I gave an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Studying Institute) speak on Tuesday on President Trump’s financial insurance policies and actions. As you may think, it was fairly damaging–on failure to chop main spending applications, on cracking down on each unlawful and authorized immigration, and on tariffs.
The one doubtlessly shiny spot was on DOGE. I led by telling them that I don’t have a DOG within the hunt.
However I identified one thing about DOGE’s limits that I realized from my analysis and likewise from a dialogue with a fellow economist.
From my analysis
Alex Nowrasteh and Ryan Bourne famous, in “Six Methods to Perceive DOGE and Predict Its Future Conduct,” the next:
In response to Chris Edwards, complete compensation for the three.8 million federal protection and nondefense staff accounts for less than 8 % of spending(excluding postal workers).
Why does this matter? As a result of authorities isn’t like a lot of the non-public sector. The non-public sector produces issues. An enormous quantity of the federal authorities entails authorities handing folks huge quantities of cash. So if the variety of workers falls, even by, say 10 %, you in all probability gained’t lower authorities spending by even 1 %.
From a dialogue with an economist buddy
It issues which workers you chop. In fact, many individuals have famous that. You in all probability aren’t going to chop the suitable workers by reducing probationary staff, for instance. However I’m getting at one thing totally different. An worker at sure authorities companies–I’m you, SEC and EPA–may need the power and the ability to impose $10 million in prices for little profit. Minimize that worker and ensure the opposite workers are too busy to select up his portfolio, and you’ll save $10 million. The saving on his wage could be rounding error.
However lower the variety of Park Service workers by 5% and also you’ll save somewhat by probably giving up beneficial issues they had been doing.
Added word:
Once I was prepping my speak final Friday, I remembered a humorous line that Alan Simpson, the previous Republican senator from Wyoming, had had about politics. I googled his title to search out it and, lo and behold, realized that he had died that day. I did discover a humorous line I remembered however not the one I used to be searching for.
Right here’s the humorous line I discovered (right here on the 8:37 level):
Politics is derived from Latin. Poli means many and tics means blood-sucking bugs.
There’s one other one I’m going from reminiscence on, and I used it to criticize a latest bipartisan measure to extend Social Safety advantages for retirees who’ve state and/or native authorities pensions.
Apparently, Simpson was giving a tour of the Capitol constructing to a bunch of Japanese dignitaries and was attempting to elucidate the U.S political system in a number of strains. Right here’s what he stated:
There are two events in America, the evil celebration and the silly celebration. I’m a member of the silly celebration. Often, we do one thing each evil and silly. That’s referred to as bipartisanship.
