Thanks for posting this interesting article about why the process of making government more efficient is perhaps more important than the objective of cutting “fraud, waste, and abuse.” Your article implies that people’s reasons for supporting or opposing the efforts of DOGE are multilayered, etc., but perhaps how people respond to DOGE boils down to TWO major things:
Thing 1: Party Affiliation…the city that I live in is a one-party town. No Republicans ever get elected…almost never ever. And there’s a pathological hatred of Donald Trump among the city’s residents who generally oppose anything and everything that the Trump Administration tries to accomplish. Which means DOGE is opposed for no other reason than it’s a Trump initiative. If Biden would have initiated a DOGE sort of program (which is inconceivable), many if not most of my city’s residents would’ve supported it.
Thing 2: Wages and Benefits. Basically, there are two classes of people in the United States…those who earn money in the private sector and pay part of the money they earn to government at all levels (city, county, state, and national) in the form of taxes, fees, and tolls, and those who are paid by the taxpayers in the form of salaries, grants and benefits (civil servants, bureaucrats, NGO employees , politicians, and many who work in education as teachers and administrators of various kinds).
Here’s what’s interesting…almost all of the people who receive their salaries and benefits from the taxpayers via the government vote Democrat, and it’s not in the best interests of these people to make government less costly and more efficient. In fact, the more the government spends, the more they benefit.
To sum up, hardcore Democrats often work for the government directly (civil servants, for example) or indirectly (NGO employees, for example), and they have nothing to gain from efforts to reduce government spending. They hate Donald Trump in particular and, more generally, his supporters, and, because they work in the very bureaucracies and agencies targeted by DOGE, they resist, stonewall, and subvert efforts to reduce their numbers and increase their levels of efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, people in the private sector who pay taxes have a lot more to gain if less money is spent to fund the salaries, benefits, and grants of people employed in the public sector. So…
Democrats mostly oppose efforts to reduce government spending and to make government more efficient and productive, while Republican voters, who often work in the private sector, support efforts to make government more efficient by reducing wasteful spending.
I don't disagree with your two points. I actually made the first one fairly explicitly in my post itself. Support/opposition is often influenced by one's ideological biases. Flip the ideology driving the initiative and the support/opposition roles tend to reverse.
The second point I didn't make as strongly, though I talked around it some, I suppose. That is, motivated reasoning drives a lot of what people would support/oppose, whether as a function of ideological thinking or as a function of self-interests. And those who are career bureaucrats and government employees often do have a vested interest in seeing government be a big as possible (or at least their little area of it). I see the same thing in other bureaucracies. Administrators have a bias toward administrative bloat, and cutting spending usually means cutting something that doesn't adversely affect their 3-foot world.
Thanks for your response. I wasn’t disagreeing with anything in your logical and clearly explained essay…my intent was to rephrase what I read in my own words to make sure I was on the right track with your major ideas or findings. Your essay, obviously, was more nuanced and layered than my rather simplistic comment. After I finished reading your essay, I was reminded of the old saying “people won’t always remember what you said or did, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.” And so with cost cutting and reducing staff…how the process of doing it makes people feel matters perhaps more than the end result.
Oh, I know you weren't disagreeing. I was just drawing some points out based on what I wrote and didn't (but perhaps implied). Thought it would be worthwhile for anyone who stumbled across the comments.
As an etymologist I can't resist making this observation: the word 'decide' / 'decision' comes from the Latin root 'caed-' meaning "to cut" - implying having to cut off one alternative from the others.
So there is a delightful and incisive 'counter-irony' here in the discussion of the decision of cuts!
Thanks for posting this interesting article about why the process of making government more efficient is perhaps more important than the objective of cutting “fraud, waste, and abuse.” Your article implies that people’s reasons for supporting or opposing the efforts of DOGE are multilayered, etc., but perhaps how people respond to DOGE boils down to TWO major things:
Thing 1: Party Affiliation…the city that I live in is a one-party town. No Republicans ever get elected…almost never ever. And there’s a pathological hatred of Donald Trump among the city’s residents who generally oppose anything and everything that the Trump Administration tries to accomplish. Which means DOGE is opposed for no other reason than it’s a Trump initiative. If Biden would have initiated a DOGE sort of program (which is inconceivable), many if not most of my city’s residents would’ve supported it.
Thing 2: Wages and Benefits. Basically, there are two classes of people in the United States…those who earn money in the private sector and pay part of the money they earn to government at all levels (city, county, state, and national) in the form of taxes, fees, and tolls, and those who are paid by the taxpayers in the form of salaries, grants and benefits (civil servants, bureaucrats, NGO employees , politicians, and many who work in education as teachers and administrators of various kinds).
Here’s what’s interesting…almost all of the people who receive their salaries and benefits from the taxpayers via the government vote Democrat, and it’s not in the best interests of these people to make government less costly and more efficient. In fact, the more the government spends, the more they benefit.
To sum up, hardcore Democrats often work for the government directly (civil servants, for example) or indirectly (NGO employees, for example), and they have nothing to gain from efforts to reduce government spending. They hate Donald Trump in particular and, more generally, his supporters, and, because they work in the very bureaucracies and agencies targeted by DOGE, they resist, stonewall, and subvert efforts to reduce their numbers and increase their levels of efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, people in the private sector who pay taxes have a lot more to gain if less money is spent to fund the salaries, benefits, and grants of people employed in the public sector. So…
Democrats mostly oppose efforts to reduce government spending and to make government more efficient and productive, while Republican voters, who often work in the private sector, support efforts to make government more efficient by reducing wasteful spending.
I don't disagree with your two points. I actually made the first one fairly explicitly in my post itself. Support/opposition is often influenced by one's ideological biases. Flip the ideology driving the initiative and the support/opposition roles tend to reverse.
The second point I didn't make as strongly, though I talked around it some, I suppose. That is, motivated reasoning drives a lot of what people would support/oppose, whether as a function of ideological thinking or as a function of self-interests. And those who are career bureaucrats and government employees often do have a vested interest in seeing government be a big as possible (or at least their little area of it). I see the same thing in other bureaucracies. Administrators have a bias toward administrative bloat, and cutting spending usually means cutting something that doesn't adversely affect their 3-foot world.
Thanks for your response. I wasn’t disagreeing with anything in your logical and clearly explained essay…my intent was to rephrase what I read in my own words to make sure I was on the right track with your major ideas or findings. Your essay, obviously, was more nuanced and layered than my rather simplistic comment. After I finished reading your essay, I was reminded of the old saying “people won’t always remember what you said or did, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.” And so with cost cutting and reducing staff…how the process of doing it makes people feel matters perhaps more than the end result.
Oh, I know you weren't disagreeing. I was just drawing some points out based on what I wrote and didn't (but perhaps implied). Thought it would be worthwhile for anyone who stumbled across the comments.
As an etymologist I can't resist making this observation: the word 'decide' / 'decision' comes from the Latin root 'caed-' meaning "to cut" - implying having to cut off one alternative from the others.
So there is a delightful and incisive 'counter-irony' here in the discussion of the decision of cuts!
OK, that's really damn funny - in an absolutely nerdy sort of way :)