[bluescrn]

Why on earth would they need something as visible and aggressive as DOGE to extract data?

Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending (especially spending viewed as ideological) doing far more harm than good?

[unclad5968]

Government salaries are such a small percentage (less than 5% is what I'm seeing in cursory searches) of spending that it doesnt make a lot of sense to me that DOGE was a genuine attempt at cutting spending. I work in defense, and at least a few times a year, I see government contract money that could pay a dozen salaries wasted on equipment that never even gets installed. We have a government bought tool that cost $2million 8 years ago, and we plug it in when senators come tour our facility so we can pretend we use it. If anyone in the government cared about reducing costs, I don't think they would care too much about payroll. Its the equivalent of taking all the appliances out of your house because your electric bill was $200 when you take home $5k.

I won't pretend to know what the actual motives were, but financial "efficiency" seems suspect to me.

[Sparyjerry]

Doge did far more than cutting salaries, the salary cutting was almost entirely voluntary and actually a tiny fraction of what they were cutting. Mostly it actually is third party contracts being cut. You can see all the contracts being cut here: https://doge.gov/

[yndoendo]

I was talking to an applications engineer one night at the bar in a restaurant. The company he works for makes equipment for mass producing the large armament shell cylinders. One of the clients that bought their equipment was a missile manufacturer. He went on site and found the machine had incorrect tolerance and was producing deformed products. They also lied about the thickness of the material they planed on using. Finally when the DOD general asked him point blank, "Will this help us produce X missiles a year?" he said no and why. Turns out the contractor directly lied about their capability and yet retained the contact because they are one of the few companies that produces missiles. He never got a call back from the company because they wanted him to lie to the general.

This is the actual waste that needs to be looked before the checks are even signed. No way in hell DOGE or anyone in the current administration will actually look at bad spending. Specially now this administration likes the name Department of War. These are the same companies that bribe ... I mean donate to politicians to retain this corrupt funding.

[Supermancho]

> Why on earth would they need something as visible and aggressive as DOGE to extract data?

I think this is obvious. It was one of many goals, that aligned under an umbrella of activities. Asking for specific data creates a paper trail and triggers regulation. Restricting access, taking outright possession of hardware, and firing people along the way, helps shield the activity.

> Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending

aka "Aww shucks, we were just doin our best."

No rational organization would take many of the actions that were taken, if one of their primary goals was accountability. It was a smash and grab (disorganized would be fair to say), with an ad-hoc rationalization that was never reasoned.

[PopAlongKid]

>Why on earth would they need something as visible and aggressive as DOGE to extract data?

To hide the true purpose behind a curtain of "aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending".

[krapp]

No, because there is evidence DOGE did exfiltrate a vast amount of data, illegally, and gave it to Palantir and possibly others.

Maybe they were naive and useful idiots, but that doesn't just happen by accident.

[jacob_harris]

There definitely has been a pattern of shoddy behavior, but it's been difficult to find a smoking gun of DOGE exfiltrating the data at many agencies. I am looking to see if there are more revelations to come out of DOGE's activities at SSA for instance.

That said, lack of evidence isn't necessarily exonerating. DOGE's MO has often been to take over the CIO and/or front office of the agency to ensure there is nothing to monitor them. It's basically like if the CEO of the bank sends all the security guards home and lets robbers in through the side door. You can't prove they took anything necessarily (my bank metaphor falls flat here, because data can be copied but if money were stolen, you could count it), but also it IS often shady as hell too.