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> But it is absolutely true that the federal government is endlessly wasteful; it’s insane watching everyone around me get gaslit into thinking the government i

> But it is absolutely true that the federal government is endlessly wasteful; it’s insane watching everyone around me get gaslit into thinking the government is actually efficient. It's also absolutely true that private companies are endlessly wasteful. I've worked for four large companies now, and the waste is mind boggling. I think what upsets people about government is that tax dollars are used to fund it, but I would claim from my own observation that beyond a certain size any kind of organization is filled with waste. I'll point out, though, that there are areas of government that have been studied and found to be very efficient, and have high levels of satisfaction. It's been quite a while now, but I recall around ~2006-2007 an academic study came out which was originally intended to look only at private insurers. As they designed the study they realized that given the size of Medicare they should also include Medicare as part of the study. What they found: - A much much higher percentage of the money going into Medicare goes toward patient care than in any of the private insurers. Like low single digit percentages of overhead vs. 10-25% overhead in the case of the private insurers. - Customer satisfaction from dealing with the bureaucracy (claim processing) of Medicare was much higher than customer satisfaction with the private insurers. - Patient satisfaction with the care they were receiving from Medicare was as high or higher than the private insurers.

dmix 2y ago
It’s still worth looking and finding that stuff out (carefully and transparently). There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. GWB created a small version of DOGE with almost the same mandate that never really did anything notable because it was small and never ambitious (it also still exists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_General_on_Integrity_and_Efficiency?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_Gene...). Most large wasteful private organizations are often the ones who get comfortable in their existing market, employees get hardened in their ways, and eventually are threatened by changes in the market and competition and die off. There is no competitive pressure on gov agencies. It’s almost always a one way street after an agency gets formed that it continues as is indefinitely with only occasional changes in leadership. The number of agencies (>400 federally in US) only increases. Congress rarely looks backwards with spending, they only challenge demands for new spending plans to expand agencies. Otherwise budgets only go up with new line items as US tax revenue forever increases each year.
- nullstyle 2y ago
  > There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. Citation needed. The OMB has been around for a while.
  - dmix 2y ago
    It’s partly true OBM saved $25 billion once a decade ago in 2014 when they proposed 215 cuts https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/Building_a_21st_Century_Government_by_Cutting_Duplication_Fragmentation_and_Waste https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/Building_a_21st_Cen... But those big wins were rare. It’s mostly small stuff like during Biden admin they banned single use plastic and reducing food waste. No one has ever really done large scale data analysis on spending and made it a major priority across the federal government in recent history.
    - nullstyle 2y ago
      >> But those big wins were rare. Citations needed. I found this with almost zero effort and it seems like the program saved $60 billion over four years: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/briefing-room/2024/12/19/biden-harris-administration-delivers-over-100-billion-in-savings-and-cost-avoidance-to-the-federal-government-through-category-management/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/briefing-room/2024/... I feel like your confidence is just ignorance
      - dmix 2y ago
        I didn’t say they never did anything I’m saying the big wins were rare. Your own link says the $100B number was aggregate since it started in the Obama admin. That’s over a decade ago. The US federal gov spends almost $ 7 trillion a year. I’m sure they can find a whole lot more than a few billion here and there each year. I also don’t know why it’s so controversial to want the gov to spend money wisely and make efficiency a core value. It’s funny what people will defend because the current people doing it are controversial and unprofessional so the whole idea gets dismissed. I’m not a political extremist like that, I just think it could and should be done better and done right.

dmix 2y ago

It’s still worth looking and finding that stuff out (carefully and transparently). There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. GWB created a small version of DOGE with almost the same mandate that never really did anything notable because it was small and never ambitious (it also still exists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_General_on_Integrity_and_Efficiency?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_Gene...). Most large wasteful private organizations are often the ones who get comfortable in their existing market, employees get hardened in their ways, and eventually are threatened by changes in the market and competition and die off. There is no competitive pressure on gov agencies. It’s almost always a one way street after an agency gets formed that it continues as is indefinitely with only occasional changes in leadership. The number of agencies (>400 federally in US) only increases. Congress rarely looks backwards with spending, they only challenge demands for new spending plans to expand agencies. Otherwise budgets only go up with new line items as US tax revenue forever increases each year.

nullstyle 2y ago
> There’s only been token attempts at a meta analysis of gov efficiency in the past. Citation needed. The OMB has been around for a while.
- dmix 2y ago
  It’s partly true OBM saved $25 billion once a decade ago in 2014 when they proposed 215 cuts https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/Building_a_21st_Century_Government_by_Cutting_Duplication_Fragmentation_and_Waste https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/Building_a_21st_Cen... But those big wins were rare. It’s mostly small stuff like during Biden admin they banned single use plastic and reducing food waste. No one has ever really done large scale data analysis on spending and made it a major priority across the federal government in recent history.
  - nullstyle 2y ago
    >> But those big wins were rare. Citations needed. I found this with almost zero effort and it seems like the program saved $60 billion over four years: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/briefing-room/2024/12/19/biden-harris-administration-delivers-over-100-billion-in-savings-and-cost-avoidance-to-the-federal-government-through-category-management/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/briefing-room/2024/... I feel like your confidence is just ignorance
    - dmix 2y ago
      I didn’t say they never did anything I’m saying the big wins were rare. Your own link says the $100B number was aggregate since it started in the Obama admin. That’s over a decade ago. The US federal gov spends almost $ 7 trillion a year. I’m sure they can find a whole lot more than a few billion here and there each year. I also don’t know why it’s so controversial to want the gov to spend money wisely and make efficiency a core value. It’s funny what people will defend because the current people doing it are controversial and unprofessional so the whole idea gets dismissed. I’m not a political extremist like that, I just think it could and should be done better and done right.