[AuryGlenz]

So we shouldn’t try? Just let the budget expand forever?

If I were king for a day I’d make it so the government agencies somewhat regularly (say, every 5-10 years or so) would be subjected to significant budget cuts (without stopping with the yearly increases they already get). That would make it similar to many businesses, and force the management at the agencies to actually figure out how to do things efficiently.

Of course, people would whine incessantly as we saw with DOGE the second those cuts hit a program where the media can cause an uproar about hungry children or health programs or whatever.

[autoexec]

> If I were king for a day I’d make it so the government agencies somewhat regularly (say, every 5-10 years or so) would be subjected to significant budget cuts

It'd be better to audit them to make sure that the money was being used smartly and that those agencies were accomplishing what there were created for. Arbitrary cuts would mean that agencies that were well functioning and lean would be suddenly unable to do the job we've been paying them for and it could encourage them to push for more funding than they need just so that they can survive the random cuts every 5-10 years.

We don't need to intentionally cause a crisis that will impact the lives of Americans who depend on the services their taxes fund. There are smarter ways to identify waste and hold accountable any people mismanaging funds. Government shouldn't be run like business, but honestly I'd also question the wisdom of companies who acted that way.

[AuryGlenz]

Auditing won’t cause them to fire their workers that aren’t doing a great job.

I don’t say it should be crisis level, but tightening the belt from time to time would force them to find efficiencies. Right now they have absolutely no incentive to do so because they have no competition and no impetus to.

[jacob_harris]

It sounds like you are proposing some of the oversight already done by the Government Accountability Office.

I hear where you are coming from, but the whole point of the Constitution is that a king does not get to determine how the budget is allocated. Congress has the sole power of the purse, and the responsibility and blame for how money is appropriated belongs there. Congress could potentially enact measures lke this to sunset expenditures unless they are re-authorized, but I think that would likely turn out to be a chaotic disaster in its own right, given that Congress currently is struggling to pass budgets.

In any event, I think hungry children is a problem, and I don't need the media to tell me that, so that's my perspective.

[Hikikomori]

The federal workforce shrunk by 20% under Clinton and it wasn't a clusterfuck like doge. Just like the tariffs situation this administration only hires incompetent sycophants and clowns and are unable to do anything anything correctly.