"Out of control! This most enlightening press conference showed the US government's lack of controls and poor financial processes. President Trump and Elon are on it."
- Name Withheld, via Facebook, 14th Feb 2025
I would like to add just one word to this; namely "President Trump and Elon are in on it." For as far administrations go, this doesn't look broadly different to most others. What we have is an administration, that thinks that it is going to change everything and amidst the hype thinks that they're going to sweep away everything with a new broom, but when they actually get into the weedy weedy wonko weeds, they're going to very quickly find that the Doorman Paradox exists, and that the very mechanics of government itself going right back to the constitution, means that the whole dang-nabbity thing is awash with lack of controls and poor financial processes. Those two, are in fact functionally part of the problem.
In principle when it comes to organisational behaviour, the amount of control that anyone can actually exact, extends as far as either orders from a manager to their direct staff exist, or as far as orders from one staff member to another within the same level of hierarchy exist. As soon as you introduce any intermediate level of management within in an organisation, the amount of control that anyone can actually exact becomes more diffuse and beyond two levels where you then likely have area managers, the amount of exact control is nil and is immediately replaced by virtual control.
The most obvious example of this which is visible to people on a daily basis is that of the supermarket. Cashiers, Butchers, Nightfillers, Bakers, report either directly to the Store Manager or to their Department Head. The Store Manager then reports to an Area Manager or if the supermarket chain is small enough, directly to the Chief Executive Officer. Likely the floor staff have never met the Area Manager, let alone a State Manager, and they are probably unaware of who the CEO even is. How is it actually possible to exact control, over someone whom you have never met, and/or do not even know exists?
Suffice to say, the United States Government, is massive. It has many Departments, who have State Managers, who have Area Managers, who have ground staff. If we imagine the United States Government as a simple 1:10 hierarchy, then the theoretical minimum looks like this:
CEO - 1
Departments - 10
State Managers - 100
Area Managers - 1,000
Ground Staff - 10,000
TOTAL: 11,111
The truth is that there are 15 Departments, at least 13 states, and probably more than 11,111 staff. This means that the actual level of exact control in this hierarchy is going to be quite diffuse and often virtual. Therefore, when it comes to purported lack of control, the people who are removed from the actual business of executing policy, and will merely be looking at compiled data.
There is also a massive difference between the kinds of organisations which Mr Trump and Mr Musk have run in the past. The Trump Organisation employs about 25,000 people but only has a very limited product line (mostly real estate); likewise Tesla Motors employs 120,000 people and also only has a very limited product line (selling motor cars). The core business of the United States, which involves the management of public goods and services, which are themselves massive, has to live within the confines of far more frameworks of legislation than companies which only produce limited products. We should therefore expect, that if the United States Government Administration is bigger than 11,111 people, then managing such a thing is going to require more imagination than merely looking at a set of numbers and reacting with: number go up = good; number go down = bad. I do not think that either Mr Trump or Mr Musk exhibit such imagination.
As for the question about the poor financial processes, again this is related to the diffuse processes by which:
a) various government departments are managed in the first place
b) the fact that the whole budgetary process itself is fundamentally flawed and has been since inception
Part a)
Government Departments generally have management which is incapable of actually deciding policy. Government Departments generally have their policy given to them by diktat as far as they are concerned. It is then their job to carry out the functions assigned to them, within the legislation provided; which they also do not decide.
When it comes to the provision of public goods and services such as education, welfare, security and defence, the judiciary, roads, national parks, agriculture standards, et cetera, then quite literally all of these things are either provided because in the long run the people at large have decided that these are things that they aught to have, and/or are bound by legislation which is almost always reactive because somebody has died. On that latter point if that sounds extreme, then it is worth remembering that Labour Laws, Motor Standards, Agriculture Standards, Building and Water and Electrical Standards, Food and Additive Standards, and of course most situations involving equity against the person, are all littered with histories of dead bodies. This is because human nature at its core is selfish and/or lazy and will refuse to do anything unless there is personal benefit in doing so.
As Government Policy and Law is for the most part reactive, then Government Departments then have to work out how to carry out what has been given to them and as far as a Government Department relates to the Executive of the United States itself, then this mostly involves trying to procure budgets and staff to be able to do what they have been told to do. Of course someone like Mr Trump and Mr Musk, who only really get to see Secretaries of Government Departments cower and beg for money and staff, are going to be resentful of those Secretaries' and by inference those Government Departments' existence. It should be surprising to nobody that Mr Musk, as head of the Department Of Government Efficiency and who has apparently been given untold access to budgets and staff numbers, is going to have utter disdain for literally everyone whom he can not immediately control. Mr Trump who demands personal loyalty and fealty, is not a lot different.
Part b)
This is related to but not quite informed by Part a). The United States Government is a monumentally idiotically constituted pile of rubbish. Bad Constitutions result in bad processes; and the United States Constitution is so bad that it has been copied by exactly zero other nations.
With regards how idiotic the United States Constitution is with respect to finance, it is best to look at how our own government deals with this same issue. Section 54 of the Australian Constitution states that:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Practice_and_Procedure/Constitution/chapter1/Part_V_-_Powers_of_the_Parliament#chapter-01_part-05_54
The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.
- Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)
The phrase "shall deal only with such appropriation" has been very tightly interpreted to the point where ONLY Appropriation Bills can appropriate monies from the Australian Treasury. That's it. I can not stress how vital this is.
Appropriation Bill No.1 which is the government's first duty and really only piece of legislation that a government is actually compelled to pass, deals with the appropriation of monies from Treasury from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, for the ordinary annual services of the government. That's it. If the government of the day wants to enact new policy or start some new program, then they need to raise another Appropriation Bill (usually No.2 or No.3 et cetera), and there is an whole other bunfight about that particular bill.
The United States Constitution has NO such measure.
Firstly, there are 12 sub-committees which compromise the United States Committees on Appropriations, which all submit separate bills. Already we run into the diffusion of control problem.
Secondly, as the entire executive of the United States Government lives outside of Congress, then there is a second layer of diffusion of control. They are not directly part of any of the 12 sub-committees on Appropriations.
Thirdly, except for the President as the entire executive of the United States Government lives outside of Congress and is unelected, then there is literally zero control about how the executive actually carries out the policy directions of the Congress.
Fourthly, and most importantly, as United States Constitution has NO measure similar to Section 54 of the Australian Constitution, then literally ANY and EVERY bill presented to the House and/or Senate becomes subject to having Appropriations tacked onto it as a result of the bargaining which is done to get the bill passed. A Bill which deals with the standardisation of Voltages as presented by a committee which has reported from the National Bureau of Standards, might have monies appropriated for the building of a dual-carriageway in Montana. Even Blind Freddy can see that these things are not even remotely related.
The United States Constitution is so vaguely worded that it only states:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
- Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, United States Constitution (1789)
That's it?
No limits? No checks or balances? No restraint? And yet this is supposed to be the shining beacon of laws?
It is this quadripartite idiocy which means that not only are diffuse controls and poor financial processes baked into the process, but they must exist by design. I already think that Hamilton had zero imagination to think of anyone outside of George Washington as President and so never considered any consequences at all; but the fact that there is literally ZERO restraint on Congress from appropriating monies whenever and wherever they feel like, in any bill whatsoever, must be the result of lead poisoning or something (Hamilton would eventually die of fast moving lead poisoning.
"President Trump and Elon are on it."
Considering that it takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then three-fourths of the states, to pass and ratify an amendment to the United States Constitution; and Congress already has trouble passing bills require anything more than a simple majority, then no.
They are not.
They will never be.
The US government's lack of controls and poor financial processes remain; seemingly by design, and forever.
