DOGE and the FAA

[Silvaire]

How many departments have you seen eliminated?

It's not a "Department" Congress are the ones who can create those.

 

[3393RP]

I briefly worked for the State of Texas for the Medicare IG. THAT was spartan. I attended a conference to represent the office and couldn’t stay in the hotel where the conference was (a nice but by no means extravagant place the Air Force would definitely have covered). Instead they put me up in a threadbare Super 8-level place.

I'm quite happy with the manner in which Texas spends my tax dollars. The Federal government, beginning with Congress, not at all.

 

[Llewtrah381]

I'm quite happy with the manner in which Texas spends my tax dollars. The Federal government, beginning with Congress, not at all.

I’d probably lock the thread with comments about Operation Lone Star and its real motives….

 

[3393RP]

I’d probably lock the thread with comments about Operation Lone Star and its real motives….

Yeah, because then I could discuss the impact to the border cities by millions of tourists passing through.

 

[Llewtrah381]

I'm quite happy with the manner in which Texas spends my tax dollars. The Federal government, beginning with Congress, not at all.

Add: here’s why I left the role there within a short period. This guy was bad juju. He took a lot of people down with him, too - some very talented, some just toadys.

The story behind Jack Stick’s rise to power

If Jack Stick could be any animal, he would be a liger. A cross-breed between a lion and a tiger might seem like a whimsical answer to the question posed in the 2011 job interview, just before he w…

www.statesman.com

 

[Randomskylane]

Before we get all breathless, let 's take a step back and get some perspective. The US is a $30 trillion economy. Of course you would expect debt levels to increase over time, just as the debt level of ATT is much larger now than it was on 1950. However, having said that, how out of line are we today as compared to historical levels of spending? A couple charts:View attachment 135266View attachment 135267

The sky isn't falling, and Covid notwithstanding the percentages are pretty much in line with when we thought there was some semblance of fiscal sanity. Any reasonable economist would ask if changes at the revenue and spending margins to get back to historically acceptable levels would be preferable to the disruption and costs of burning it all down.

These historical numbers would be quite different if the us dollar was no longer the world’s reserve currency, yes?

Borrowing a trillion quarterly for interest expense only may not be sustainable?

Printing a trillion dollars because no one will lend it to us might also change things?

Other nations are already using non US dollars in their trade, etc

I bet that we need to factor many other things as well

 

[Randomskylane]

Back to FAA and DOGE. One point of maybe success is the airport review process. I have gone through three of them, and all were done by private contractors, worked for the FAA in the inspection biz. In all three cases, the inspector was on time, and spent the right amount of time at the field, and discussed the right kind of stuff. They do a master record review of the data there, and then we do our walk about and see what can be improved, and what is ok as is. There was no pressure to 'red X' any feature, or attempt to shut down ops at the airport. There were a few suggestions and we chatted about how to make it better at a reasonable cost.

I consider the time spent, and the work done to be of value, however I don't know what the private guy charges the FAA for an inspection. I received a written report after the job was done, and the master records were updated within 2 cycles.

There are places where the FAA is doing things right. I also consider the Lockheed takeover of most FSS services to be moderately efficient. They don't like it that I don't have an 'account' and I make a point of asking each time if an account is required to operate in the Natl Airspace System. Of course, it is not. Then I get my standard briefing, ignore all the NOTAMs and go about my flight.

I'm sure there is money to be saved at the FAA, but it's a pimple on the ass of many other federal operations that can see massive improvements in efficiency. Sad about the FSDO office staffing and empty buildings. One thing that could go a long way for DOGE to improve is provide a user public interface where the people of the nation could report stuff like the empty acres of FSDO office space. That stuff is on a lease, most likely annual and would be an easy target to just send a notice to quit at the end of the lease. These kinds of things are done in the biz world constantly, but I'm sure in the FAA way, there are 30 meetings, and 18 sessions, with 74 people to decide to close down one leased building, so it never gets done.

a friend used to work at gsa, which manages real estate for the government. Large leases take several years before a move can happen.

Year to decide what is needed, a year to get a lease, a year for design, and another for construction. So, politics aside, new administration will be out before any downsizing to Iowa or whatever can occur.

Now, add in politics-example the agency may need to negotiate the new space requirements with the various unions.

Example- one party is claiming reduction in rent by mothballing buildings while the other is insisting fed workers go back to the office. How do they do that after the downsizing? You can’t stack two people on a desk simultaneously. Are we supposed to think that encouraged retirements are going to magically coincide with space reduction?

Example- both parties are pushing back to the office but it’s terrible for the environment (in cities) to have ten (50? Who knows) thousand cars idling for two hours a day in traffic. Claiming to be green is ridiculous, just like claiming credit for lease cost reduction while spending hundreds of millions to move locations

-there are building usage and many other calculations to argue over

Let’s say Doge can issue answers to every question on February first, it’ll still take a decade for impact (let’s say current leases don’t expire for an average of five years plus the time listed above)

He said a lot more but that’s the gist

 

[Chip Sylverne]

These historical numbers would be quite different if the us dollar was no longer the world’s reserve currency, yes?

Borrowing a trillion quarterly for interest expense only may not be sustainable?

Printing a trillion dollars because no one will lend it to us might also change things?

Other nations are already using non US dollars in their trade, etc

I bet that we need to factor many other things as well

The USD is the world's reserve currency not by decree, but because we are the world's larges economy, by far. Even the BRIC total falls short. The only reason other countriesare trading in Yuan is that they are shut out of SWIFT for ( in my opinion) very valid reasons. The nearest to us is China, but even they are $10 trillion short and have very weak legal protections on property. Do you really see a mass movement away from the dollar any time soon?

I don't mean to suggest we should continue to spend at the rate we are, but spending and revenue changes should and can be made without, as Musk put it, "a great deal of short-term pain".

And just as point of fact, last quarter's interest on the debt was $1.1 billion. A $ trillion quarterly is a long way off.

 

[martym]

Creating a bureaucracy to eliminate gov. waste is a failure right out of the gate.