Doca’s squad is wasting an opportunity for once in life

When news first became ill for the technological absorption of Elon Musk by the United States government, many people who spent years in an attempt to transform federal IT practices were surprisingly hope. Perhaps, they dreamed that Elon Musk and his team from the Ministry of Government (Tire) would provide the long -necessary impetus to a casual and preceding bureaucracy.

“Beyond the debate, it is that a more aggressive approach is needed if we are ever to make progress in our lives,” says Mike Dickerson, who was the founder of the United States digital service, which is now transformed into the US Doge of the US Doge service. (He left in 2017 before Trump was first discovered.) Dickerson says Enforcement order The fact that Trump released on the first day of his second term, which established a doj as a temporary organization within the government, was actually something he would like to see at the heart of Obama for the founding of the agency. He especially liked the paragraph that forced agencies to provide USDS teams with access to systems and records. “It would not be a magical bullet, but it would create a strong presumption that they should cooperate,” he says. “We didn’t really have this, so it was quite optional whether anyone wanted to work with us.”

Some of the departing leaders of the government technology team who were proud of their achievements and disappointed with their inability to really transform the opaque mess of the federal IT, shared similar hopesS The USDS Outgoing Director Mina Hsiang called Dodge’s power “a huge opportunity.” Former Federal Chief Information Officer Claire Martoran expressed excitement that the order would force agencies to share budget data with DOCE, considering it as an opportunity to pull away the patron and finally understand where these agencies hide the waste. This information can inform the wise decisions of what needs cutting, with the North star valuable to the American people. “I try to be an optimistic about it very much,” she told me.

Before taking up Jennifer Pahlka, a former Deputy Chief Director of Obama Technology and one of the founders of the USD wrote an essay called “Bringing an elon into a knife battle“Which summarized the feeling:” Many of the state technological community … do not see Dog as their savior, but they feel avenged after years to shout in void. “

If any of these former employees really believe that Musk will run for the ability to constructively reform the government, these fantasies are already broken. Musk and Dog brought a team of young technicians and experienced leaders who could take the moment to focus on improving the government better. But to date, they have used their access and power to indiscriminately drain the federal workforce and discourage programs for ideological reasons, at first glance, without even thinking about the consequences. Yes, Musk confesses to be the champion of people against the bureaucratic state: “If bureaucracy is responsible, then what sense does democracy really?” He asked during a A bizarre appearance of the oval office This week, as Trump looked at Musk X’s 4-year-old son. But the actions taken by the DOG do not synchronize with this mood, especially when the moves seem to be contrary to the measures adopted by Congress and are signed in the law. This is not terribly democratic. “I think the government is a good thing and it needed a massive transformation, much faster than anyone in the political leadership had some appetite,” Pahlka tells me. “Since we didn’t do it, it seems to be what we get.”

Anne Lewis, who by the end of last year, led the technology transformation services, an agency dedicated to the use of modern technology to make the government accessible to its citizens, and initially tried to see the absorption of Doge in positive light. It didn’t take long for this light to darken. “The model of attracting private sector people who have a new perspective and skills and who want to help is a great idea,” she tells me. “But we do not see people in the private sector with many experiences who want to understand how everything works.”