Anonymous wrote:I've got a number for you: $36.73B. That's taxpayer dollars saved so far by DOGE. That looks like bloat to me, unless you want to provide a breakdown of all good things it's really going to.

Well, they need 5 trillion for the tax cuts Trump promised the rich... So not enough. They're gonna have to cut more for Elon and his other billionaire buddies to get more money. They're also going to have to raise taxes on everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually Musk has no idea what he has cut. If your perspective is that all non-defense spending is bad, sure, but you may find Americans aren't happy when they find out they can't reach anybody as SSA, the VA is horrifically understaffed, and basic federal government functions aren't being fulfilled. If these things were actually popular, Trump would have gone through Congress which would make these changes permanent and legal. Instead they are farts in the wind.

Are you talking about all those millionaires in Congress?

No, I'm talking about the billionaire grifters - Trump and Musk - pretending they GAF about the American people. They are not trying to deliver more value to the people. They are using the government for their personal gain. That's what Musk did with Twitter. He didn't make it more efficient or profitable. He converted it into his personal megaphone and a lot of people stopped listening.

They don't have the power they say they have. Don't believe them when they try to convince you they do.

Anonymous wrote:Actually Musk has no idea what he has cut. If your perspective is that all non-defense spending is bad, sure, but you may find Americans aren't happy when they find out they can't reach anybody as SSA, the VA is horrifically understaffed, and basic federal government functions aren't being fulfilled. If these things were actually popular, Trump would have gone through Congress which would make these changes permanent and legal. Instead they are farts in the wind.

Are you talking about all those millionaires in Congress?

Anonymous wrote:I've got a number for you: $36.73B. That's taxpayer dollars saved so far by DOGE. That looks like bloat to me, unless you want to provide a breakdown of all good things it's really going to.

Actually Musk has no idea what he has cut. If your perspective is that all non-defense spending is bad, sure, but you may find Americans aren't happy when they find out they can't reach anybody as SSA, the VA is horrifically understaffed, and basic federal government functions aren't being fulfilled. If these things were actually popular, Trump would have gone through Congress which would make these changes permanent and legal. Instead they are farts in the wind.

Trump is the Wizard of Oz. He doesn't have the power he says he does.

Anonymous wrote:I've got a number for you: $36.73B. That's taxpayer dollars saved so far by DOGE. That looks like bloat to me, unless you want to provide a breakdown of all good things it's really going to.

DOGE has done nothing. They have identified things Elmo doesn't like. Beyond that, nada.

I've got a number for you: $36.73B. That's taxpayer dollars saved so far by DOGE. That looks like bloat to me, unless you want to provide a breakdown of all good things it's really going to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what do you think the right ratio of SSA staf to retiree is? 1 per 100, 1 per 1000, 1 per 10000? I'd guess 1 for each 1000 retirees. for police (although this is local, not federal), I'd think 1 per 100 citizens. For teachers, 1 per 30 students. for ICE, 1 per 1000 illegal immigrants.

All this will add up to way more than 0.06%

I'm asking you, since you're the expert. I thought you already had this all figured out? That's why the other guy's 10,000 estimate is reasonable. He at least gave us a number, while you're over here trying to break it down by categories.

HOW was the other guy's 10,000 "reasonable?" He just made up some random number. It is not based on anything whatsoever. I asked him to name any functional country that has an equivalent ratio of 10,000 federal civilians to 330,000,000 citizens and he couldn't. The reason you can't name any such country is because no such country exists. Even barely-functional countries like Somalia and Ethiopia have more federal civilians than that.

I also asked where the notion came from that our government is so bloated. Grover Norquist is the one who promoted that deranged ideology. Our government is not bloated in comparison to most other successful well-functioning nations, in fact on a per capita basis it's less than half as big as most of the governments in Europe. And even governments considered lean and efficient like Singapore and Switzerland have a higher per capita federal workforce than the US. 10,000 would make us less capable than the most backward of third-world nations.

So before throwing around opinions and random numbers, or repeating crap from people like Grover Norquist, you people need to start looking at numbers and the math and comparisons to other countries and to start understanding how things actually work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would guess the goal is to get the non-military government to under 10,000 employees, which will allow for much more lean, efficient operations.

This is a reasonable estimate.

Nope. That is a number randomly pulled out of the previous poster's a$$.

Okay, so let's start with that number and see if more are needed. What precise number would you bring it down to?

What, are we just spitballing here? You make no sense. I want the government to effectively do the work to execute the laws as passed by Congress in a country of 340 million people. I don't know the optimal size of the workforce needed to do that. I do know that sending Musk and his minions in all scorched earth is not the way to figure that out!

And FYI they are not trying to right-size the federal workforce, they're trying to gain power and control. For what reason, you ask? I don't know but cannot think of a good responsible reason to act outside the rule of law on this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what do you think the right ratio of SSA staf to retiree is? 1 per 100, 1 per 1000, 1 per 10000? I'd guess 1 for each 1000 retirees. for police (although this is local, not federal), I'd think 1 per 100 citizens. For teachers, 1 per 30 students. for ICE, 1 per 1000 illegal immigrants.

All this will add up to way more than 0.06%

I'm asking you, since you're the expert. I thought you already had this all figured out? That's why the other guy's 10,000 estimate is reasonable. He at least gave us a number, while you're over here trying to break it down by categories.

jeesh. you are like that guy who thought the LHC had a 50% chance of making a black hole that would consume the universe. Yep. if you have no idea what you are talking about, just pull one a single round random number without any explanation.

So show us your expert analysis that you've so carefully thought out and is absolutely perfect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what do you think the right ratio of SSA staf to retiree is? 1 per 100, 1 per 1000, 1 per 10000? I'd guess 1 for each 1000 retirees. for police (although this is local, not federal), I'd think 1 per 100 citizens. For teachers, 1 per 30 students. for ICE, 1 per 1000 illegal immigrants.

All this will add up to way more than 0.06%

I'm asking you, since you're the expert. I thought you already had this all figured out? That's why the other guy's 10,000 estimate is reasonable. He at least gave us a number, while you're over here trying to break it down by categories.

jeesh. you are like that guy who thought the LHC had a 50% chance of making a black hole that would consume the universe. Yep. if you have no idea what you are talking about, just pull one a single round random number without any explanation.

Anonymous wrote:what do you think the right ratio of SSA staf to retiree is? 1 per 100, 1 per 1000, 1 per 10000? I'd guess 1 for each 1000 retirees. for police (although this is local, not federal), I'd think 1 per 100 citizens. For teachers, 1 per 30 students. for ICE, 1 per 1000 illegal immigrants.

All this will add up to way more than 0.06%

I'm asking you, since you're the expert. I thought you already had this all figured out? That's why the other guy's 10,000 estimate is reasonable. He at least gave us a number, while you're over here trying to break it down by categories.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you “know about federal jobs”? There are 2M federal employees across the US. You know about all our jobs and programs? You don’t even know that most Feds aren’t in DC.

Exactly the point. What do any of us know about federal jobs. But now that the curtain is being pulled back, we'll find out more than we ever imagined. 2M federal employees sounds like bloat to me. 500K still sounds a little top-heavy, if we're being honest.

Ok, so you don’t actually know anything about federal jobs. So to start, you are a liar.

In addition to the 80% that live outside of DC, 30% are vets (compared to 5% of the private industry).

Here are some examples to help educate you:
70% of federal jobs are related defense and national security.
500K work for USPS
400K at the VA, over 300K are in the medical field
20K ice agents
350K law enforcement
37.5K prison guards
5K are bank examiners
8K are patent examiners
175K are scientists
44K are lawyers
60K work for the SSA which is significantly understaffed

Bank examiners and lawyers can largely be replaced by AI. SSA is grossly overstaffed. Horribly inefficient processes and tons of dead weight.

Ok, so that’s what, $79K? That’s less than the number of Feds that retire every year.

Also who is going to defend Trump’s admin in all these lawsuits? AI?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would guess the goal is to get the non-military government to under 10,000 employees, which will allow for much more lean, efficient operations.

This is a reasonable estimate.

Nope. That is a number randomly pulled out of the previous poster's a$$.

Okay, so let's start with that number and see if more are needed. What precise number would you bring it down to?

Sure, so give us the breakdown by job category.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would guess the goal is to get the non-military government to under 10,000 employees, which will allow for much more lean, efficient operations.

This is a reasonable estimate.

Nope. That is a number randomly pulled out of the previous poster's a$$.

Okay, so let's start with that number and see if more are needed. What precise number would you bring it down to?

what do you think the right ratio of SSA staf to retiree is? 1 per 100, 1 per 1000, 1 per 10000? I'd guess 1 for each 1000 retirees. for police (although this is local, not federal), I'd think 1 per 100 citizens. For teachers, 1 per 30 students. for ICE, 1 per 1000 illegal immigrants.

All this will add up to way more than 0.06%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would guess the goal is to get the non-military government to under 10,000 employees, which will allow for much more lean, efficient operations.

This is a reasonable estimate.

Nope. That is a number randomly pulled out of the previous poster's a$$.

Okay, so let's start with that number and see if more are needed. What precise number would you bring it down to?