whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:Harrison Bergeron said:BUDOS said:
Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. Some would holler about a 9 billion dollar cut in the defense budget, or homeland security or FEMA or from an infrastructure bill, etc. As long as it affects those who aren't us just cut away. There's more American ways to do this, and if we would put Americans first then there might not be such political alienation and polarization.
However that takes something we no longer have as a nation
What would an "American" way to do it look like? How would you propose we balance the budget?
The reality is only about 10% of dollars sent to D.C. actually return to the people, so there is really no one other than bureaucrats affected by the reduction. The only reason there is so-called "polarization" is because the left built a large, taxpayer-funded infrastructure to fuel its retaining and gaining power. That is why there is so much screaming - its losing some of its money train it used to fund its power.
Brookings has a very good article on the size of Government.
Is government too big? Reflections on the size and composition of today's federal government | Brookings
Bottomline, no matter what era you pick the size of the Federal Govt on Jan 19, 2025 was in proportion to the US population in other eras of US history. If we want to shrink it, attrition would do just fine. No need for the theatrics. The Government is NOT as big as you think for a 365 million person population in a more technical world.
I have no problem reducing costs, but them services and infrastructure is going to suffer. Based on Trump's budget Defense is not getting cut, it is growing (as is total spending). Question is do you want your money going to provide for the things the Fed does or do you want the States to do it? You are paying in either Income, State Income, or Sales tax because the cost of Government is NOT going down.
theatrics are part of politics. If you aren't engaging in them, you aren't doing it right. And Trump has done a spectacular job with Doge. It's a friggin' brand. Cutting government waste/fraud, once a meaningless talking point bout minutia no one cared much about, is now a brand. You say the word, and everyone knows what you are talking about. No one is saying Trump is just paying lip service to cutting waste and fraud. He's provoked such rhetorical hyperbole that he MUST be doing something, cutting deep enough to hurt....right?
In that regard, the harder neverTrumpers fight against Doge, the more they are positioned to be defending waste, fraud, abuse, unnecessary spending, etc....
Geez, you are going further and further into that kool-aid...
That "brand" is messing with ALOT of people's lives. People that had nothing to do with "insulting" Donald. The people marketing the "brand" will not be touched by their actions. Elon will be a billionaire. Donald will be a millionaire, pretending to be a billionaire. Thought the CIA couldn't operate domestically... This reads like a bad 1970's CIA novel.
LOL again we see the irony of neverTrump critique. Who's being conspiratorial? Republicans, who see very clearly a bureaucracy operating as a 5th column operating to the benefit of its political opponents, or neverTrumpers trying to make the Orange man out to be a dictator?
My last post was not a political not fiscal observation. Trump has managed to make government inefficiency something of interest to voters. Every POTUS has paid lip service to that. And Presidents on both sides of the aisle have engaged in budget cutting and bureaucracy downsizing. Trump has done a better job of messaging than any of them. I mean, when has government inefficiency NOT been a source of ongoing humor and ridicule? And yes, he did/does have a "deep state" to deal with, a bureaucracy full of entrenched ideological opposition to not just his presidency but the entire GOP platform. Cleaning out all that rot is a good thing. The bureaucracy should be equally responsive (or not) to either side of the political divide, not a wholly owned subsidiary of one side.
If there is going to be a deep state, it better damned well be some shade of red. If Democrats don't want it to become so, they should be very careful not to try turn it blue again.
There is no Deep State. You worked in the Government, they give it too much credit to be that organized. There are some very smart people, but to get them all marching on the same foot? It is more like a bunch of very smart prairie dogs with a hawk overhead. Constantly scampering for cover and self-survival.
In terms of the Fed employee, making sure that count down of days left reaches "0". THAT is the only thing a Fed cares about, not pushing some rich guys agenda. No Fed is risking their employment and march to retirement and Federal Benefits for some anti-ANYONE agenda. The countdown starts on Day 1 and ends 30 years later. That doesn't mean they don't do their job, just that their motivation IS NOT Political.
There is no well-developed, deeply entrenched "deep state" as in the case of Turkey, where the term comes from. But the nucleus of one is plainly in sight. Unlike the Turkish example, where the deep-state is an separate entity with its own agenda, we have a problem with a bureaucracy aligned with one of our two political parties. The problem is worst at the Senior Executive Service level. All of those players we see in the unfolding RussiaGate scandal are SES players, and all of them chose a side to play politics.
Hierarchies of merit tend over time to become hierarchies of power. The mere fact that we such broad and sustained institutional resistance to the agenda of a POTUS who won the popular vote is evidence we have a problem. In principle, it doesn't matter whether that resistance (their name, not mine) is allied left, right, or center. It matters that one is visible. When we see that, "reforms" are in order.
We agree on this. I do agree that the issue is SES, they do need to be replaced. But they typically come and go with Administration changes.
One thing I have noticed that may be playing into this issue is that we no longer get things done efficiently. In the 80's and 90's we hit deadlines better, these people would have been replaced by the new Administration. Now, we don't hit deadlines we do continuing resolutions and don't get people confirmed and use "Interims". I believe the issue is Congress and the rest of this is fallout from them NOT doing their job. From the Budget deficits, confirmations impasses, to not making laws letting the Courts run things.
I just fear that those that are getting targeted are the "cogs" that keep the US Government actually moving and really can't protect themselves.
An awful lot of those cogs move to a new position every 2-3 years. How many times did I hear "nobody is irreplaceable." You serve for a while, then you move on & let someone else do it. If you're not doing that, you're not going to get promoted. You've got precepts for promotion. You have to punch certain tickets, certain types of assignments, to build a file that looks competitive. It tends to make you more conscientious. You know you will be handing off your portfolio, so don't hand off a mess or the good assignments will stop happening (and with them the opportunity to continue getting promoted.)
No chance that a RIF causes the civil service to collapse. The bigger concern is what we have now - a civil service that either identifies with the partisan agenda of one party, and relentlessly opposes the other. All we need is a couple of prison sentences. Pick the worst 2-3 of the lot and fry them to set an example. That is what you are seeing now with all the Gabbard releases. They're starting to set the stage to freeze their target.
Worst of the worst is John Brennan. Over and above his insufferable arrogance, his partisan abuse of the powers of his office did great harm to the institution. Comey is not far behind.
We agree on most things, the issue I have is that you put the on-the-line Federal worker in the same silo as John Brennan! He is NOT a civil servant level employee like most, he made the jump to political appointee. The number that can do that is not high. I do agree that those are the ones causing the "political advocate" issues, for both sides.
Many are saying Gabbard is not much different. Calling her report and use of "Deep State" amateurish... Thought of you when I read that and your opinion. : )
the problem with the on-the-line Federal worker is that there are too many of them doing too many things.
Long-time hunting buddy going back to frat bro at BU is a cardiologist. when Obamacare heated up, with all it's ostensible focus on saving everyone money, I asked him a simple question "so what do we have to do to spend less healthcare?" His response: "practice less medicine."
You can only save marginal amounts of money doing something better. To really transform the budget, you have to simply quit doing some functions altogether. It's why we demobilize armies at the ends of wars. The tanks and fighter jets and aircraft carriers are already paid for. To biggest pot of money to save is payroll on so many soldiers. Ergo, entire divisions go away with strokes of the pen. We see Trump taking that approach. USAID? gone. Dept of Education needs to go. Green new deal regulatory jobs need to go. And on and on. And one will face enormous resistance from entrenched interests in doing so. Ergo one must engage in hyperbole to move public support. So there's nothing new about what Trump is doing by savaging some of these agencies. It's part of the process to get the public behind the program.
Fraud, waste, and abuse is not a threat to democracy. It's there in any organization. It's worse in government because there's no private sector competitive forces working to keep it in check. Nothing ever dies in government. It just builds and builds and builds. The threat to democracy is when individual use sovereign power to entrench partisan interests. The rank & file guys can't do that. It's the SES types, Brennan, et al who did that.
Nothing would be more restorative than John Brennan getting a perp walk. Even if he beats the rap, he needs to be subjected to the same thing Trump was - "the process is the punishment." It's the only way to restore the balanced detente that our two-party system depends upon. Democrats CLEARLY forgot the old sniper's adage "line of sight is reciprocal." If you can see your enemy, your enemy can see you. There's a political corollary - "whatever you do to your political opponents while you're in power, your political opponents can do to you while they're in power." Democrats need to get a few fingers & toes smashed beyond repair to re-learn the lesson. Seeing Democrats ignore that plain reality was was the scariest thing about what they did with all the prosecutions of Trump - it was like they were planning to never lose an election again. They thought they had wired the system to prevent that from ever happening.
We agree on this.
So what gets cut... That is always the question and what is easiest to cut (under control of the Executive Branch) is not always the best choice. Actually, most of the time it is the worst choice because of what the Executive Branch does - it runs the day to day operations of the Government. So, most positions have specific role and purpose.
The bigger issue is Congress, both sides of the aisle. They are NOT doing their job and that is forcing the Executive and Judicial to fill the gap. Congress appropriates funds and laws. Most of our problems go back to either a financial issue or a not enforcing law issue. Congress has control of both. If the Executive Branch is forced to cut to off set Congress, we are going to be in a worse position of safety, security, defense, infrastructure and health. You can only take away so much support before the line units fail. Adding more ICE officers or FBI officers is not helpful if there is not enough support for them to function. That is what we are doing.
Congress needs to make those financial and law decisions and they won't. The won't even pass a budget or reform immigration (after 40 years...)