is to profit, which means you need to watch those things even closer. But the same problem happens, nobody cares about the cost and inefficiency so it balloons to stupid proportions. Why do you think so many companies want a government contract?

Now if you could straight up hand it over and just let a private company run it on its own, without government contracting, that could work. But for that to be the case it would have to be something that does take advantage of the beneficiary. Sometimes government is rightly going to have tasks that affect the common good and need to not have a profit at the center of it. The issue isn't that, it's that it grows out of control and nobody gives a damn about a budget.

The real problem with departments is that they need to have a clearly stated goal that is time restricted and specific so that it can evaluated at a time in the future and determined if it is still warranted. Lots of departments did serve a purpose at one time, but now everyone has forgotten what that purpose is or co finally changed it to keep the department alive and growing. That's the really big issue, that and nobody caring about budgets. If you could fix those two things you would be on the right path.

[tmckay2]

I get the sentiment, i more or less share it myself, but it's usually not that simple. It's fairly uncommon to have a department that straight up could be handed over the the private sector without it's own major problems. If it's one the government is going to pay for but contract, it's almost worse than the federal bloat. Still have the same problem, someone else's money going to a person I don't know or care about. Thus, fraud waste and abuse runs rampant. Now you have another party involved who's goal is to profit, which means you need to watch those things even closer. But the same problem happens, nobody cares about the cost and inefficiency so it balloons to stupid proportions. Why do you think so many companies want a government contract?

Now if you could straight up hand it over and just let a private company run it on its own, without government contracting, that could work. But for that to be the case it would have to be something that does take advantage of the beneficiary. Sometimes government is rightly going to have tasks that affect the common good and need to not have a profit at the center of it. The issue isn't that, it's that it grows out of control and nobody gives a damn about a budget.

The real problem with departments is that they need to have a clearly stated goal that is time restricted and specific so that it can evaluated at a time in the future and determined if it is still warranted. Lots of departments did serve a purpose at one time, but now everyone has forgotten what that purpose is or co finally changed it to keep the department alive and growing. That's the really big issue, that and nobody caring about budgets. If you could fix those two things you would be on the right path.

*doesn't take advantage of the beneficiary

[BushMasterBoy]

I'd be happy with a appropriate prescription for my infection from the VA. The military is just as bad. Lab test says I have an infection, but the military doctors refuse to to treat. Is it because once I am cured, they won't have a reason to see me anymore? And why is it all the airmen I served with all died in their 50's?

[def90]

Social Security checks to people that are 200 years old? Generations of families raised on the government welfare tit? Schools closing to house immigrants and so much more.

This crazy spending has gone on for way to long, we get a President (just 2 months in office) who tackles it head on and he's facing another call for impeachment.

This is not true as well. The social security system software runs on COBOL and hasn't been updated in decades. If you do not enter a date in a data field it automatically populates it with the year 1875, that is how it appears that there are people in the system that are over 200 years old. This or some version of this seems to explain the date issues.

Regardless, the social security system automatically stops payments to any recipient older than 115 in case a death is not reported or entered correctly in to the system. There are no payments going to people that are 200 years old.

[tmckay2]

I'd be happy with a appropriate prescription for my infection from the VA. The military is just as bad. Lab test says I have an infection, but the military doctors refuse to to treat. Is it because once I am cured, they won't have a reason to see me anymore? And why is it all the airmen I served with all died in their 50's?

Part of that's true but part of it is just healthcare. Take millions of people and you're going to get good and bad experiences across the board. My wife got jerked around by private doctors like crazy after a TBI and basically didn't get any treatment for a year. Then of course we got the bills. An er visit charged $1500 for a tetanus shot, also got charged for the er, the check in, the hospital and the doctor all separately. This is in network mind you. Get referred to a neurologist, all of them are booked out 4 months.

It's kind of like my in laws in Canada. Ive got some with heart warming stories of how the health there did all this stuff for them and others who couldn't get a simple mri for 6 months and denied a heart surgery because 72 was too old (he got it in the US and lived another 20 years). So anecdotal experiences are dicey in health care.

[FoxtArt]

As a complete side bar, if you guys want to know the root of the problem - and the more pragmatic solution for long term effect...

As founded, the American republic was missing a branch. You could say the founding fathers made a significant mistake not considering it... Whatever you want to call it - Restorative branch, or Janitorial; we needed a 4th branch that cleans the cobwebs out of the other three.

That isn't DOGE. DOGE is generating headlines and seeking wizz-bang effect, ran by a billionare and at the whim of the executive. We needed an entire branch, independent of the executive, judicial, and representative, that can clean/prune/organize regulation, EOs, legal precident, regulations, etc.

Every three sessions of the senate, US Code doubles in length. The reason bills often are 3,000 - 10,000 pages in length is due to this reason. You can fire people or assert you are making it more efficient, but until you solve the underlying cancer in the skeleton of the republic, the problem will never leave you.

Once again... I am a fiscal conservative. DOGE is a side show at a circus, primarily terminating prior political opposition and generating little more than headlines. You're still left with all the same holes in the boat, with or without it.

[eddiememphis]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...get-rcna195042

Medicaid spending will be $8.2 Trillion over the next ten years.

Replacing the ticket taker at Rocky Mountain National Park with an automated system ain't gonna do shit.

[eddiememphis]

As a complete side bar, if you guys want to know the root of the problem - and the more pragmatic solution for long term effect...You're still left with all the same holes in the boat, with or without it.

The answer to government spending is to expand government?

[FoxtArt]

The answer to government spending is to expand government?

Ironically because we have 249 years of bloat, you don't resolve it with a 1/2 trillionare holding a chainsaw. The root cause is a tangled mess that truly needs unwound.

I go back to the 1980s when the fed tried to study how many criminal laws they had. They gave up after two straight years, even they were unable to count. Our own government has no idea how many laws apply to you, and the code has quadroupled since they last tried. And while congress has tried a couple times to coalesce and organize the laws, it always fails. Honestly if the initiative is from any of the three branches of government (including the executive), it is doomed to fail.

There needs to be people working on it who are not under the direct influence of the other three branches, and are directly accountable to the people. You only get that with an independent branch, one that has no power to pass anything. Then you can begin to unwind the size of the government appropriately.

Legislative mandates, criminal and tax code, contradictory legal precidents, prior (and current) EOs, etc., all induce bloat that you don't fix with DOGE.

It would also be nice to live in a country where it was remotely possible for at least 1% of the citizenry to roughly understand the laws and regulations applicable to their lives. It's literally impossible for even an autistic savant with a photographic memory to grasp that today. Last time I checked USC was over a quarter million pages, CFR I forget (hundreds of k), millions of pages of prescendents, etc.