Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

[Grifman]

I figured the Musk/Ramaswamy plan to cut 2 trillion firm thd federal govt is going to need its own thread.

I read yesterday that the Trump admin is refusing to meet with the GSA and current Biden department heads in order to have a smooth transition. Instead insiders are telling the press that they see no need for this. This is not a transition but a “hostile takeover” of the deep state. They are going to do their own thing.

More here:

[Grifman]

Two trillion in cuts are unlikely:

https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/do ... r-c76499a0

[LawBeefaroni]

It's called DOGE. Like it's a big joke. Fuck this. Fuck Musk and his bullshit.

[hepcat]

Yeah, I'm 100 percent certain he picked that name to draw attention to his pet crypto project. That it recently saw an upswing in value after being a joke for years is no coincidence.

Musk is a walking, talking piece of shit. If we're worried about the damage immigrants are doing to country, we should look at him first.

Also, if this goes through, are there enough unionized groups within the endangered sectors to kick up a fuss? The last thing you wanna do is mess with unions, I believe.

[ImLawBoy]

I think he's been pretty open that he picked the name as a joke. Considering it's not even a real department, which would require an act of Congress to establish, that just emphasizes it.

[Grifman]

Also, if this goes through, are there enough unionized groups within the endangered sectors to kick up a fuss? The last thing you wanna do is mess with unions, I believe.

A lot of union members voted for Trump (though probably not govt ones). He's probably not too worried. Voters don't seem to care if the leopard facing party ends up eating their faces.

That said, I've read that federal employees are protected with respect to political firings. But if Trump just wants to cut 50% in the name of efficiency, then it's a lot murkier. And there is a lot of talk of moving departments out of DC, with the obvious hope that many employees will choose not to move.

In the end, like a lot of what Trump wants to do, this will end up in court for a year or two before we see what he can really do. In the meanwhile, chaos, which is probably the point anyway.

[Holman]

In normal times, isn’t all this the role of the Government Accountability Office?

GAO has a reputation for nonpartisan efficiency, so of course Trump will try to kill it.

[Skinypupy]

And there is a lot of talk of moving departments out of DC, with the obvious hope that many employees will choose not to move.

They did that with Bureau of Land Management during his first administration. Moved BLM's HQ from DC to Grand Junction, CO. They promised a ton of jobs and much greater efficiency, since most of the BLM lands were in the west. In reality, it caused hundreds of people to simply leave the agency instead of relocate, no one really wanted to work in Colorado so very few were hired, and it basically just created a massive mess for everyone involved. Biden pulled the plug and moved HQ back to DC.

I expect to see similar bullshit with other agencies and/or agency subcomponents.

GAO has a reputation for nonpartisan efficiency, so of course Trump will try to kill it.

They don't kill the parts Trump specifically requests on a whim, so they're part of the "deep state" conspiring against him.

[Zarathud]

I fully expect Trump businesses own the buildings where the offices will be moved. It’s grift first, performance second.

[pr0ner]

It's called DOGE. Like it's a big joke. Fuck this. Fuck Musk and his bullshit.

S3XY

[Smoove_B]

You know there's going to be DOGE merch. Flags. Hats. Bumper stickers. We're entering a new era of corruption.

[LawBeefaroni]

It's called DOGE. Like it's a big joke. Fuck this. Fuck Musk and his bullshit.

S3XY

He's a seriously unfunny one trick pony.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Twitter sign on the company's San Francisco headquarters was slightly revamped.

The social media giant's head honcho, Elon Musk, had the "W" in the Twitter sign painted over in white to blend into the background color so that the name reads ‘Titter.’

Elon Musk bizarrely changed his name to 'Harry Bōlz' on Twitter, leaving some of his 134 million followers baffled.

Some people have speculated the tech mogul is plotting his next major project, while others believe he's simply playing with fans and it is nothing more than wordplay. More Twitter users believed it to be his alter ego.

Musk makes a lot of 69 and 420 jokes. A lot. A few examples: He recently updated the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s Twitter account to say that it’s 69% government-funded; set 4/20 as the date for eliminating legacy blue checkmarks and launching the giant Starship rocket; and once priced the Tesla Model S at $69,420.

Who is to blame for comedi-Elon? Perhaps Nikki Glaser put it best when the Los Angeles Times invited actual comedians to review his jokes:

"The sad part is that [Musk] thinks he’s funny, but that’s really our fault more than his. We both fear him and also desire his wealth and power so in order to gain his acceptance, people around him laugh and encourage this. It’s the same as when people laugh at your pilot’s dumb puns. We laugh not because he’s funny but because we fear if we don’t he’ll fly us into a mountain."

[Alefroth]

WTF are DOGE people and how would they have any authority?

[Smoove_B]

I'm not sure, but you can ask Marjorie:

House GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she will chair a new oversight subcommittee in the next Congress that will work with the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

House Oversight Chair James Comer “intends to establish a new Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) for the 119th Congress,” a source familiar told CNN, confirming that Greene will chair the subcommittee.

Comer and Greene, a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, recently had a meeting with Ramaswamy and his team to discuss the new subcommittee, another source familiar told CNN.

In her own words:

“I’m excited to chair this new subcommittee designed to work hand in hand with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the entire DOGE team” Greene said in a statement to CNN. “Our subcommittee’s work will expose people who need to be FIRED. The bureaucrats who don’t do their job, fail audits like in the Pentagon, and don’t know where BILLIONS of dollars are going, will be getting a pink slip.”

Greene said she plans to investigate waste throughout the federal government and hold hearings.

[El Guapo]

WTF are DOGE people and how would they have any authority?

Because they're backed by Trump. Which may be part of the point - to transfer actual power from government people authorized by law to non-government people authorized by Trump.

[Holman]

Legally, isn't DOGE nothing but an advisory panel? A government Department has to be created by Congress.

It's really about making headlines and putting pressure on Congress to knuckle under. It's not like Elon himself can sign a document actually moving funds from NASA to SpaceX.

Although I don't doubt that Congress *will* knuckle under and give Trump the mother of all line-item veto powers over the budget.

[Unagi]

In normal times, isn’t all this the role of the Government Accountability Office?

GAO has a reputation for nonpartisan efficiency, so of course Trump will try to kill it.

It will be turned into the Government Accountability Serving Trump and Patriots Office.

[Alefroth]

[Grifman]

[Skinypupy]

Seeing the Musk fanboys swarm the comments is certainly...something.

[Grifman]

[Punisher]

So I called GW law professor Richard Pierce yesterday. Pierce has written more than 20 books & 130 articles on administrative law and government regulation, & been cited in hundreds of judicial opinions.

I asked Pierce about Elon/Vivek's plan to cut "thousands" of federal regulations w/o Congressional approval. Elon & Vivek said Wednesday that Trump can unilaterally, by executive action, "immediately pause the enforcement" of the regs identified by DOGE.

Pierce said this will not work because doing so would violate the longstanding Administrative Procedures Act dictating how regulations can be overturned -- & he doesn't see even the highly conservative Supreme Court going along

“It would be unbelievably outrageous and unlawful – there is nothing in the statute that comes anywhere close to authorizing what they want to do, and no permission in the Constitution," he said

Pierce said if SCOTUS agreed it would be the most shocking decision since 1896's Plessy v. Ferguson

“I can’t even imagine what the argument would be beyond, ‘Gee, there are a lot of regulations and we want to get rid of them.’”

My impression from experts is their impoundment plans, while also a bit of a longshot, are more likely to take effect

[Skinypupy]

“I can’t even imagine what the argument would be beyond, ‘Gee, there are a lot of regulations and we want to get rid of them.’”

Seems like people still haven’t figured out that
”because we wanna” IS perfectly valid and cogent reasoning in Trumplandia.

Honestly, who is going to tell them no at this point?

[pr0ner]

While I doubt DOGE will have any real effectiveness, in the short term, if some of the return to office rumblings I've been hearing actually happen, that's likely to cause quite a number of people to quit the federal government on its own merits.

[Blackhawk]

From what I've read, they're not trying to be productive in and of themselves. They're trying to set up the targets for Trump to knock down. They're identifying what they want to cut, then looking for the laws and loopholes that Trump can use to do so. They then pass this along and someone else swings the axe.

[pr0ner]

Ehhh. The amount of loopholes and legal issues they'd have to wade through makes me not too concerned about most of the harebrained ideas Vivek and Elon keep pushing about downsizing the federal government. This isn't Twitter.

However, once again, telling remote feds they have to come back to the office full time (or even more than half time) would be far more efficient for shrinking the workforce. Some agencies are almost fully remote, and there are plenty of feds in other agencies who work at home full time or close enough to it without living near their agency. Telling them they have to go back to the office would dramatically change things.

[Blackhawk]

Maybe, but if there's a loophole that works for one thing, Trump is liable to push so much crap through it that it'll need Depends afterwards. Remember his carte-blanche executive orders?

Now, maybe those things aren't really usable for what he'll try to use them for, but if Congress and the SC don't stop him, it doesn't matter. And then it's precedent.

[Smoove_B]

However, once again, telling remote feds they have to come back to the office full time (or even more than half time) would be far more efficient for shrinking the workforce. Some agencies are almost fully remote, and there are plenty of feds in other agencies who work at home full time or close enough to it without living near their agency. Telling them they have to go back to the office would dramatically change things.

Don't underestimate how much this is part of the plan. Before the pandemic I knew many people in the public sector that qualified for retirement and took it because there were political discussions at a state level about reducing/modifying/changing retirement benefits. Just talking about it had a wave of people leave and I'm pretty sure that was the intended effect. I'm finding myself in a similar position now. Not that I can retire but I'm trying to "guess" what my best move is right now as I'm confident there are going to be changes coming that impact my paycheck. I'm considering a move that would be me in an adjacent position but still under the larger umbrella of public service - which is being actively targeted. I genuinely don't know what the right move is and it's causing me significant stress.