Lastly, the second we’ve all been ready for: The Authorities Accountability Workplace’s annual report on lowering overlap, fragmentation, and duplication has been launched!
In regular instances, this could not be one thing most individuals would even discover, a lot much less get hyped about. However in Trump’s America, a run-of-the-mill report from an unbiased, nonpartisan company feels momentous, like some tiny a part of the federal government stays untouched by the rampages of Elon Musk’s ostensible Division of Authorities Effectivity.
It’s additionally wild that this specific report escaped containment and is simply on the market on the earth, because it’s actually a overview of Congress and federal companies “to improve efficiency and effectiveness of government.”
It’s additionally an precise report, working 145 pages with figures, tables, methodologies, and the way value financial savings are decided, and it boasts 148 issues and suggestions throughout 43 matter areas.
Now distinction this report with the dumb DOGE dashboard, an ever-updating webpage with only a few particulars on how financial savings had been calculated and even what, precisely, was axed. It’s nothing just like the staid, but helpful, GAO report, which particulars every effectivity and financial savings suggestion at size.
A cartoon by Tim Campbell.
Neither Trump nor Musk would ever discover this kind of report interesting, which might be why it acquired previous them. The suggestions listed here are for precise, tangible, boring issues, somewhat than fantastical concepts like “let’s illegally close dozens of agencies by pretending there’s fraud.”
The GAO’s suggestions are extra like, “The Space Development Agency should fully demonstrate its space-based laser communications technology in each iterative development phase before progressing, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars over 10 years.”
Or the suggestion that the Division of the Inside “improve its compliance activities to verify federal oil and gas royalties, potentially increasing collections by tens of millions of dollars per year.”
These are the kind of issues individuals truly need in a authorities effectivity report.
So what do all of those suggestions add as much as? If we had been to undertake only one 12 months’s value of its strategies, the GAO report estimates that the monetary advantages could possibly be $100 billion or extra, and authorities companies would enhance.
Distinction this with DOGE’s pretend financial savings. First, Musk promised that he would save the federal authorities $2 trillion. Then that turned $1 trillion. Then it dropped to $150 billion. And whereas the dumb DOGE dashboard presently says it has saved $170 billion, that’s possible inflated because of DOGE’s lack of transparency and shoddy math.
DOGE has counted financial savings from the identical contract a number of instances, and a number of other of its listings on its “Wall of Receipts” are literally $0 every. Solely $70 billion of the alleged financial savings are itemized.
So, one 12 months of GAO strategies may save $100 billion with out annihilating vital federal authorities companies, whereas DOGE’s slash-and-burn mass firings, company closings, and funding freezes have resulted in, theoretically, $170 billion. That doesn’t actually appear to be an incredible discount, given how a lot of the federal government has been destroyed by DOGE.
Even when we faux that DOGE did handle to avoid wasting $170 billion, there’s nonetheless one other drawback: Authorities spending is growing. The federal government has spent $166 billion greater than it did by this level final 12 months, growing the deficit by $196 billion.
There’s no actual doubt that almost all, if not all, of GAO’s professional suggestions shall be disregarded by the Trump administration in favor of letting DOGE proceed to do no matter it needs. Why let a superbly good authorities company do its job when DOGE may simply ship over some unqualified racist to “fix” issues?
Simply take a look at the pressured closure of the Common Companies Administration’s know-how crew, 18F, which existed to create open-source instruments to enhance IT and digital companies for the federal authorities. The Trump administration has determined that, someway, eliminating the prevailing know-how crew will assist the federal government “embrace best-in-class technologies to accelerate digital transformation and modernize IT infrastructure.”
The Trump administration ostensibly needed higher digital companies and IT infrastructure so it … closed the company that did precisely that.
Bizarre that we would have liked an entire new fake company to seek out inefficiencies after we already had completely good ones already doing it. However, in fact, DOGE’s mission was by no means about precise effectivity. It’s about having permission to tear the copper out of the partitions and promote it for scrap.
And that, not like discovering federal inefficiencies, is one thing DOGE may be very, superb at.
Marketing campaign Motion
