Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'

https://lemmy.world/post/30882562

Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent' - Lemmy.World

A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were “relatively nonexistent” during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs. “I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,” Sahil Lavingia told NPR’s Juana Summers. Lavingia was a successful software developer and the founder of Gumroad, a platform for online sales, when he joined DOGE in March. Lavingia said he had previously sought to work for the U.S. Digital Service, the technology unit that was renamed and restructured by the Trump administration. He told NPR that he just wanted to make government websites easier for citizens to use and didn’t really care which presidential administration he was working for, despite protests from his friends and family.

Cool, you ruined a lot of people’s lives…congrats. Hope it was worth it I guess. Glad you learned something or whatever.
But also, thank you for the candid (if defensive) admission and insider’s perspective. That took guts, given what social capital you must know it will cost.

I’m not risking much social capital - I read this article a few weeks ago and it really stuck with me. The story of Caitlin and her family…it’s just so tragic. I don’t know her or her family and I know a lot of things are tragic, but this is so senseless. For whatever reason it resonated with me and I can’t stop thinking about her. I hope her husband and daughter are doing as best they can. But people like this ignorant douchebag need to know that directly or indirectly, they did this. And they get the opportunity to be like “oops guess I was wrong” and keep going through life like “oh well” and make more mistakes and in the meantime they ruined many lives for nothing. For greed and ego. It’s just all so sad.

Original link: washingtonpost.com/…/federal-workers-trump-mental…

Non-paywall link: archive.ph/fiuMl

White House officials wanted to put federal workers ‘in trauma.’ It’s working.

Amid federal layoffs, Caitlin Cross-Barnet struggled with panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. One morning, her husband found her wavering on top of their fire escape.

The Washington Post
They're weren't saying that about you.