And in trying to merely restructure you're also running the risk to carry over all pathologies, bad actors, "code debt", and general baggage, of the thing you're trying to restructure.
Yeah, I think this is why starting with a smaller part(s) of a big system that is more-or-less working and building on that is maybe the best we can do.
If only someone thought of this 240 years ago when some peeps got frustrated enough with their government to fight their way through a separation from that government.
We can never reduce the size of the federal workforce because it means people will lose jobs?
We can never cut any federal benefit or subsidy regardless of the cost, importance, or overall value to society because someone, somewhere is benefiting from it?
Here is a reference to the "Reinventing Government" effort that was implemented during the Clinton administration and considered highly successful (and legal):
Yes, I am questioning whether the parent poster would have supported those cuts or uttered the same cry, as some individuals and communities were absolutely worse off after those cuts.
Democrats significantly cut the government and Al Gore led the effort. It had some issues though is widely considered a success in hindsight. That was a scapel, DOGE appears to be a drunken flamethrower.
Democrats cut the government because they were unable to resist Republican cuts, so if we’re drawing a causal link I think it would be fairer to say Republicans made the cuts during a time when a Democrat was president. Also the public blamed the Republicans for the shutdowns which reelected Clinton and is probably the reason the Republicans stoped caring so much about the deficit.
Yes, I understand that Democrats have cut government in the past.
I was young, but I remember cries of "you can't do this to people!" then as well, just like we hear from a select group of people every time any cut is contemplated, which is why I asked the parent poster what exactly they mean by their comment.
How do you think policy that affects whole groups of people, or even a whole country, is made? Not talking about just Trump/DOGE, or even just US or just 2025. In general and globally.
Goverments and lawmakers do get to "do that with people's lives". And they do that, affecting them, all the time. Including affecting them negatively a lot of the time.
And it gets worse: ineffective bureucracies (or incompetend ones) also "get to do that with people's lives"
["that" being: affecting them negatively, destroying their livehood, even causing deaths, e.g. consider some country's organization similar to FEMA being incompetent when there's a crisis].
Who said anything about rebuilding? The party in power wants the government (of the people) to have less of everything except authority for their own role.
