I felt a great disturbance in The Force, like a million SAAS and cloud companies crying out.

Who administers these cards?

Magazines and news media will suffer most. SaaS / B2B contracts larger than a certain amount won't be on employee credit cards.

Using cards is the preferred procurement method for expenses under the $10k threshold. I suspect that covers a lot more than magazines and news.

Not employee cards

The article directly states that this applies to the GSA smartpay cards. Those are limited to approved purchases under the micro procurement threshold under GSA directives.

Exactly my point. Micro-Purchases.

The micro threshold is $10k, as I said earlier.

Yes, I get that. You may be underestimating the size of typical PubSec deals.

How do you figure? Is this conjecture based on the propaganda out of DOGE? The media spend they're purporting are also over that certain amount.

No. Employee cards are not used for significant purchases. They are for employee expenses.

Not exactly. They can be and are often used for larger provisional purchases. For example, when we wanted to get Slack or any SaaS, it was put on a charge card so we could start using it quickly, but that would start the clock ticking on an official procurement, which entailed legal and security reviews, etc.

Magazines and news media will suffer most. SaaS / B2B contracts larger than a certain amount won't be on employee credit cards.

larger than a certain amount

Larger than $1 is in this case zero, there's nothing one can buy for $1 on a credit card. I'm not sure why they chose this amount and didn't just set it to 0. Not sure when this is coming but soon government employees will need to bring their own paper and other needed officeware from home, unless they'll have to bring toilet paper and soap as well if the cut is too deep. At the same time the billionaire class has nearly doubled their wealth and nobody is batting an eye for it. Strange times we're living indeed.

Government workers were already making do with a lot less than is generally accepted in the private sector, especially after the GSA conference scandal of somewhat over a decade ago.[1] During my time as a federal employee, many government offices had no soap at the kitchenettes, and some had no coffee. Folks tended to bring in their own drip-coffee pots for the office.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/04/03/14993...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250220174125/https://www.wired...

I forget where I read this, but shutting off the cards was part of the playbook when Musk took ownership of Twitter. If I remember correctly, they shut off the cards and waited to see who complained. Apparently they discovered a bunch of subscription services that no one had even signed into or used at all, just paying out for years.

Couldn't find much.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ends-many-twitter-...

Twitter will no longer be covering several costs or paying for a number of perks made available to employees, some for many years, for example. And the maximum amount allotted for work-related trips has been limited, as those trips are also set to become rarer.

The allowance for a mobile phone bill is now $50 per month and the daily allowance for food while on a work trip is now $75... Meanwhile, the overall limit on expenses for any kind of work-related travel has been "revised" by seniority level

Searched for things like "expenses," "cards," "subscriptions," etc.

DODGE is that new middle manager who thinks they know how everything works but doesn’t… and isn’t smart enough to ask.

And gets a big bonus for the "savings". And gets promoted before the consequences are seen.

I wonder what the DODGE credit cards look like…

I bet if you audited the company cards and other discretionary perk-spending of the top brass (who are in Elon's orbit) at Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, you'll find tons and tons of "inefficiency and waste" if not outright strip clubs and hookers type stuff.

Yeah I find it odd that DOGE hasn't found any inefficiencies with SpaceX's and Tesla's contracts with the government.

It's almost like they don't really care about things being "efficient".

Yea, such an odd coincidence! I wonder how many parts of the government they'll declare as "inefficient" and "wasteful" where there's a corporate donor just licking their chops, waiting to swoop in and profit from the same work. That'll be such a goofy coincidence, too.

Considering every other attempt at cutting costs has failed, I'm ok with giving this a go.

Dumbest change ever. The employee charge cards are there to get rid of red tape. Now workers will have to spend $100 of their time filling out forms to buy $50 worth of office supplies.

This is the equivalent level of pettiness as removing free coffee from offices.

I spent the first 9.5 years of my career at a large defense contractor. We never had free coffee.

Just one person taking a coffee break to go get coffee obviates any savings. The free coffee isn't there for the staff, it is there to save the org money.

The federal government is so worried about the appearance of spending excess taxpayer money that employees set up water clubs and coffee clubs where the employees all chip in for a water cooler and a coffee machine every month.

If only they extended this frugality to not hiring 10 people to do a job that could be done by 2.

So, this particular contractor was big into efficiency and cost savings, to the point that we were all required to do a project where we made something more efficient and documented how much money we saved in doing so. The whole thing was mostly bullshit, but one of the interesting things I learned by doing it was that saving engineering time was essentially $0, because from the company's perspective we were all salaried, and as long as the time we were saving was charged to the same contract we would be charging our other work to, it didn't matter.

From that perspective, which I do not agree with, the cost of coffee breaks was also $0, while the cost of providing it was not, so no coffee. On one program I was on we at least managed to get facilities to install a commercial Bunn machine for us, but we were still responsible for buying all the supplies.

Under that simplistic model there is no space for higher quality, higher reliability, etc. Then "efficiency" is one dimensional and you have basically no agency. The cost model should be agreed upon collectively.

-2000 lines

You're right, and there were definitely situations where we could have done things better, but didn't, because the impetus wasn't there. It was really frustrating, and I wish I'd been able to get out sooner.

-2000 lines

Not sure what this is a reference to, but one of the fun things I tripped over while there was that code changes were valued on dollars per LOC. Changesets with net negative LOC were... problematic. I think I once had a change that was near -2000 LOC net.

Even dumber than that. The cards are there to make sure that the federal government doesn't pay state taxes.

This is literally going to cost the government more money.

I worked for a company that at one point was worried about wasteful expenses.

Eventually to solve this resulted in a system where a $40 pizza lunch went to a committee of completely disconnected morons who debated it and would then forward it to a VP to make the final call. Probably a couple thousands in time costs with the paperwork and people time involved … for $40 of pizza. Oh and they had lunch while they debated.

I got an email from the committee once, I told them to forget it and I would buy my team pizza with my own money…. they actually tried to get me in trouble for that.

These kinda dumbass middle manager politics sound like they help (to people with no work experience…) but they’re more costly in the end.

Thankfully we were bought and the new CEO did away with it.

That is exactly why there are discretionary spending limits, if the overhead for sending the $40 pizza to a committee isn't priced in, then every cost will blown out.

Every meeting should have a, "this costs $$$ per hour to run this meeting" clock.

They don't care, destruction of the federal government is the point. Congress needs to do their job.

The majority in Congress have — rather obviously — been paid off with luxury trips and RVs and trips to Russia.

We are truly fucked, you know?

Yeah, I was telling my wife last night that if we live long enough we might get to read some really interesting books from (to be) former SVR/GRU types about the time they made assets from most of th oval office.

Isn't this job of CIA and the NSA to prevent this shit?

Every meeting should have a, "this costs $$$ per hour to run this meeting" clock.

Levels.fyi built this btw: https://www.levels.fyi/cost/

This would actually be impossible to use in most companies I worked for, as half of the workforce is usually consultants or contractors from various companies and their hourly rates are trade secret.

>These kinda dumbass middle manager politics sound like they help (to people with no work experience…) but they’re more costly in the end.

I knew a place which did the same for stationary. "Employees are using too many notebooks".

Eventually they would have a staff to stock, approve and disburse. Which Im sure costs darn more than anything the notebooks did.

Either way, its still unclear why you would ration notebooks of the things.

Eventually I guess people just want an illusion of control.

That's the point.

These are people who want to prove, regardless of anything, that government is less efficient than private enterprises... particularly their private enterprises, who would be happy to help you with your problem, dear citizen, for a nominal fee.

It blows my mind how many people like "that's so inefficient!" or "that will create so many problems!", giving even a shred of consideration to this fake org that its goal has literally anything to do with what it says publicly. It's a complete farce.

I've said this a dozen times here now, but the word "efficiency" doesn't really mean anything in isolation; "efficiency" only really makes sense if you define what you're optimizing for.

Since they don't really do that, they can then define the term to mean whatever they want and then declare it as "successful".

Well if it isn't clear, I can help out: they mean financial efficiency. That's why everything they mess with is about money.

Now workers will have to spend $100 of their time filling out forms to buy $50 worth of office supplies.

Sounds like my company.

It finally got rid of the travel agency contract, so for my meeting last week I ended up spending $600 in salary hours making my own arrangements so the company could save a $50 commission to a travel agent.

Penny wise and pound foolish.

I've always found it much easier and faster to make the travel arrangements myself than to do it with a travel agency, but my work travel has always been pretty simple.

I've always found it much easier and faster to make the travel arrangements myself than to do it with a travel agency

But that's the point. With the travel agency contact, employees did ZERO work. One day you just got an email with your flight, car and hotel information. The travel agency handled everything.

There was no "working with" an agent. Employees focused on their work, not figuring out travel arrangements.

That you worked with someone tells me we're talking about different things.

With the travel agency contact, employees did ZERO work.

I've never worked anywhere where they just sent me flight and hotel information with no input from me. I've always coordinated with the travel agent so I could at least pick a travel time that worked for me.

Placing back the red tape and requiring everyone to follow the rules is step one in a malicious takeover. It makes everything slow and inefficient, making every department fail their objectives and deadlines, providing an invented basis for reducing/upending/replacing/getting rid of whatever policy/program/department you want to get rid of.

The goal isn't to reduce spending. It's to create bad press to get rid of parts of the government that get in the way of the cronies in charge.

It’s almost as if, instead of “rooting out waste and corruption,” they are really just griefing workers, doing all sorts of big and small things to make their lives uncertain and miserable…

If they were really attacking waste, why haven’t they so much as made a peep about military spending?

We are in fact seeing press attention regarding military budget cuts the Trump Administration's looking to enact:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/hegseth-military-maj...

Your article points out that that's a rare topic where there is a disconnect among the Administration. Not everyone in Trump/Elon's orbit seems to be aligned on what to do about military spending. DOGE has so far steered clear of it.

They are definitely not as laser focused on that as they are on nickling and diming workers and removing database columns that deal with diversity and inclusion.

This is why in the debate of : Are they fascists or idiots? I tend to come down on idiots.

Fascist can be idiots, of course, but they tend to glorify the military (per Eco). And thus far, these guys have shown that they are mostly going to just bumble around and be gloryhounds. Sure Donny like the pomp, but real fascists wouldn't be gutting the NNSA or the DoD. They'd be building it up and expanding it, even at this early stage.

The only 'but' I can think of is that they are going to gut the military, then build it back up with fellow nutters. Something that many admins (and countries!) have tried to do to the Pentagon, and have all failed at.

Still, assume stupidity, not conspiracy, per Hanlon's razor.

I think this is an excellent point. If Trump and Musk were as brilliantly malicious as the Left claims, they’d be going about this much smarter. I think they’re solipsistic, nihilistic fools, and they’re going to ruin tens of millions of people’s lives.

brilliantly malicious

The left overwhelmingly describe Trump and Musk as idiots.

While they repeatedly lose to them. I find it hilarious.

From my perspective you are all dupes to the billionaires.

That people could fall for the left vs. right narrative is what I find hilarious (not in the "ha, ha" kind of way, though).

How many people work for Doge? It's only been a month, after all. From what I've seen, I assume from their limited staffing, they're moving from department to department, rather than attempting to look at all departments in the government at once. It's seems reasonable to target the military later, for PR and utilitarian reasons.

You would think, with limited staffing, they'd want to start by focusing their efforts on departments where they could have a much bigger impact. Yet they decide to start with such small potatoes instead of the huge spenders?

It feels as though I'm trying to cut down my household spending and I focus on canceling my $15/mo Netflix account rather than negotiate down my $1000/mo credit card bill or work on finding an apartment that's $1500/mo rather than $4500/mo.

According to the news, they think the cuts will all come from DEI money

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/20/nx-s1-5303947/hegseth-trump-d...

They listed 17 things they want to spend MORE money on.

Here's the list they want to stuff more money into.

1. Southwest Border Activities

2. Combating Transnational Criminal Organizations in the Western Hemisphere

3. Audit

4. Nuclear Modernization (including NC3)

5. Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs)

6. Virginia-class Submarines

7. Executable Surface Ships

8. Homeland Missile Defense

9. One-Way Attack/Autonomous Systems

10. Counter-small UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Initiatives

11. Priority Critical Cybersecurity

12. Munitions

13. Core Readiness, including full DRT (training) funding

14. Munitions and Energetics Organic Industrial Bases

15. Executable INDOPACOM (India Pacific Command) MILCON (military construction)

16. Combatant Command support agency funding for INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, (Northern Command), SPACECOM, (Space Command) STRATCOM, (Strategic Command) CYBERCOM, (Cyber Command) and TRANSCOM (Transportation Command)

17. Medical Private-Sector Care

DEI is a dog whistle to rally their base. They don't care abut DEI.

These types of people blame the failures of their own policies on the scapegoats because they're convinced their ideology is actually natural law.

They control the courts, presidency, congress, most state houses and governors offices, have most popular news shows and networks, and they're unwilling to admit their policies are incompetently administered so therefore socialists and trans people must actually be running things, somehow, somewhere, in some invisible way.

They refuse to take responsibility and imagine conspiracies where some scapegoat is puppet mastering their failure.

Don't dismiss it. They deeply believe this.

You might have who I'm talking about confused. Musk, Vance, and their cabal don't actually believe in it. It's fascism and fascism needs an enemy to point at. That isn't to say they don't have people in their ranks that don't believe in it.

They're not cutting the budget, just rearranging spending priorities (i.e., more to the border -- as if that is where our biggest military threat will come from).

In fact, the upcoming Budget calls for an _increase_ in the defense budget.

They said they are going to review DOD. It's been 1 month?

This whole situation makes me think of a child who says "If I were president for a day, I would ..."

Anybody would do a better jobs than these clowns.

Nah, that is like saying a child could make a Jackson Pollock or Basquait painting. It looks like random chaos but it is most definitely intentional.

Trump's platform the first time he ran was practically "what do bumpkins in country diners say the government should do?" Those of us with connections to those kinds of people and places recognized shit like "build the wall!" because we'd been hearing "they ought to just build a wall" for decades from our dumber associates. (though half the time this took the form of "they should just place landmines the whole length of the border" and at least he didn't pick that part up)

This did have the interesting effect of making some of his positions cross-party populist, like his neoliberalism- and free-trade-skepticism. Normal republican voters hate that stuff and will tell you so, as do lots of left-wingers, but both parties (from about 1980 to 2016) loved all of it. He also talked some weirdly leftist talk, a few times, about healthcare, but with no specifics or clear plan, and that wasn't something he ended up taking action on. Same reason, though: Republicans have been told to hate "Obamacare", so they do, but lots of them also hate our existing healthcare system and insurance companies especially. Another gap between the voters and what their own party's officials were delivering, for him to exploit. They'd 100% eat up universal healthcare if a Republican promoted it, it's all in the letter next to the name.

It's why I figured he'd at least get the R nomination, if not win the whole thing, well before most folks considered him anything but a joke candidate.

Except most children have empathy.

I'm reminded of the story of the Air Force designing cockpits for the "average" pilot, only to find that

out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions [0]

Surely, there are so many employees in general that probationary employees aren't needed. And surely, most government employees don't need to purchase things on a daily basis, so we can inhibit their credit card use. And most contracts about XYZ aren't crucial, so we can cancel them.

But, my goodness, there is so much nuance and breadth to the things a government does, let alone the government that is responsible for the largest military and that props up a big part of the world economy, that compounding these rash decisions will have far-reaching and serious blowback. I'm all about efficiency, but why be stupid about it?

The plane that we're all on is being dismantled midair, the engines have been turned off, and we're just gliding now. Gliding or falling, anyway

[0] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...

Because this isn't about efficiency.

The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. They haven't been especially subtle about it in their writing. The ideal outcome is not the same government outcomes but at 70% of the cost. The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms.

Is the US going the way the aftermath of which is described in Neuromancer, or is it going to be Snow Crash, complete with visas to every city state, and the "US" part that's left deluded that they are in control?

The film describes a "Despotism" (1946) cycle, and ultimate conclusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso

Keep in mind people voted for this knowing the plan, but this book documents human behavior in general politics under a new ruler:

"The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

Removing political guardrails and community due-process is what is happening.

A king and his fool is unsustainable, thus... people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able. Have a great day =3

people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able

That worked in 1935. It doesn't work in 2025, in a world with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. We're all stuck on this planet together now; there's no escaping from a US with a mad king at the helm.

"nuclear-tipped ICBMs"

Not unless someone is suicidal, the ultimate glass-cannon is practically only an economic-weapon designed to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to compete in such programs.

Besides, there are rumors of far worse things now like geriatric Fox media. lol =3

Not unless someone is suicidal

There are plenty of examples of rulers suddenly becoming suicidal once the walls start closing in on them.

Lately, I feel like I'm living in the William Gibson "Bridge" trilogy meets Douglas Adam's Zaphod Beeblebrox timeline.

Ketamine is analogous to the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-don-lemon-small-am...

It's snow crash, they're calling it network states. Tech billionaires want to be CEO kings of their own mini states, their goal is to destroy the federal government. Project 2025 is based on ideas (in particula, RAGE, retire all government employees) from Curtis Yarvin, good friend of Peter Theil and JD Vance.

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-americ...

https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no

Accurately observed, but I think they're foolish and are only being used by a particular nation-state with a grudge against the US. Their alliances are pretty obvious, but an empire trying to reclaim its empire does not keep its promises to tech barons.

The Project 2025 people are probably sincere, but wildly impractical. Their impracticality has been indulged by a global adversary which simply intends to destroy the United States on every possible level. There's no reason the tech barons will be given mini states. Why would that happen?

Yeah, they all are (immensely rich (for now)) useful idiots.

Their greed is being leveraged to have them dismantle their own nation -- no need for military action.

What happens afterward might surprise these rich plutocrats, but I personally won't be surprised by it.

It feels like they really want to make use of those expensive bunkers.

That's my take too. The tech barons are all remarkably stupid and think that if they destroy the federal government they'll be able to swoop in and take everything, but the end result is 50 individual governments that stop paying dues to the feds, many of which are going to be far more hostile to said tech barons.

They're not even smart enough to properly pay off and maintain the military so they could try and enforce the oligarchy.

This wasn't just theoretical—there were actual attempts to implement these ideas, like the Peter Thiel-backed “network state" project called Praxis in Greenland.

Huh.

Because this isn't about efficiency.

Last weekend the Washington Post published some internal DOGE memos showing this is absolutely true. What's happening has nothing to do with efficiency. It's all about ideology.

Got a link handy? I'm not finding it so far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/dog...

The original claim was "these actions are trying to destroy the government", but the article only seemingly says they're trying to destroy DEI?

But DEI is what made JD Vance who he is today. To quote an article: "The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school."

https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/feb/19/ask-politifac...

Why are they trying to destroy it? Are they saying that they do not want more DEI, JD Vance-type people, that one is enough?

To quote an article: "The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school."

That's not DEI. This program is about helping ex-military to find new employment.

DEI is about "we do not have enough racial / gender diversity at this company / office / organisation / employment level".

The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government.

The federal government, right? They are in favor of state and local government, but object to federal, which they assert reduces the ability for states to have different rules and regulations that can drive competition amongst different legal frameworks.

I thought this was already settled during the American Civil War, yet we're back at it again.

Apparently not!

An opposite question is interesting: why not abolish state governments and only have the federal government? I haven’t thought about it deeply so don’t have a strong sense that it would be better than the status quo, though I suspect it might.

Centralization and size comes with inefficiency and slow decision making. It also comes with economies of scale. For something like the Medicare, the economy of scale dominates and it makes much more sense to be federal. When it comes to running schools, there really isn't much economy of scale so it makes much more sense to run it locally.

The Civil War settled that the feds could rule over the explicitly authorized powers of the federal government. In the 30s the feds reneged and decided blatantly unconstitutional stuff like the (later passed) Civil rights act could hold if they just call everything interstate commerce.

When the US falls apart this will be a likely central focus .

how was the civil rights act not constitutional?

CRA under the 1875 version was found unconstitutional per the Civil Rights Cases of the Supreme court [0].

In the 1930s the executive threatened to pack the supreme court and many analogous private/intrastate commerce regulations were allowed federally by this bastardization of 'interstate commerce' by the court. Then they repassed the CRA with yet again stuff found unconstitutional, using their new version of 'interstate commerce' (everything).

The CRA objectively has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme court, and I believe it may be again under the latest generation of the court.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases

thank you for the reply

so, probably restating what you said, if someone wanted to pass something like that, a constitutional amendment is the better way since relying on interstate commerce clause is shaky ground... is that right interpretation?

They are in favor of state and local government, but object to federal, which they assert reduces the ability for states to have different rules and regulations that can drive competition amongst different legal frameworks.

As demonstrated by efforts to prevent state and local governments from acting independently...

As demonstrated by efforts to prevent state and local governments from acting independently...

Ironically tempering states is an important function of the federal government (eg civil rights, environmental protections, etc).

If the federal government is used to force states to make things worse, that is something to resist very strongly.

They seem to be in favor of state and local governments only so far as those governments agree with them.

Yes, and they have threatened action against those they disagree with. We’ll see if they can get away with it, but something to resist very strongly.

What is harder to fight against, however, is when they make deals with corrupt officials (looking at you democratic NYC Mayor, Mr Adams) to get what they want: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80yrglnn79o

The world's first volunteer slave.

They to have just enough government for them to extract as much wealth as possible. States rights is about them doing whatever they want without interference.

The US had a civil war that its defenders describe as being about "states' rights", with the most important right of all being the ability to literally own other people as property.

Make America Great Again is a about returning to those glory days.

the ability to literally own other people as property. Make America Great Again is a about returning to those glory days.

Are you suggesting they want to allow states to reinstate slavery? That sounds very conspiratorial.

Slavery was never actually banned. The 13th Amendment leaves a Death Star sized loophole.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

I do not find it strange or otherwise see it as a loophole that duly convicted prisoners pay some of their debt to society by being forced to do labor.

It at least hinges on what people are convicted of being things that "deserve" slavery. Not all agree that possession of drugs for personal use meets that. Or performing or having an abortion. What if the government turns full Russia and makes political dissent illegal? Or championing/practicing "non traditional family values" like LGBT? There is also a moral hazard in being able to earn money on prison labor, as it incentives putting people in prison.

Sure, until you get “duly convicted” of a minor crime like speeding or having a joint and sent to the labor camps.

State government? You mean states in the bible belt, right? Because they aren’t in favor of liberal coastal state government.

You want to distinguish between favoring federalism VS favoring the policies/culture/etc. of specific states.

So yeah; they are in favor of more state government in lieu of federal, even though they hate certain states’ policies. I think that’s obvious. Now, the question is whether or not they will succeed in handicapping states’ autonomy when they disagree with things. My take is they will try (and have tried), but it isn’t a foregone conclusion that they will succeed. There’s soft power and there’s violence, and I’m optimistic that it will be more the former.

This seems unclear. For example, the Department of Transportation just told NY they have to shut down the new (and apparently relatively successful) congestion pricing [1] in NYC. (As with some other things being torn down by the administration, apparently the rules say the government cannot do this.)

So it appears, at least, that the administration doesn't actually respect states' rights and is looking to take over everything.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-congestion-pricing-...

I'd be interested in understanding the property rights of the roads they were taxing. Were they taxing highways that had some covenants or contract ensuring toll free passage? I'm unfamiliar with the contract made for federally matched roads but it wouldn't surprise me if there's an agreement you can't just turn it into a toll road by calling it a new tax.

“ In a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the federal government has jurisdiction over highways leading to Manhattan and that the additional tolls posed an unfair burden for motorists outside the city.”

However that seems like a dubious claim (Google results report the highways around Manhattan are operated by the state of NY, however New Jersey is adjacent).

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-administration-te...

I wonder if they could get around that by making the prices balance to zero? Like charge fees to people during congestion times and pay those fees outdistributed equally amongst those who enter during non congestion.

Then there would be no net revenue/toll. The optics would also be far better than green washing a net toll on people driving in from outside the city/state.

Charging people from outside the area so that they are less likely to come in a personal vehicle is one of the direct goals of congestion pricing. It isn't an environmental program, it's a traffic management program and isn't greenwashing anything.

Trump says he may withhold federal aid for Los Angeles if California doesn’t change water policies - https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-republicans-taxes-ee....

Many conservatives agree including a sitting senator saying California should "change their ways".

https://www.wxxinews.org/2025-02-20/new-york-governor-reject...

Louisiana wants to punish a New York doctor for prescribing medicine. Project 2025 in general wants to ban and criminalize medication abortion nationwide.

If I kept a running list of all the ways conservatives preach states right but don't really practice it, I wouldn't have much time to do anything else.

And "states rights" has been coded language anyway. Refer to Lee Atwater 1981 interview. Now the coded language has focused attention on "DEI", "trans", among other things.

Indeed, you're a sucker if you ever did believe it really ever was about state rights.

The thing you always need to ask when you hear about "state rights" is "state rights to do what?"

The answer is usually something Federal law or the Constitution would otherwise forbid, or that most people would consider morally reprehensible.

That states' rights were claimed to keep slavery, or any other morally reprehensible thing, does not mean that the concept of states' rights is wrong. It means slavery and other morally reprehensible things are wrong.

Of course, at any given time, there exist a number of issues facing the public over which there is no clear consensus on whether they constitute something morally reprehensible.

You're making the argument that what the federal government decides is right is always or usually the right thing compared to what states are claiming. I challenge you to claim that this is the case for, say, federal law forbidding marijuana versus states allowing it, or as was the case until very recently, enthusiastic support for pediatric gender reassignment from the federal government versus states outlawing it.

You're making the argument that what the federal government decides is right is always or usually the right thing compared to what states are claiming.

Nope. The word I used is "usually." Go back and read it. You're the one who decided to replace that "usually" with "always" and I'm not obligated to play the strawman role for you.

When states make a special case out of states' rights it's usually not for a good reason, otherwise they could just pass state laws. States' rights arguments imply things the Federal government would be opposed to, that states would need to weaken the power of the Federal government to accomplish, usually where regulations or anti-discrimination laws are concerned.

They are making the point that "states rights" is empty hypocritical talking point. It is meant to win argument by pretending you care about something you don't.

Everybody knows "state rights" imply conservative policies, but don't apply to anyone else.

Yesterday, Trump announced he was killing congestion pricing in New York City. A program set up by the state of New York, to help fund infrastructure in New York.

Seems like an issue that should be left to the state, and yet here they are asserting federal authority over it.

I’m not that familiar with US politics but I read that this was more a symbolic move and he actually can’t influence this law since as you pointed out it’s a matter of the New York state. He can announce things all day, which is exactly the strategy - do at least 5 ridiculous things every day and the media/people can’t react fast enough — bury them in shit

If it was purely symbolic then it may be even worse because the Truth Social post he wrote to announce it ended with "LONG LIVE THE KING!"

He loves a good troll and the media + commentariat eats it up like candy and gives him all the free airtime he wants.

Like many things in US politics, “it’s complicated.” The program had to get approval from the federal government (which was granted by the Biden administration), it’s now up to the courts if Trump can rescind that approval.

The point is that saying power should go back to the states is really just a talking point conservatives use when it’s convenient for them, not actually a strongheld belief that guides their actions in any way.

The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government.

It's worse than that. They're also incompetent.

Look, I'm a radical anarcho-capitalist / libertarian / voluntaryist myself. I'm fine with the idea of "destroying the government" in general. BUT, even I would say that there's a right way to go about it, and that that involves dismantling things slowly and incrementally, identifying replacements (where available) for government services that are being wound down BEFORE winding them down, minimizing the harm done, taking "collateral damage" into consideration etc. These people are doing the equivalent of "destroying the government" by just randomly lobbing hand grenades all over the place, with no knowledge, consideration, or concern, for the outcomes.

Well, then get to resisting. Like it or not, people with your ideology aren't going to be distinguished from the people that burned the government to the ground, destroyed people's lives, and sold the ashes to the richest men on the planet.

It is a fascinating comment. Surely, you recognize things are hardly black and white. Like it or not, the guy has an actual popular mandate to do just that. If you accept that premise, the undistinguishing is already happening on both sides of the US' political spectrum.

Except that when democrats are in power, we don't hear "they have mandate" for them. We see obstruction at every level and a lot of vitriol. It is only when conservatives are destroying it becomes mandate for anything.

So, no. This is just another asymetric rule designed to enable.

Also, on cultural level, we are supposed to not consider all Republicans assholes, but if they mandated this, they are. Or when Canadiens boo American anthem, it is all "American people are not responsible for their leadership".

<< Except that when democrats are in power, we don't hear "they have mandate"

We don't hear it from democrats now either. What is your point? That each side uses the best argument that supports their position and they decide on the argument after they decide what their expected result is? We all know this and it has been unfortunate part of the discourse for decades at the very least.

<< We see obstruction at every level and a lot of vitriol. It is only when conservatives are destroying it becomes mandate for anything.

Could you elaborate on this point a little? I had a longer initial reaction to it, but I realized that the phrasing can be interpreted in several ways.

I will say this just to give you an idea of my initial read: the vitriol( from republican electorate ) was the cause of the mandate ( to clamp down on bureaucracy ). Now, said clamping generates its own vitriol ( and seemingly some vitriol as well ). Which vitriol you want to focus on?

<< Also, on cultural level, we are supposed to not consider all Republicans assholes, but if they mandated this, they are.

Why.. do I care about it at all?

Asshole designation is largely meaningless to me. I will push that point further, because I worry that I might be misunderstood on this point.

You may find that almost the entirety of the situation we find ourselves is a result of people 'just being nice' and trying not ruffle feathers. There was rather ample time to do some of the incremental changes some recommended here, but no one wanted to be an asshole. We are way past the point, where that label would even register ( not even have and impact; register ). Edit: I will separately note that on this forum, I noted years ago that if those issues are not addressed, we will find ourselves having to make rather unhappy choices.

I am pointing it out for one reason some may be misunderstanding some very basic reality. I will offer one more example of this weird blindness to zeitgeist.

Did you notice how Trump was able to simply shrug off the felon label? Have you considered the why behind it?

<< Or when Canadiens boo American anthem, it is all "American people are not responsible for their leadership".

Again.. why does it matter to me? They can boo all they want.

Being okay or ignoring such a label indicates a certain level of understanding it and accepting it. Trump is totally fine with being against the law because he is in a position of privilege - he can afford it. He doesn't care about those laws either, so basically is totally fine with being an antisocial - because a society codifies its principles in the laws it created. Now if another person is okay with being called an asshole, again it's because they are okay with being mean to others, to disrespect norms and generally other persons, out of a feeling of personal or group superiority and expected impunity - an impunity they see again and again in their role models. So while you cannot make the asshole care about it, the way you truthfully explained, it's important for the less-assholes to point this out to each other. Because the "others" are a group as well, even though nowadays it looks chaotic and actually just less visible in general. Just to be clear, I don't think anybody expects assholes fixing stuff for the rest, it's for the moment nothing more than flag waving. And also I agree that the system is seemingly built to be abused by assholes, something not even the founding fathers have considered. But what happened, happened, and the question is, what now?

Trump didn't even get half the popular vote. That's not a mandate.

@cthalupa

Trump didn't even get half the popular vote. That's not a mandate.

I think you confuse USA with some other country. Read about electoral votes.

Mandates would come from popularity, not from weighted numbers.

I didn't say he wasn't elected. I said he didn't have a mandate.

If he did not secure even half of the popular vote then it is obvious that the median voter does not align with his views.

Less than 50% of voters voted for him and what was total voter turn out? 60%? So maybe a 1/3 of eligible voters voted for him. A plurality does not equate to a mandate.

The populace is always arguing about how I have to pay up for taxes for muh roads and schools whether I want them or not, or else go in a tiny cage.

Now they have to eat their crow of what it's like to legitimize the violence of a republic.

It may not be right, and I also disagree with our governance, but by god the schadenfreude is off the chart.

I hope the 2/3 learn something from this.

I hope the 1/3 learn something from this

Many things are not black and white.

But if the outcome is that the existing federal system collapses and we have a collection of fiefdoms run by CEO-kings, endless nuance won't be the appropriate response.

If Trump has a popular mandate to illegally dismantle the government, then what was Biden's popular mandate? Why were such comparatively small things like student loan forgiveness seen as tyrannical? Where was the endless supply of pundits saying "well that's the mandate" then?

I'm fine with the idea of "destroying the government" in general. BUT, even I would say that there's a right way to go about it...

Earnest question: Does the second sentence here cause you to reflect on the first, because:

minimizing the harm done, taking "collateral damage" into consideration...

acknowledges that the government is performing important functions on which people rely.

I know there's an argument that the private sector could instead provide some of these, but that causes me to consider whether such critical services should be in the hands of for-profit companies?

but that causes me to consider whether such critical services should be in the hands of for-profit companies?

I believe the idea is that you can have multiple companies for a given purpose and switch between them (or form your own) depending on what you think works best for you and your community. You cannot have multiple governments - if the one elected on an piece of land you happen to live on does not act in your interests, you're pretty much SOL at least until the next election cycle (if it's a democracy) or the next coup (if it's not).

The obligatory caveat is that - of course - this does not work in practice. At the very least, it requires a perfect free and fair market which means it needs us all to be well-informed rational actors. And there are probably more requirements than just this.

It doesn’t work in practice. So needs regulators or you end up with cartels. And for regulators you need a government.

We got where we got because this already failed.

The problem with this line of thinking is in people frequently ignore their own interests or just shrug their shoulders and "I got mine" in some way: The absolute easiest example that comes to mind is roads. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people complain about tax on gasoline and how they don't even use the majors roads and highways that much. Mention that nearly every single thing that keeps them alive will in some way require roads to exist and they'll move the goal posts to "I ready pay other taxes" or "I've already paid plenty" or less reasonably "fine let all this go away then because we got along fine 200 years ago without it".

With other things, it's just about impossible to convey to someone with this sort of mindset anything much less direct like the costs of having beauracracies creating and enforcing regulating building codes or workplace standards, and even those are easier to grasp than many other services

You can think that someone doesn't deserve the benefit they get from the government but also think it's unfair to impose additional hardship by cutting it off suddenly.

You cannot have multiple governments

I have 4. City, county, state, and federal.

Oh but they can be just fine, you only need to look outside the States to see it working. They're not perfect either, don't start me on it, but I can see exactly that idea working in Switzerland: the state making the rules for the private providers _and_enforcing_ them. It might be against "muh freedom to rip everybody off" but I personally refuse to call that "freedom".

OTOH, some important things in Switzerland are still state-owned, like the railways or the post.

Some people treat Switzerland like some libertarian paradise, but in reality, while Switzerland does tend to be more economically liberal than many of its neighbours, it's usually pretty pragmatic and not committed to some ideology.

You're probably part of the problem; folks like yourself are nearly universally ignorant of many Chesterton's fences.

Unless they radically edited what they said after you replied, I’d say the approach they favor necessarily includes understanding the fence. It’s a bit rude to just lump them in with “folks like themselves” as an ad hom.

Even as a left lib who thinks the primary purpose of a government should be to pool money into public good, I doubt all the fences that are up are there for good reasons anymore. Questioning them in a careful and rational manner is healthy, and I wish it were done more. Wanton destruction like we’re seeing now isn’t.

I think that’s in line with what your parent comment was saying too. They might be more surprised than I would be as to how many fences are justified, but it sounds like they believe it’s important to check.

I've worked in government and large institutions, and frequently deal with people who think like this.

Let's just say I'm perfectly comfortable with the ad hominem.

Literally 100% of the people I've encountered with this attitude either soften it once they're actually in, or they come in and break things.

Any time someone comes in with a "clean house" attitude," I know I have to get ready because they nearly universally have no clue of what they're talking about.

Pardon my French. - You need to be sharing a fuck ton of examples.

People make sense of things in many ways. One of the most fundamental are stories.

Share every example or story you can, or your friends can. This is one of the things conspicuously absent on HN, which is surprising since there should be many people with personal experience dealing with governments or complex systems.

It may seem simple, but they matter.

Right, I mean the fundamental problem here is that the sort of person who actually does this sort of real work -- much more than I do -- doesn't have time to screw around on here. :)

I respect your experience, but your message added literally nothing to the conversation besides “you probably suck because people like you generally do.” It was nothing but a personal attack.

That’s considerably harder to respect, and it put me in the position of feeling like I needed to defend the parent of your comment.

Being more direct, since you seem to value that: consider keeping that sort of thing to yourself unless it has an actual constructive point beyond insulting the person to whom you’re responding. However true it might be per your subjective experience, posting it here only makes you look bad.

If nothing else, choosing a straw man of not understanding Chesterton’s Fence, when that was already directly contradicted by the parent comment, comes off as you being the ignorant one.

You may be comfortable with the ad hom, but maybe you shouldn’t be so comfortable with that.

Identifying what the collateral damage would be, planning to minimize harm done, and identifying replacements for the functionality prior to replacement reads to me like an exact application of the principles recommended by Chesterton's fence rather than apparent ignorance of the concepts https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

If you still see it so differently I'd like to better understand some more of the reasoning why.

All of your theory sounds good.

I've NEVER ever ever seen anyone who comes in with this attitude do it effectively in practice. They always either soften greatly or screw things up.

Then it's worth asking: surely no matter what your perspective is, it's possible to come up with intelligent and capable malefactors who'll further your power and that of your side?

No matter who you consider to be malefactors. Let's say we call ancaps malefactors, and we're talking about the reformation of society. Surely it's possible to find capable people who will set that in motion and lock it in so it can't be avoided? There must be so many people able to plan this out. You might be one of those people!

And yet, how come we're looking at a pile of nonsense people, hurling grenades and being catastrophically useless in their own rights, across the board?

Do you consider them incompetent, when the claim is they'll make everything great and you hope they'll serve your interests?

Or do you consider that they're doing exactly what they are meant to do, but they're meant to be saboteurs and the damage IS not only the point but the only real plan?

In that case, they might not even be in control of what they think they're intending, but they've been selected to do exactly what they're doing. Some of the bigger ones seem to be carrying on like Bond villains, presumably because they enjoy that, but even they are poised to do catastrophic damage to what they're supposed to 'rule'.

So do they even expect to rule anything, or are they simply trying to break everything before fleeing the ruins? They're not acting like they're trying to build power, it's something else. Even Trump's bluster is not really building power in any way, it's only undermining American hegemony at a staggering rate.

That might be the only purpose.

So, like terrorists.

More like National Socialists.

The problem is that it wouldn't get done. To do it that way you would need the cooperation of the bureaucracy and they are just not going to cooperate here. And who can blame them? I wouldn't do a good job if my bosses asked me to do an analysis of how to cut my job. The conclusion would be "the collateral damage would be catastrophic." I think that's why large corporate layoffs are always a shitshow too.

that involves dismantling things slowly and incrementally

Yeah? been waiting, consciously, for over 35 years and all we managed to do is give billions to industries for no return for citizens, tenfold our debt, potentially bankrupt Medicare, and so on.

Democrats have been in power about equally (20 vs 14 years but just president isn't enough to be "in power"); so neither side is interested in fixing this country for the people instead of themselves.

This. In fact, since the system is built for gridlock, both parties happily pretend to care about given's electorate red meat, while blaming the other party for failing to do X. It is a perfect scenario for an elected official: do nothing -- the hardest thing to do in politics.

The lock is VERY one sided. Democrats were willing to work across the aisle and even adopted republican ideas.

The moment they do, Republicans reject their own ides. Republicans refused to cooperate.

It is assymetric and the knee jerk tendency to both side everything just enable it.

<< The lock is VERY one sided.

Hmm. Is it though? You are making rather broad statement here. Would you be willing to offer an example supporting that statement?

<< Democrats were willing to work across the aisle and even adopted republican ideas.

'Were'? It is a real question, but the spirit is the same as above. Can you offer an example you have in your mind. I suspect I know where you are going with this, but I don't want to assume too much.

<< The moment they do, Republicans reject their own ides. Republicans refused to cooperate.

Same as above.

<< It is assymetric and the knee jerk tendency to both side everything just enable it.

No. This is pure silliness and I am frankly tired of hearing this point so I will just call it out.

I like to see things as they are. If things happen to work in a way that I happen to not like, then I do not like those things, but it does not mean said those things are invalid, simply because it was a 'kneejerk' reaction to it.

And even trying to cast it as kneejerk is amazingly inaccurate. This resentment has been building for a long time now ( does anyone even remember Vance's CNN commentary that basically said 'can you hear us now?' ), which kinda sucks for the political class as they will need to figure out a different model ( and it seems they may have already ) to bamboozle the population.

I am happy to discuss further, but you need to give me a little more.

While I do think gp should give you an example, I also invite you to provide a counter example, otherwise both of you are just stating your vibes.

If you are _actually_ willing to discuss, you can't just demand the other side to give, you can also set the standard by giving.

Obama was literally that. And republicans refused to do any cooperation at all and punished own republicans for any compromises. Obama eventually understood it well into his period.

Trying to both sides here is just lie. And yes, knee jerk complain is about people saying 'both sides' because they feel like they have to, not because both sides would be the same.

The ideal outcome is that government fails, then they can point at the failing government and ask, why do we want to pay for something that is failing.

What's their plan after that though? Privatization, I guess?

Ever read Snowcrash?

When you are Elon, or Trump, or even a moderately succesful business… all the government does (or at least what you perceive) is tell you no. You can't dump that here, you can't build that there, you can't fire that person for that reason, you can't do that without a permit, etc.. They just want to clear all the roadblocks out of the way for their PERSONAL gains.

Get rid of the government and you can do whatever you want. That is what they want. These are people who feel they have "won" the game of capitalism, and were still told, "No." That greatly upset them. How can a winner be told they can't do something?

There's thousands of homeless and underhoused people all over the US for the same exact reasons so you don't have to be rich to feel the effects of government telling you no.

Related:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

This was a reckless plan.

If you want people to get onboard with spending cuts, you should raise taxes high enough to actually pay for all the spending so taxpayers feel the consequences of it.

Reducing revenues and letting people run up the credit card for decades instead, as an intentional strategy, was beyond irresponsible.

We're going to get a great lesson on why 'command economy' style top down management doesn't work, from the guys who hate command economies.

Aren't they taking away the 'command' part of the government? No government, no command.

This is committing the classic mistake of forgetting that a government is just a corporation with an army behind it. "The government" isn't going away; just the one where you had any semblance of say in its operation.

that probationary employees aren't needed

Remember that "probationary" doesn't mean new. I just learned this, but apparently when getting a promotion it puts you back into the "probationary" period at your new role. So people with 10+ years of service are being let go because they had recently been promoted.

Saw posts of national park rangers with 10+ years of experience who were fired for being "probationary" employees because they were recently promoted.

It's really, really hard to believe I have anything in common with people cheering on this cruel incompetence.

Could be a round of promotions and pay raises coming so that they can fire more people and claim to save extra money.

Firing any probationary employees withou a real cause is cruel, has zero dignity and looks totally stupid. But this makes it even worse!

Like what is the great thing that needs to be done right now that justifies trampling over peoples lives like this ?