I know that civility is a core value of this community but it is very hard to respond to your comments here while maintaining that.
What number would I propose? Probably a negative one. I don't think "we can say that at least 50-75% is actually helping". On what basis? Helping with what?
>the USAID budget was about $20bn. Half a million extra dead so far from those cuts. So we can start there?
Saving $40k/person[0] is wonderful savings! Let's save even more! Boo yah! USA! USA! USA!
[0] I mean it's not like they're Americans. And they're most likely not white either. In which case, unless they're mowing my lawn or picking my cotton, they're worth essentially zero.
These are exactly the kind of questions an administration could have, hypothetically, asked before forming a department dedicated to acting like it already had the answers.
Did they ask them? I haven't seen evidence they did (if anything, the releases from the White House suggest DOGE became the tail that wags the dog, with OMB being asked to justify cuts to projects DOGE had already become convinced were waste, if they were consulted at all).
DOGE is, I think, a response to a real issue Americans have with their government: its process of evaluating cost and benefit is glacial in a world that is moving ever faster.
Unfortunately, it's glacial for a reason; there's 380 million people in the country and 8 billion in the world. That's a lot of effect to weigh when making changes to the status quo.
There's a three-panel comic about a person deciding they need change in their life and getting it by taking a chainsaw to their room. Panel three is them looking around and going "oh no." That is, unfortunately, sort of how I conceptualize DOGE.
I'm guessing that if you made a Venn diagram of people in favor of DOGE and people that believe COVID was fake and the vaccine is a sham the result would be a circle
