If Muskaswamy make a bunch of reckless cuts, and then at some point they or someone (in this administration or the next) realize they overshot (like Musk did at Twitter), how hard will it be to re-staff? Will the private sector have fully employed the experts the government has?
It will be hard to persuade future hires that the public sector is a stable place where they should accept lower wages in return for greater job security
The federal workforce has been aging significantly, and after two generations of right-wing public service bashing the federal government already is off the radar for a lot of potential candidates. It's already difficult to compete with private sector salaries in numerous career fields and this just makes recruiting even more difficult.
We can quantify a lot of personnel-related costs in the budget arena, but the intangibles related to experience and performance are difficult to quantify under the best circumstances. That said, it seems reasonable to me on the inside that once onboard expertise and institutional memory is lost, especially if it is dismissed at scale, we should expect the damage to be long-lasting. Rapid and poorly coordinated personnel cuts would severely degrade capacity for service delivery such that even if positions were eventually restored at a later date, the hires probably don't generate a proportional increase in agency function.
Thank you so much for highlighting that DOGE is not an actual department of the federal government. It has been so frustrating to see normally competent journalists acting as if it is already a department on a par with real departments that were created & funded by acts of Congress. It feels as if we've gone into some sort of alternative history where the legal structures & safeguards fundamental to the US government has become distant mirages rather than reliable facts of everyday life.
As you point out the most this so-called department can be is an advisory body. Right now, unfortunately, it is not subject to the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. But as soon as Trump takes office, it almost certainly will be subject to FACA. (BTW, Elon & Vivek being volunteers is irrelevant to that.) Hopefully, some good government group will be taking action to do what it can to compel the Trump administration to comply with FACA. It may not be a strong tool against Trump's attacks on our government, but it is at least a tool.
FACA was passed in 1972 to assure that advice given to the federal government by advisory committees is objective and accessible to the public. In this case, it is particularly important for there to be full disclosure and lots of sunshine on the work of this so-called "department".
“They have offered no compelling vision of restoring American state capacity beyond gutting regulations and eliminating employees. This might suit their businesses, but sounds less promising for the rest of us.“ HELL yeah. as a rich plutocrat, Musk doesn’t need the protections these laws and regulations provide. The rest of us really do, though, and I think one of the things I find most confusing about voters in this election is how they couldn’t see that.
Trump and Muskawamy suffer from hubris and arrogance. They really have no idea how the Federal government works, how it's agencies and departments are intertwined, and how they serve the public. They also have no idea how politics really works because they're used to be being in full control. I don't believe Congressional Republicans want to be pushed aside and have Muskawamy making policy and budget decisions. I don't care what they say in public, they won't surrender their leverage and power. Trump is a lame duck from day one and neither he nor Muskawamy will suffer come 2026. Unfortunately, too many people believe that the Federal government can be run like a business; it can't because ultimately, businesses answer to owners, the government answers to the people.
If Muskaswamy make a bunch of reckless cuts, and then at some point they or someone (in this administration or the next) realize they overshot (like Musk did at Twitter), how hard will it be to re-staff? Will the private sector have fully employed the experts the government has?
It will be hard to persuade future hires that the public sector is a stable place where they should accept lower wages in return for greater job security
The federal workforce has been aging significantly, and after two generations of right-wing public service bashing the federal government already is off the radar for a lot of potential candidates. It's already difficult to compete with private sector salaries in numerous career fields and this just makes recruiting even more difficult.
We can quantify a lot of personnel-related costs in the budget arena, but the intangibles related to experience and performance are difficult to quantify under the best circumstances. That said, it seems reasonable to me on the inside that once onboard expertise and institutional memory is lost, especially if it is dismissed at scale, we should expect the damage to be long-lasting. Rapid and poorly coordinated personnel cuts would severely degrade capacity for service delivery such that even if positions were eventually restored at a later date, the hires probably don't generate a proportional increase in agency function.
Thank you so much for highlighting that DOGE is not an actual department of the federal government. It has been so frustrating to see normally competent journalists acting as if it is already a department on a par with real departments that were created & funded by acts of Congress. It feels as if we've gone into some sort of alternative history where the legal structures & safeguards fundamental to the US government has become distant mirages rather than reliable facts of everyday life.
As you point out the most this so-called department can be is an advisory body. Right now, unfortunately, it is not subject to the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. But as soon as Trump takes office, it almost certainly will be subject to FACA. (BTW, Elon & Vivek being volunteers is irrelevant to that.) Hopefully, some good government group will be taking action to do what it can to compel the Trump administration to comply with FACA. It may not be a strong tool against Trump's attacks on our government, but it is at least a tool.
FACA was passed in 1972 to assure that advice given to the federal government by advisory committees is objective and accessible to the public. In this case, it is particularly important for there to be full disclosure and lots of sunshine on the work of this so-called "department".
“They have offered no compelling vision of restoring American state capacity beyond gutting regulations and eliminating employees. This might suit their businesses, but sounds less promising for the rest of us.“ HELL yeah. as a rich plutocrat, Musk doesn’t need the protections these laws and regulations provide. The rest of us really do, though, and I think one of the things I find most confusing about voters in this election is how they couldn’t see that.
Trump and Muskawamy suffer from hubris and arrogance. They really have no idea how the Federal government works, how it's agencies and departments are intertwined, and how they serve the public. They also have no idea how politics really works because they're used to be being in full control. I don't believe Congressional Republicans want to be pushed aside and have Muskawamy making policy and budget decisions. I don't care what they say in public, they won't surrender their leverage and power. Trump is a lame duck from day one and neither he nor Muskawamy will suffer come 2026. Unfortunately, too many people believe that the Federal government can be run like a business; it can't because ultimately, businesses answer to owners, the government answers to the people.