I can see Gurri's argument, but I don't think it's clearly correct. That is, I'm not at all convinced that the US has turned decisively against the "establishment" in favor of the "populists". If this were true, we'd see a lot more populists in Congress. Everyone says Trump has control of the Republican party, but his influence among Congressional Republicans seems limited. Many of the candidates he backed over the last 4 years lost, either in the primary or the general election. Republicans have very narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate - smaller in the House than they had in 2022. Trump lost pretty clearly in 2020. Arguably, he only won in 2016 and in 2024 because he faced very weak opponents - Hillary Clinton was viewed even more negatively than Trump, and Kamala Harris was barely able to deliver a coherent sentence, in addition to being tarred with Biden's obvious incompetence.
I could hope that the country is ready to move back to good government and first principles, and stop wasting enormous amounts of money on stupid gestures, and exercise positive influence in the world. But I don't see any evidence yet. So far, people seem to see in Trump what they want. His opponents see a nascent despot, ready to overthrow the Constitution and turn everything over to his billionaire friends, while his supporters see him as the first real reformer in 2 generations, who will eliminate unseriousness and pursue good governance at home and serious resolve tailored to our real interests internationally.
I still see an ignorant, uncurious narcissist who is serious only about himself. No doubt his entourage includes some people with serious agendas, but I'm not convinced any of them have good governance as an objective, nor competence to implement anything.
Some reactions to the Gurri piece and the interesting conversation.
Gurri talks about “a return to first principles.” And with the semiquincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript ) next year, it behooves us to be very clear about those first principles. And to understand how the counter-revolution in Philadelphia betrayed them.
Unfortunately the usual establishment types are not up to the task.Libertarians quake in fear of popular sovereignty. Progressives, of course, have no interest in first principles and conservatives deride the DoI and belittle its importance. Hence we are stuck with our own CDU-CSU/CSU-CDU Congress.
But for most populists it is, as it should be, our lodestone, and we must renew our allegiance to the principles it sets forth:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
So, let these Facts be submitted to a candid world:
- Each child born today will be born in servitude to a public debt of at least $82,590.
- Each child born today is subject to an oppressive legal regime that includes around 60,000 pages in the United States Code alone.
- Each child born today is subject to an oppressive legal regime that includes around 185,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations alone.
- Each child today is born subject to the unchecked and unbalanced rule of multiple layers of courts issuing unpredictable, random, and arbitrary edicts by political hack judges.
- Each child today is born subject to the unchecked and unbalanced rule of a vast number of bureaucratic entities that cannot even be counted at the federal level alone staffed by mercenary careerists appointed under the countless patronage exceptions authorized to substantive civil service examination that is the only true foundation for a merit system.
- Each child today is born subject to legislative bodies that exhibit the faintest evidence of responsiveness through elections to a public 70% of whom desire significant reductions in the cost and scope of government.
So therefore let it be known that if the Limp-dick Republicans hell-bent on taking the people of the United States down with them on the sinking ship of the status quo cannot be led to reason, they must be primaried ruthlessly and rooted out by all appropriate means, and replaced by patriots who will renew the nation guided by the principles of the Declaration of independence.
If we consider ANY change to be progress then sure, this is a lot of that. If we want the progress to be something beneficial, I'm not sure I see it. Gutting USAID seems a mistake to me. Firing all new employees regardless of what they do likewise seems a mistake. If he were able to end weapons programs the military doesn't want, great, but I don't see that one standing up in court.
The slogan of Arnold's old blog was, "Taking the most charitable view of those who disagree". In that spirit:
Imagine that Trump comes into office and sends out a directive to, say, USAID:
You are hereby directed to effect a review of your agency's programs and develop a list of programs that should be ended or shrunk and those should be expanded. The review should be guided by the following principles: [ ] Consistent with the above review, develop a list of employees who should be terminated or reassigned. A successful review is expected to result in a 50% reduction in budget and head count.
Now present that scenario to a hundred professors of organizational behavior and of political science, and ask them, "Would the people in the agency make a good faith effort to carry out that directive?" Most would be too polite to laugh in your face but no one would answer, "Yes."
There are lots of organizational behavior reasons that wouldn't be successful--all businesses of a certain size struggle with such issues--but there are two further complications in the federal government. Most employees are Civil Service and the higher ups don't have a lot of levers to force compliance. Civil Service was meant to insulate employees from politics, aka elected officials (and their appointees).
The other complication is that lots of government strongly disagree with Trump and as Charles Peters of the old Washington Monthly (hardly a right winger) use to say, "Presidents come and presidents go, but the bureaucracy is forever."
Consider from Trump I: He had decided that the Afghanistan War was unwinnable and the best that could be done was an orderly withdrawal. So the tasked the Joint Chiefs with coming up with a plan. But they didn't think that was the best that could be done. And, well, a withdrawal is really complicated, there are so many things to co-ordinate, it takes time to develop a good plan, and one still wasn't done when Trump left office.
They tried to pull the same thing on Biden but he basically said, "F it! We're all gone by X date." And we were, in a withdrawal that wasn't orderly at all.
What Trump and his people are doing is pretty crappy in a lot of ways. But I think that many of them honestly feel that in the circumstances, it is the best that can be done.
Maybe I knew some military leaders thought it a bad idea to leave Afghanistan but I hadn't heard the story about the military procrastinating. My first thought was that it is probably harder to implement a clean plan to do that than cutting 50% of a workforce. After thinking further, and it's totally a hunch with no factual basis other than having worked for dod for ~30 years, I don't believe the military would fail to carry out a clear order. What is your source?
I totally agree that ANY agency or company would have a hard time selecting a modest percentage of the right employees to cull, much less 50% but that is irrelevant to my comment. My comment was that cutting USAID to any significant degree is a mistake. Helping people in dire circumstances pays off in less people coming to our border and goodwill of people thankful for the help. GB2 was a big proponent and extremely popular in most of Africa.
Please show me the evidence that the lion’s share of aid isn't clean water projects, food staples, basic healthcare, and other assistance with basic needs. On top of that they manage money given by US companies in those countries. As Rubio himself said, US companies can't sell shit to people too sick to work. Whatever they do related to DEI and other non-aid should be changed by the president and his representatives. It's not a rational justification for gutting the agency. Killing the aid programs is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
As for cutting the workforce. Firing all the probationary employees is easy. Doesn't make it a net positive. Even T has recognized this to some degree as he has asked some to come back.
Our spending is predominantly SS, Medicare, interest, and DOD/VA. I'm not saying there aren't other things to cut but that's not going to solve the spending problem.
I totally agree with the last sentence. If I'm spending $2,000 more than I make every month, and I cut back $500, that won't solve my spending problem. But it will make it better.
I can't satisfy your burden of proof about how much USAID money went to good things and how much didn't. I suppose the meta-criticism of USAID is that a good deal of the money it spends is "corporate welfare" for US firms and NGOs, that much of it doesn't actually result in clean water, etc. And that the money that does make it to foreign countries is often a high class bribe, administered by the powers that be in the foreign governments and by their clients. Of course, if you are a foreign policy realist, that may be a feature, not a bug.
I don't remember where I heard of the Afghanistan story. I don't think anyone directly disobeyed an order. There was just a lack of urgency, a feeling that we should take all the time necessary to come up with a "good" plan, along with a knowledge that this would take it beyond the end of Trump's term and maybe the next administration could be persuaded to keep trying to win, or at least get a better outcome.
I should have mentioned before that I agree many or most under T probably think they ar doing good. Doesn't make it so.
In your example, I think we are talking about more like $2,000 vs less than $50, not $500. Big difference.
"I suppose the meta-criticism of USAID is that a good deal of the money it spends is "corporate welfare" for US firms and NGOs, that much of it doesn't actually result in clean water, etc."
A big part of the welfare is to farmers by buying US grain nobody wants. It includes a lot of US millet or something else that nobody much wants. As I said before, USAID manages quite a bit of money that comes FROM corporations with interest in the country.
"And that the money that does make it to foreign countries is often a high class bribe, administered by the powers that be in the foreign governments and by their clients."
I know some food gets diverted but are they giving cash? If they are that's something that can be easily ended without gutting the agency.
We are in suspense over some projects whose funds were frozen along with everything else, and the reactions of those most involved - indeed of some who will personally have their mitts on the money - was - "Well, how else were they going to do it? The figure they are aiming for is so high, and it will take more than that to get us on a sound footing." Not necessarily the bitching the media is promoting as the only response.
We know a really good and busy guy who lost his (probationary period) job, who undoubtedly would be better to have kept on than many of his higher-ups, with their "We can't" mantra. We hope sanity will prevail there, but civil service protections may make that hard.
We slightly know another guy who surprisingly jumped on the buyout. At least, we were a little surprised, trying to work out the dubious advantage of doing that.
Will not know about some things - maybe for quite awhile. But Monday it was learned that one particular funding "tranche" (I dislike that word for some reason) was released, so - yay. Part of the reason may be because it was farm-related, and given Trump's rural supporters, you've got to have a farm bill. Farm-related stuff just isn't going to go poof.
But it should be noted: the released $ had absolutely nothing to do with DEI, no matter how hard you might squint.
I can see Gurri's argument, but I don't think it's clearly correct. That is, I'm not at all convinced that the US has turned decisively against the "establishment" in favor of the "populists". If this were true, we'd see a lot more populists in Congress. Everyone says Trump has control of the Republican party, but his influence among Congressional Republicans seems limited. Many of the candidates he backed over the last 4 years lost, either in the primary or the general election. Republicans have very narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate - smaller in the House than they had in 2022. Trump lost pretty clearly in 2020. Arguably, he only won in 2016 and in 2024 because he faced very weak opponents - Hillary Clinton was viewed even more negatively than Trump, and Kamala Harris was barely able to deliver a coherent sentence, in addition to being tarred with Biden's obvious incompetence.
I could hope that the country is ready to move back to good government and first principles, and stop wasting enormous amounts of money on stupid gestures, and exercise positive influence in the world. But I don't see any evidence yet. So far, people seem to see in Trump what they want. His opponents see a nascent despot, ready to overthrow the Constitution and turn everything over to his billionaire friends, while his supporters see him as the first real reformer in 2 generations, who will eliminate unseriousness and pursue good governance at home and serious resolve tailored to our real interests internationally.
I still see an ignorant, uncurious narcissist who is serious only about himself. No doubt his entourage includes some people with serious agendas, but I'm not convinced any of them have good governance as an objective, nor competence to implement anything.
Some reactions to the Gurri piece and the interesting conversation.
Gurri talks about “a return to first principles.” And with the semiquincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript ) next year, it behooves us to be very clear about those first principles. And to understand how the counter-revolution in Philadelphia betrayed them.
Unfortunately the usual establishment types are not up to the task.Libertarians quake in fear of popular sovereignty. Progressives, of course, have no interest in first principles and conservatives deride the DoI and belittle its importance. Hence we are stuck with our own CDU-CSU/CSU-CDU Congress.
But for most populists it is, as it should be, our lodestone, and we must renew our allegiance to the principles it sets forth:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
So, let these Facts be submitted to a candid world:
- Each child born today will be born in servitude to a public debt of at least $82,590.
- Each child born today is subject to an oppressive legal regime that includes around 60,000 pages in the United States Code alone.
- Each child born today is subject to an oppressive legal regime that includes around 185,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations alone.
- Each child today is born subject to the unchecked and unbalanced rule of multiple layers of courts issuing unpredictable, random, and arbitrary edicts by political hack judges.
- Each child today is born subject to the unchecked and unbalanced rule of a vast number of bureaucratic entities that cannot even be counted at the federal level alone staffed by mercenary careerists appointed under the countless patronage exceptions authorized to substantive civil service examination that is the only true foundation for a merit system.
- Each child today is born subject to legislative bodies that exhibit the faintest evidence of responsiveness through elections to a public 70% of whom desire significant reductions in the cost and scope of government.
So therefore let it be known that if the Limp-dick Republicans hell-bent on taking the people of the United States down with them on the sinking ship of the status quo cannot be led to reason, they must be primaried ruthlessly and rooted out by all appropriate means, and replaced by patriots who will renew the nation guided by the principles of the Declaration of independence.
What progress?
If we consider ANY change to be progress then sure, this is a lot of that. If we want the progress to be something beneficial, I'm not sure I see it. Gutting USAID seems a mistake to me. Firing all new employees regardless of what they do likewise seems a mistake. If he were able to end weapons programs the military doesn't want, great, but I don't see that one standing up in court.
The slogan of Arnold's old blog was, "Taking the most charitable view of those who disagree". In that spirit:
Imagine that Trump comes into office and sends out a directive to, say, USAID:
You are hereby directed to effect a review of your agency's programs and develop a list of programs that should be ended or shrunk and those should be expanded. The review should be guided by the following principles: [ ] Consistent with the above review, develop a list of employees who should be terminated or reassigned. A successful review is expected to result in a 50% reduction in budget and head count.
Now present that scenario to a hundred professors of organizational behavior and of political science, and ask them, "Would the people in the agency make a good faith effort to carry out that directive?" Most would be too polite to laugh in your face but no one would answer, "Yes."
There are lots of organizational behavior reasons that wouldn't be successful--all businesses of a certain size struggle with such issues--but there are two further complications in the federal government. Most employees are Civil Service and the higher ups don't have a lot of levers to force compliance. Civil Service was meant to insulate employees from politics, aka elected officials (and their appointees).
The other complication is that lots of government strongly disagree with Trump and as Charles Peters of the old Washington Monthly (hardly a right winger) use to say, "Presidents come and presidents go, but the bureaucracy is forever."
Consider from Trump I: He had decided that the Afghanistan War was unwinnable and the best that could be done was an orderly withdrawal. So the tasked the Joint Chiefs with coming up with a plan. But they didn't think that was the best that could be done. And, well, a withdrawal is really complicated, there are so many things to co-ordinate, it takes time to develop a good plan, and one still wasn't done when Trump left office.
They tried to pull the same thing on Biden but he basically said, "F it! We're all gone by X date." And we were, in a withdrawal that wasn't orderly at all.
What Trump and his people are doing is pretty crappy in a lot of ways. But I think that many of them honestly feel that in the circumstances, it is the best that can be done.
Maybe I knew some military leaders thought it a bad idea to leave Afghanistan but I hadn't heard the story about the military procrastinating. My first thought was that it is probably harder to implement a clean plan to do that than cutting 50% of a workforce. After thinking further, and it's totally a hunch with no factual basis other than having worked for dod for ~30 years, I don't believe the military would fail to carry out a clear order. What is your source?
I totally agree that ANY agency or company would have a hard time selecting a modest percentage of the right employees to cull, much less 50% but that is irrelevant to my comment. My comment was that cutting USAID to any significant degree is a mistake. Helping people in dire circumstances pays off in less people coming to our border and goodwill of people thankful for the help. GB2 was a big proponent and extremely popular in most of Africa.
Please show me the evidence that the lion’s share of aid isn't clean water projects, food staples, basic healthcare, and other assistance with basic needs. On top of that they manage money given by US companies in those countries. As Rubio himself said, US companies can't sell shit to people too sick to work. Whatever they do related to DEI and other non-aid should be changed by the president and his representatives. It's not a rational justification for gutting the agency. Killing the aid programs is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
As for cutting the workforce. Firing all the probationary employees is easy. Doesn't make it a net positive. Even T has recognized this to some degree as he has asked some to come back.
Our spending is predominantly SS, Medicare, interest, and DOD/VA. I'm not saying there aren't other things to cut but that's not going to solve the spending problem.
I totally agree with the last sentence. If I'm spending $2,000 more than I make every month, and I cut back $500, that won't solve my spending problem. But it will make it better.
I can't satisfy your burden of proof about how much USAID money went to good things and how much didn't. I suppose the meta-criticism of USAID is that a good deal of the money it spends is "corporate welfare" for US firms and NGOs, that much of it doesn't actually result in clean water, etc. And that the money that does make it to foreign countries is often a high class bribe, administered by the powers that be in the foreign governments and by their clients. Of course, if you are a foreign policy realist, that may be a feature, not a bug.
I don't remember where I heard of the Afghanistan story. I don't think anyone directly disobeyed an order. There was just a lack of urgency, a feeling that we should take all the time necessary to come up with a "good" plan, along with a knowledge that this would take it beyond the end of Trump's term and maybe the next administration could be persuaded to keep trying to win, or at least get a better outcome.
Third bullet - $84B
Fourth bullet - trillions
HOW?
https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-congress-and-doge-are-utilizing-gaos-high-risk-list-to-combat-waste-fraud-and-abuse/
Yes, this is old but but what's listed is tiny. Do you have something better?
https://www.newsweek.com/doge-elon-musk-cuts-list-donald-trump-meaning-2027436
I should have mentioned before that I agree many or most under T probably think they ar doing good. Doesn't make it so.
In your example, I think we are talking about more like $2,000 vs less than $50, not $500. Big difference.
"I suppose the meta-criticism of USAID is that a good deal of the money it spends is "corporate welfare" for US firms and NGOs, that much of it doesn't actually result in clean water, etc."
A big part of the welfare is to farmers by buying US grain nobody wants. It includes a lot of US millet or something else that nobody much wants. As I said before, USAID manages quite a bit of money that comes FROM corporations with interest in the country.
"And that the money that does make it to foreign countries is often a high class bribe, administered by the powers that be in the foreign governments and by their clients."
I know some food gets diverted but are they giving cash? If they are that's something that can be easily ended without gutting the agency.
We are in suspense over some projects whose funds were frozen along with everything else, and the reactions of those most involved - indeed of some who will personally have their mitts on the money - was - "Well, how else were they going to do it? The figure they are aiming for is so high, and it will take more than that to get us on a sound footing." Not necessarily the bitching the media is promoting as the only response.
We know a really good and busy guy who lost his (probationary period) job, who undoubtedly would be better to have kept on than many of his higher-ups, with their "We can't" mantra. We hope sanity will prevail there, but civil service protections may make that hard.
We slightly know another guy who surprisingly jumped on the buyout. At least, we were a little surprised, trying to work out the dubious advantage of doing that.
Will not know about some things - maybe for quite awhile. But Monday it was learned that one particular funding "tranche" (I dislike that word for some reason) was released, so - yay. Part of the reason may be because it was farm-related, and given Trump's rural supporters, you've got to have a farm bill. Farm-related stuff just isn't going to go poof.
But it should be noted: the released $ had absolutely nothing to do with DEI, no matter how hard you might squint.