DOGE wants businesses to run government services 'as much as possible'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Mail delivery. Real estate. Foreign aid grants. The Trump administration is moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets — a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.

The slash-and-burn approach of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is paving the way for a new shift to the private sector, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy in a real-world test of the conservative theory — a version of which is also widely popular in Silicon Valley — that companies are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs.

Examples are popping up across Washington and in proposals from President Donald Trump’s allies, though the plans are various stages of development and, in some cases, have already encountered resistance.

At the DOGE-allied General Services Administration, officials are quietly moving ahead with a push to sell hundreds of publicly owned buildings to private companies — which can then lease them back to the government, theoretically saving maintenance and upkeep costs for taxpayers, according to two people briefed on internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/30/doge-privatize-government-usps-trump/

They want to take over those services and charge us beaucoup bucks.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

1. Are they even capable of running those things?

[OLDMDDEM]

4. No and thats the point. Maintenance will be paid for by the lessee.

Repair, janitorial will be performed separately and paid separately while also paying higher rent.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

8. Can they even run the services? Postal service for one.

[Turbineguy]

2. Yeah, like a bunch of Enrons, only worse.

Say something nice about trump, and we'll switch on your lights again.

[kimbutgar]

3. When you privatize you profitize

Government works best when the bottom line is not a profit center.

All these for profit government agencies will only increase dramatically the deficit even more.

[Klarkashton]

5. It always costs a shit ton more when companies

Are involved. Always.

And guess what? He wants to get the business.

[Ocelot II]

6. Those private businesses will want to make a profit, which means

that whatever taxpayers supposedly save by not having the government manage these functions will be made up by having to pay the businesses to do it. You want to have your mail delivered? You'll have to open an account with the privately-owned postal service. Maybe you pay by the month or by the piece; but no money, no mail. Social Security? Maybe we'll still get our checks, but how much will be deducted in fees for some private company to "manage" it? And how is selling government buildings to private companies for leaseback going to save money? They still have to be heated, repaired and cleaned, just as always. Government entities don't have a profit motive; private businesses do.

[Eugene]

7. Leasing-back assets is a classic private equity money grab.

If DOGE privatization works like privatized prisons or veterans' services, expect the profit imperative to cause corner cutting, especially in staffing.

[sakabatou]

9. How many times do we have to say it?!

YOU CAN'T RUN A GOVERNMENT LIKE A BUSINESS!

[dalton99a]

10. Profit maximization will be the goal - and executive compensation

[Timeflyer]

11. Privatize profit, socialize loss.

[mymomwasright]

12. He thinks he can plug everything into AI then privatize and it will be great!

People just keep letting these assholes take over and destroy.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. It's almost a religion to these tech bros

Seems they never step out of their bubble.

[DiverDave]

14. Yeah,

Because that's worked so well in the past

[mzmolly]

15. What a bunch of lying grifters! Businesses are profit entities.

Government contractors charge far more than it costs to employ civil servants.

[valleyrogue]

16. Businesses can't do that because government is non-profit.

We already learned or should learn that libertarian notions didn't work in the early twentieth century. Those ideas led directly to the Great Depression.

I am sick of Eloon and his ilk.