[HN Gopher] Fire the Contractors: Paradoxically adding governmen...
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Fire the Contractors: Paradoxically adding government employees
reduces costs
Author : pdfernhout
Score : 27 points
Date : 2025-02-07 19:40 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (washingtonmonthly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (washingtonmonthly.com)
| pdfernhout wrote:
| "Voters are right to want a less bloated and wasteful government.
| But Elon Musk's plan will fail because the most inefficient parts
| lie outside it."
|
| "That's because Trump and his DOGE sidekicks both misunderstand
| the nature of the problem and risk undermining the government
| services that their base depends on. The primary source of
| government waste and inefficiency isn't what they say it is: a
| bloated civil service insufficiently "loyal" to the president.
| Rather, as writers for this magazine--including yours truly (see
| most recently "Memo to AOC: Only You Can Save the Government,"
| July/August 2021)--have tried to explain, the problem is the
| opposite. Federal agencies have too few civil servants with the
| right expertise to manage the contractors who increasingly
| deliver the federal government's services. The key to reducing
| waste and increasing efficiency is for the government to hire
| more high-quality government employees and shrink the number of
| contractors. And there's even a huge opportunity here of bringing
| in the technology and people skills to remake government so it's
| ready for the challenges of the future."
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's a false dichotomy.
| specialist wrote:
| yes and: aka "administrative capacity". A favorite topic of
| David Roberts (Volts podcast) wrt to the challenges of the
| energy transition.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| This article keeps talking about the legal hoops Trump would have
| to jump through in order to do this and is completely ignoring
| the fact that any time he's presented with legal hoops he has to
| jump through he ignores them and does what he wants anyway
| without consequence. I don't believe the system will stop him
| this time because it hasn't stopped him even when it has managed
| to convict him of crimes.
| apothegm wrote:
| This assumes they're trying to make government less effective
| rather than to render it impotent to resist their plundering.
| ENGNR wrote:
| This article assumes that the services themselves won't be cut,
| so they'll have to use more contractors.
|
| I think the point is that they'll cut the services and
| contractors too. I've worked with government quite a bit at
| various levels and the level of messing around, pointless ideas
| and internal politics is astounding, as well as the lack of
| accountability and oversight in general.
|
| The opinion I walked away with is that just like twitter, chunks
| of it could be cut away or properly digitised without affecting
| what people on the outside perceive or care about at all.
| salynchnew wrote:
| Honestly, DOGE seems like a disingenuous enterprise simply based
| on the fact that they are not starting with the DoD.
|
| Defense contractors simply couldn't stop accidentally
| electricuting people in warzones[0, 1]. They have had a major
| negative impact on readiness while benefitting from massive
| contracts[2] and . There also appears to be a situation where DoD
| leadership has been captured by the defense industry[4].
|
| [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32334682 [1]
| https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/another-mysterious...
| [2] https://www.icij.org/investigations/windfalls-war/us-
| contrac... [3]
| https://www.nationalpriorities.org/pressroom/articles/2023/0...
| [4] https://quincyinst.org/research/subsidizing-the-military-
| ind...
| janalsncm wrote:
| > DoD leadership has been captured by the defense industry
|
| That explains why you wouldn't start there. Assuming what DOGE
| is doing can work at all, it's easier to start in an easier
| place.
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(page generated 2025-02-07 23:01 UTC)