Wednesday, April 02, 2025

The Real Cost of DOGE

Mike Masnick: The program that promised efficiency through targeted destruction is instead delivering chaotic and costly destruction through incompetence.

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Wrote a bit about how DOGE is running around saying it's "saving" taxpayers all kinds of money through made up numbers and lies ... when the reality is that it's likely to cost taxpayers a ton. www.techdirt.com/2025/03/31/t ...

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-- Mike Masnick (@mmasnick.bsky.social) March 31, 2025 at 5:33 PM

Comments

FTA:

Imagine you had pretty much unlimited power over the government and wanted to save taxpayers' money. You could:

Carefully study government operations to understand what works and what doesn't

Make targeted improvements based on data and evidence

Track results to ensure changes actually deliver savings

Or you could do what Elon Musk did with DOGE: declare everything wasteful, start firing people at random, and claim you're saving billions through pure destruction.

What Musk is doing, however, makes perfect sense if you understand what the real goal of DOGE is:

"If the administration is working not to save money but rather to destroy the government, the cuts that threaten the well-being of American citizens make more sense."

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

#1 | Posted by Gal_Tuesday at 2025-03-31 06:04 PM

The idea that Dotard and Elmo are smart businessmen is a myth on par with tax cuts create revenue.

#2 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-04-01 08:58 AM

As many here have noted, and others ignored, this was always going to cost more than it saved.

And that's just money; the cruelty was the point.

#3 | Posted by Corky at 2025-04-02 05:46 PM

It took 4 hours at my red state DMV to get a Real ID (don't like to carry a passport domestically). The reason: not enough employees.

It was a glimpse of what's to come when people seek federal government services in person or on the phone.

#4 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2025-04-03 02:34 AM

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