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In a significant <keyword id="20359239" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="political-development" source="keywords">political development</keyword>, <keyword id="19969165" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Atishi" source="keywords">Atishi</keyword> is poised to become the next Chief Minister of Delhi, following the resignation of Arvind Kejriwal. The <keyword id="19935664" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Aam-Aadmi-Party" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Aam Aadmi Party" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Aam Aadmi Party">Aam Aadmi Party</keyword> (AAP) convened a legislative meeting earlier today, where all MLAs unanimously accepted Kejriwal's proposal to nominate Atishi for the top post. <h2>Who is Atishi?</h2>Atishi Marlena, widely known as Atishi, is a prominent figure within the AAP and currently holds multiple key portfolios in the <keyword id="19925995" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Delhi-government" source="keywords">Delhi government</keyword>. A Rhodes scholar, she has long been a key architect of AAP’s <keyword id="20374249" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="education-reforms" source="keywords">education reforms</keyword> in Delhi, which transformed the public schooling system and gained national attention. Her work has earned her recognition as a progressive leader committed to enhancing education, governance, and <keyword id="20228723" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="public-welfare" source="keywords">public welfare</keyword>. Atishi has served as a Delhi MLA, representing the Kalkaji constituency, and has been an essential part of the Kejriwal-led government. She took on many responsibilities when Kejriwal was jailed in connection with the excise policy case, and her reputation for efficiency and dedication helped solidify her as a strong contender for the chief ministerial position. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="113312516" title="Supreme Court grants bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Liquor scam case" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div><h2>Kejriwal’s resignation and resultant suspense</h2>The sequence of events leading to Atishi's ascension began with Arvind Kejriwal's sudden announcement that he would resign as Delhi’s Chief Minister. On September 13, 2024, Kejriwal was released from Tihar Jail, where he was lodged for his alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor policy scam. Following his release, Kejriwal took to the public platform to declare that he would step down, pending a “certificate of honesty” from the people of Delhi. In a political gambit that stunned many, Kejriwal pushed for advancing the polls to November 2024, ahead of the originally scheduled February 2025 elections. His rationale was that only a fresh mandate from the people, whom he asked to consider his honesty as the deciding factor, would validate his return to power. Until then, he vowed not to reassume the office of Chief Minister. "I didn't resign (after arrest in excise policy case) because I respect democracy and the Constitution is supreme for me," Kejriwal had said earlier. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="113364559" title="Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal announces resignation, demands Delhi elections in November" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>Kejriwal’s resignation prompted a flurry of activity within AAP, as speculation mounted about who would succeed him. The party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) and other senior leaders, including Manish Sisodia, Saurabh Bharadwaj, and Gopal Rai, held several rounds of discussions. Names floated for the role included Atishi, Gopal Rai, Kailash Gahlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj, and even Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal. Some sources hinted that a surprise candidate from a minority community could also emerge. However, Atishi was always seen as the frontrunner. She holds a majority of the key portfolios in the Delhi government and was handpicked by Kejriwal to unfurl the national flag on August 15 while he was in jail — a symbolic gesture that hinted at her growing political stature within the party. <h2>Atishi’s nomination and the path ahead</h2>The AAP legislative meeting, held at Kejriwal’s residence earlier today, saw Atishi’s nomination as the new Chief Minister of Delhi. The decision was unanimously accepted by all AAP MLAs, with Kejriwal personally proposing her name. Once Kejriwal officially tenders his resignation later today, Atishi will likely meet Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena to stake her claim for the CM’s office. It is expected that Atishi will not take the oath of office immediately, as the process involves proving majority on the floor of the Delhi Assembly and appointing a new council of ministers. Sources suggest that the swearing-in ceremony may take place closer to the next Assembly session. Atishi’s rise to the Chief Ministerial post comes at a time of political turbulence for AAP. Kejriwal’s resignation, driven by his desire to restore his public image following his incarceration, has put the party in a precarious position. The opposition <keyword id="14666" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bjp" source="Orion">BJP</keyword> has termed Kejriwal’s resignation a "PR stunt" aimed at deflecting attention from the corruption charges. Atishi, with her track record of governance and public service, represents a fresh face for AAP, one that can potentially rejuvenate the party’s image. She will need to navigate a host of challenges, including the corruption allegations surrounding Kejriwal and the upcoming elections. Whether she will be able to maintain the party’s grip on Delhi or lead it to a new electoral victory remains to be seen. (With inputs from agencies)

Atishi set to become Delhi's new Chief Minister as Arvind Kejriwal steps down months before the assembly elections

Donald <keyword id="19906203" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Trump" source="keywords">Trump</keyword> and <keyword id="19903807" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Elon-Musk" source="keywords">Elon Musk</keyword> have apparently become great friends over recent months. Musk poured millions of dollars into Trump's successful election campaign and has been a vocal and visible supporter of the president-elect. In return, he's been given a new job, in joint charge of the new <keyword id="23593857" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Department-of-Government-Efficiency" source="keywords">Department of Government Efficiency</keyword> (Doge), where he will be tasked with streamlining government operations and reducing bureaucracy. This "department"—actually an advisory group—will aim to cut unnecessary spending and make the general functioning of the US government more efficient. The idea is that within a federal budget of over US$6 trillion, there are opportunities to make some big savings. Musk's appointment—like many things he's involved with—has sparked controversy. The richest man in the world has already said he wants to cut spending by US$2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) and mentioned setting up a "leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.". Some are concerned about the impact he could have on public services. Others fear he will use his position to promote his own business interests. On the positive side, Musk has a very impressive CV when it comes to big organisations. He has created (or co-created) multi-billion-dollar businesses, including Paypal, <keyword id="19895433" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tesla" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Tesla" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Tesla">Tesla</keyword>, and <keyword id="19905255" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="SpaceX" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="SpaceX" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="SpaceX">SpaceX</keyword>. He has founded startups involved in AI (xAI), tunnelling (the Boring Company), and medicine (<keyword id="19985233" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Neuralink" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Neuralink" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Neuralink">Neuralink</keyword>). And research suggests that much of Musk's success comes down to a relentless focus on efficiency. He has also been praised for the depth of his analytical thinking and innovative problem solving. Tesla's factory in California went from being the least productive car manufacturing plant in the US when it was owned by General Motors to the most productive under Musk's ownership. SpaceX has vastly reduced costs in the space cargo business. So he has form. And Musk is not the first American business leader to offer private sector expertise to the world of politics. Back in the 1960s, Robert McNamara, former president of the Ford Motor Company, served as secretary of defence under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara brought significant innovations to <keyword id="22668770" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="government-efficiency" source="keywords">government efficiency</keyword> that drew on his corporate experience. He championed cost-benefit analysis and a data-driven approach to decision-making and was keen on reducing bureaucracy and promoting accountability in complex governmental processes. To achieve this, McNamara recruited a team of experts from the worlds of academia and business. Known as the "Whizz Kids," they brought new perspectives to the White House. In the UK now, the Labour government's minister of state for investment is Poppy Gustafsson, a former venture capitalist and tech founder. Its minister for prisons is James Timpson, former CEO of the Timpson Group, a family firm renowned for hiring ex-offenders. These people—and there are many other examples around the world—were brought into the political sphere because of the knowledge and vision they have demonstrated in the private sector. The hope is their talent and leadership will improve policy and practice. <h2>Data-driven reform</h2>The same must be hoped for Musk: that with his co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy—a biotech entrepreneur and former Republican leadership candidate—he will bring expertise in cost-cutting and innovative strategies. This will probably include comprehensive audits and data-driven approaches to reform. Critics refer to prior examples of Musk's approach, such as the mass layoffs and aggressive cost-cutting measures at Twitter (now X), with concerns that there could be similarly drastic reductions in the federal workforce and public services. But big job cuts were happening across the tech sector at that time. They came in the wake of reduced revenues and a need to reduce bloated workforces and ineffective functions—not unlike the challenges faced by the US government. Nevertheless, while proponents see Musk as an experienced leader capable of streamlining bureaucracy, sceptics fear the advent of harmful austerity measures that risk disruption to essential public programs. Concerns have also been raised about potential conflicts of interest, as Musk's business empire benefits from government contracts. However, since Doge will operate as an advisory body, concerns over him gaining advantage through any self-dealing seem overblown. Besides, two of Musk's companies (SpaceX and Tesla) have been awarded US$15.4 billion (£12.3bn) in federal contracts in the last decade. Perhaps then, success precedes influence rather than the reverse? Doge will also be governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which maintains legal and ethical guardrails. And Congress will have the final say over any decisions. Fears of the worst possible outcome to Musk's appointment are a natural human response in the face of uncertainty. It is part of the reason that negative headlines get more clicks than positive ones. It is also true that Musk has aligned himself with a politician who divides opinion like few others. By leveraging his billions of dollars and 200 million followers on X to help Trump to victory, he made it clear which side he was on. And in a highly polarised US political landscape, the anguish about his governmental role may be little more than a knee-jerk reaction from the millions of people whose side he did not choose.

Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk is a champion of efficiency and could save the US government a fortune

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Biden announced an additional $4.5 billion in student-debt cancellation for 60,000 borrowers in public service.</li><li>It's a result of fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program over the past few years.</li></ul>Another batch of student-loan borrowers in public service has been approved for billions of dollars in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-student-loan-forgiveness-borrowers-save-plan-pslf-debt-cancellation-2024-4">debt relief</a>.On Thursday, President Joe Biden and the Education Department announced that 60,000 borrowers are getting $4.5 billion in student-loan forgiveness following fixes to the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-forgiveness-borrowers-debt-cancellation-pslf-back-processing-applications-2024-7">Public Service Loan Forgiveness program</a>, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments.According to the White House, this brings the number of borrowers approved for debt relief through PSLF to 1 million under the Biden administration."If you ever wonder if change is possible, if you ever wonder if what's broken can be fixed, if you ever wonder whether the government can turn a promise broken into a promise kept, just look at what President Biden and Vice President Harris did for these 1 million public servants across the country today," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters on a Wednesday press call.Under the Trump administration, the majority of borrowers in public service <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-debt-cancellation-payment-pause-borrowers-disabilities-defrauded-2021-6">were not approved</a> for relief through PSLF due to flaws within the program, including rejections due to paperwork errors and processing backlogs. The Biden administration <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/attorneys-general-biden-extend-pslf-waiver-student-debt-confusion-harm-2022-8">took steps to reform the program</a>, including reevaluating borrowers' accounts to determine if payments they previously made would bring them to the threshold for relief.These fixes have resulted in incremental batches of relief over the past few years; in July, for example, the Education Department approved another <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-forgiveness-pslf-borrowers-getting-debt-cancellation-biden-relief-2024-7">35,000 in PSLF for $1.2 billion in debt cancellation</a>.Still, this latest relief comes at a moment of uncertainty for millions of federal borrowers. Earlier this year, a group of GOP state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-forgiveness-blocked-lower-monthly-payments-save-plan-courts-2024-6">block Biden's new SAVE income-driven repayment plan</a>, intended to give borrowers more affordable monthly payments with a shorter timeline for loan forgiveness. A federal court blocked the entirety of the plan pending a final decision on its legality, leaving 8 million enrolled borrowers in limbo.Additionally, Biden's second attempt at broader student-loan forgiveness <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-borrowers-first-lawsuit-broad-debt-cancellation-biden-relief-2024-9">is also stalled in court</a>. After the Supreme Court struck down his first try at broad debt relief last summer, the Education Department announced a Plan B that would forgive student debt for borrowers under the Higher Education Act of 1965, expected to benefit <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-announces-new-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-who-qualifies-relief-2024-4">over 30 million borrowers</a>.While the department has not yet released a final rule for the relief, a federal court placed a preliminary injunction on the plan following a lawsuit from GOP attorneys general who said the department was violating administration procedure by planning to implement the relief ahead of schedule.A senior administration official told reporters on the Wednesday press call that the Education Department will continue moving forward with targeted forms of debt relief for borrowers while its broader plans remain on hold as the legal process progresses."From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity," Biden said in a Thursday statement. "I will never stop working to make higher education affordable – no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us."

60,000 student-loan borrowers in public service are getting $4.5 billion in debt cancellation while Biden's broader relief remains blocked in court

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Elon Musk has proposed a crowd-sourced leaderboard to crack down on government wastefulness.</li><li>It taps into our natural drive for competition and play, psychologists say.</li></ul>It was perhaps inevitable that Elon Musk — a tech titan and a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-video-games-grand-theft-auto-elden-ring-2023-12">prolific gamer</a> — would try to turn <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-leaderboard-government-spending-marketing-genius-doge-donald-trump-2024-11">government spending</a> into a game.As soon as Musk became co-leader of a newly-minted <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-doge-leaderboard-federal-government-spending-trump-2024-11">Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE for short)</a>, he proposed a crowd-sourced leaderboard for the dumbest uses of tax dollars. It's a natural move for Musk, who came up in the tech world in the early 2000s, as "gamification" took hold. The concept — using gaming features like points and leaderboards to optimize real-world scenarios — was <a target="_blank" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vDxTBgAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA31#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">first described</a> by software engineers in 2008. The gamification movement in business and tech was born from the central idea that "reality is broken," as futurist Jane McGonigal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reality_Is_Broken/yiOtN_kDJZgC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;pg=PT11&amp;printsec=frontcover">wrote</a> in her 2011 bestseller. "Game developers know better than anyone else how to inspire extreme effort and reward hard work," McGonigal wrote.Fundamentally, these features — real-time updates and comparisons — tap into our natural appetite for control, Adrian Hon, cofounder of the gaming studio Six to Start and author of "You've Been Played" on the dark side of gamification, told Business Insider."Most common forms of gamification are based around ideas of reward and punishment. That's basically behaviorism that's 100 years old," Hon said. "It's very easy to do. It's very easy to understand."These days, gaming features are baked into the fabric of much of modern life, particularly social. Millions of people "like" opinions on X, down-vote news on Reddit, and earn badges on DuoLingo. We chase steps, close rings, and compete with strangers to spin the fastest.The question is how to add context to make complex goals understandable, exciting, and achievable.Urging someone with a sprained ankle to hit <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walking-10000-steps-for-health-not-science-based-in-marketing-2021-7">10,000 steps a day</a> regardless could do more harm than good. In government, pointing to a simple metric that captures "efficiency" is a tall order — on paper, slashing budgets could look good but bring unintended consequences, according to Richard Landers, a psychology professor at University of Minnesota who specializes in gamification."The number one most efficient way to have a firefighting department in a small town is don't have one, because then they never fail," he said. "That's that kind of logic that you end up having if you're not really cautious about how it's designed."<h2 id="7b471489-75c6-444a-b6f2-8827e89f261e">Why comparing scores is hardwired into our psychology</h2>A game undeniably makes tasks more digestible — something Musk has been talking about for years. He <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3A6AtX27c">argued</a> at SXSW in 2014 that education should be "as close to a video game as possible." "You do not need to tell your kid to play video games. They will play video games on autopilot all day. So if you can make it interactive and engaging, then you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do," Musk told the audience.Throw in other players, and you've got a race.Humans have a natural competitive streak. Going head-to-head with a rival can help boost our focus, enhance our attention, and motivate us to stick to a task, <a target="_blank" href="https://academic.oup.com/book/45435/chapter-abstract/389436570?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research</a> suggests, but it can also backfire if the pressure gets too intense.A leaderboard works psychologically by incentivizing behavior with a reward like public recognition, maybe a prize, or a sense of accomplishment at winning a competition.It's often used for behaviors people already want to do, but need an extra nudge, according to Landers. Think taking a spin class when you're tempted to watch Netflix, or walking more so you can get the highest step count in the group chat."Good gamification is hypothetically the same way, so that when you achieve well on the Nike app, you're like, 'yeah, I really did do something for myself this week. That was great,'" he said."There's no question that it motivates people," said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, professor of history at the New School and author of "Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession.""You're in the gym running next to someone on the treadmill, you see them speed up, and you want to speed up. Take that experience and multiply it by however many people you're ranking."<h2 id="ac2e7636-bdbf-425b-8204-07cd0abd6bbe">Politicians love leaderboards</h2>Leaderboards zero in on a specific, measurable goal, like your step count for fitness.That's not so straightforward in politics, but it's incredibly alluring. "Politicians like them because it makes them feel like they have more knowledge and real-time knowledge than they might get otherwise," Hon said, referring to rankings of programs like schools, hospitals, and fire departments.Take healthcare. Increasing productivity in an emergency department is complicated — more complicated than any hospital ranking can communicate. In the real world, that sometimes translates to doctors turning down tricky cases in favor of easy ones to pump up their success metrics, according to Landers.This is one of the biggest unanswered questions facing gamification — can boiling down complex issues into crunchable numbers miss the point?Landers said leaderboard systems generally require one precise, agreed-upon goal in order to work. If a metric is oversimplified, it can risk losing sight of the original goal as participants start to value the game for its own sake."Empowering individuals to call out true waste is not inherently a bad idea," Landers said. "The challenge would be in defining that. How do you know when something is legitimately wasteful?"For the government, that might hinge on what counts as waste and whether Musk's leaderboard can get people to agree."You can't just call it waste because you're like, wow, I don't think Jill over there is a good use of money. You should fire her. It's not a productive approach. Trying to figure out how to create a system like that would be incredibly complicated," Landers said. "They would have to do that investment in really understanding the problems deeply and then creating a system to reward what actually should be rewarded."<h2 id="7d6f8bf4-31df-4ff6-8c83-b288ff90ae8b">Gaming the system can backfire</h2>At the height of Peloton's popularity, the home fitness brand's competitive leaderboard quickly became overrun by people <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peloton-bike-tablets-rooted-watch-netflix-spotify-hacked-cheat-leaderboards-2019-9">hacking their Pelotons</a> to artificially boost their scores.As a result, some users felt less motivated instead of more."The demotivating power of being low on a leaderboard is well understood," Landers said. "If you're like 500,000th, nobody cares. You're like, why even try?"Petrzela said that even if people play by the rules, overgamifying might mean missing out on valuable but hard-to-quantify things."If your only goal in Peloton is to be at the top of the leaderboard, you completely sacrifice a lot of the things that might slow you down but make your ride injury-free or something you really enjoy," she said. "Musk's proposed leaderboard is a much higher stakes version of that."In terms of government services, a goal like reducing wait times for doctors' visits might translate well to a leaderboard, since they're easy to compare. But more complicated variables — like whether a cancer program can treat a patient's specific diagnosis — might fall through the cracks, particularly when people without healthcare expertise are doing the ranking without the full context.To create a leaderboard that can make meaningful change, it's crucial to understand what context matters. Otherwise, Hon said gamification might have short-term benefits but backfire in the long term as important, less-tangible factors are crowded out by overemphasizing one metric.Case in point: Hon said he's currently hooked on a popular puzzle game. The online leaderboard keeps him logging in long after the game itself stopped bringing much joy to his routine."It's just like, what's the point of this really? Am I just playing this game to maintain my position? Do I even really enjoy it anymore?" he said. "I probably would play it less if actually that leaderboard didn't exist. So that is really for the benefit of the site. It's not for the benefit of me."

Elon Musk's 'gamification' of government spending taps into our natural competitive instinct

Last week, Donald Trump announced the creation of the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-department-of-government-efficiency-donald-trump-ramaswamy-2024-11">Department of Government Efficiency</a>, which promises to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies." And to run the new cost-cutting department, Trump tapped the businessman he calls the world's "greatest cutter" — <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-senator-waste-list-influence-elon-musk-spending-cuts-2024-11">Elon Musk</a>.If you're looking to take a chainsaw to the federal government, Musk seems perfectly suited to the job. At <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-x-elon-musk-startup-competitition-town-square-election-2024-10">Twitter,</a> he eliminated a staggering 80% of the staff — over 6,000 people. At <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-salary-database-elon-musk-pay-strategy-2024-11">Tesla</a>, he cut 10% of the workforce, saying the company needed to be "absolutely hardcore about headcount and cost reduction." He also laid off 10% of employees at <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-jared-isaacman-interview-polaris-dawn-space-walk-2024-11">Space X</a>, insisting his teams need to be scrappy and nimble. Cutting, for Musk, is generally Job No. 1.For the most part, Musk's slash-and-burn tactics have paid off. Twitter usage, according to Musk, is at an all-time high. Tesla's stock is up 28% over the past year. And SpaceX — now valued at $250 billion — is grabbing rockets out of the sky with <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-starship-landing-super-heavy-2024-10">giant chopsticks</a>. In the world of business, fewer workers often translate into higher profits.The question is: Can the cost-cutting tactics Musk has employed in the private sector work to corral waste and bloat in the federal government? Musk and his DOGE cochair, the biotech billionaire <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-elon-musk-cutting-federal-spending-could-work-2024-11">Vivek Ramaswamy</a>, have said they're looking to hire "super high-IQ small government revolutionaries" to help make $2 trillion in cuts — about a third of all federal spending — and to slash the federal workforce by as much as 75%. It's a dream that has eluded every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan — and it's one that may prove elusive even for Musk, the man now anointed as America's cost-cutter in chief.There's certainly no shortage of waste and inefficiency in the federal government that cries out to be streamlined. In 2019, the Defense Department forked over $22 million for lobster tails. In 2020, the IRS sent $1.4 billion in tax refunds to dead Americans. Millions of square feet in federal buildings sit unoccupied.In theory, a bold, outside figure like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-donald-trump-elected-shadow-president-2024-11">Musk</a> could be the very thing needed to downscale an operation as vast and intractable as the federal government. Large organizations need a force of "creative destruction" to change, says Michael Morris, a professor at Columbia Business School. "Things don't go away on their own. You have to have somebody with a willingness to deliberately dismantle things if you're going to have innovation." And when a new figure institutes a massive shock to the system — whether at the government or private level — "it often backfires," says Morris. "There's often very fierce, active resistance to change." As <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-corporate-gerontocracy-aging-ceos-retirement-succession-replacement-2024-8">CEO</a>, Musk has the latitude to push past that resistance and overhaul company culture. But things are going to be different with DOGE. Despite its branding as a "department," the new outfit will operate only in an advisory capacity: Congress holds the ultimate responsibility for authorizing spending and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-how-to-apply-dm-job-application-elon-musk-2024-11">eliminating agencies</a>. Government, by design, is an intensely collaborative process, intended to hammer out the competing needs of different constituencies. Musk, by contrast, is accustomed to ruling by fiat."Musk certainly exercises a great deal of control in his companies that he won't have in the environment of the federal government, where we have checks and balances," says Andy Wu, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "Even if Musk had the right idea for things, it's not so clear he could implement any of them."The federal government is infamous for holding on to past practices, even when they no longer make sense. Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, cites the continued minting of the penny, each of which costs three cents to produce. Last year, in an economy that has largely moved away from cash, the government spent $179 million forging pennies and nickels. Yet past calls to get rid of the penny haven't amounted to one red cent."The danger is if Elon Musk were to somehow think he is the first person who has ever looked at cost cutting in government," says Bilmes. "Many people who know a lot about government have proposed many good ideas. The potential for usefulness would be if he could take some already reasonably good ideas and help them get implemented."The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watchdog-dod-must-speed-up-weapons-deliveries-to-maintain-advantage-2024-6">Government Accountability Office</a> and inspectors general have already recommended a variety of potential targets. They aren't always flashy: This year, the GAO recommended agencies use predictive models to schedule maintenance, saying they could save $100 million or more. It also urged the IRS to focus on collecting taxes owed by sole proprietors, which could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. If the government implemented all 5,480 of its suggestions, the GAO estimated, it would "produce measurable financial benefits" of up to $208 billion.But so far, Musk has seemed more interested in the kind of flashy, small-bore proposals that attract clicks on X. He's taken to resharing what he sees as examples of waste — everything from $3 million spent on drug research that involved watching "hamsters fight on steroids" to a $20,000 grant that funded drag shows in Ecuador — and crowdsourcing them on the platform. Those sorts of items might generate outrage on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-donald-trump-elon-musk-2024-11">Fox News</a>, but eliminating them won't do much to trim the federal government's $6,200,000,000,000 in annual spending.Then there's the politics of budget cutting. The last time Republicans succeeded at slowing government spending, under <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reagan-secret-service-agent-says-trump-shooting-failure-for-agency-2024-7">Ronald Reagan</a>, they made deep cuts to areas of government that proved unpopular — including social welfare programs, student loans, and job training. Musk may see plenty of areas he'd like to slash, but a wide range of constituencies will inevitably push back against cuts to programs they consider essential. When it comes to federal spending, one person's waste is another person's bread and butter."People support the idea of improving how the government delivers services," says Joel Friedman, the senior vice president for federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank. "I think people would take a different view if you end up gutting programs they depend on and care about." Efficiency always sounds like a good thing, until it comes for something you love.Beyond the question of where to cut, Musk will face intense scrutiny over why he's targeting certain areas of government. His role at DOGE is rife with the potential for conflicts of interest. SpaceX, for example, has received nearly $20 billion in federal contracts since 2008, and Musk has been sharply critical of the Federal Aviation Administration, viewing it as an obstacle to launching his powerful <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-trump-spacex-starship-rocket-milestone-election-2024-10">Starship</a>. And his massive investments in electric vehicles and social media are dependent on all sorts of federal spending and oversight. When it comes to how the government interacts with the marketplace, the world's richest man inherently has a lot of skin in the game. Musk's companies did not respond to requests for comment. But Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team, says it plans to ensure that those involved with DOGE "are compliant with all legal guidelines related to conflicts of interest."Those concerns also touch on the larger question of what Trump and his allies hope to accomplish by reducing the size of government. Calls for reducing "inefficiency" and "bureaucracy" have long been a euphemism for Republicans eager to reduce or eliminate federal oversight of everything from industrial pollution to airline safety. Less government is not necessarily better government, and there are plenty of federal agencies that remain so understaffed and underfunded, from the IRS to the Veterans Administration, that they're unable to perform even their most basic functions. The GOP's aim of cutting spending, a leading Reagan ally once acknowledged, is to shrink government to the size where conservatives can "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." On Friday, Ramaswamy directly linked DOGE to the Reagan-era dream of smaller government, promising that the new agency will finish its work by July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.And even when conservatives have succeeded at cutting costs, it's done nothing to slow the pace of government spending. Reagan slashed $22 billion in social welfare programs during his first two years in office — savings that were more than offset by his tax cuts and military spending, which nearly tripled the national debt. And in 1981, when a deep recession hit, carving up the safety net left the millions of Americans who were mired in poverty with even fewer resources to get by.It's also important to remember that Musk did more than downsize X — he also used the platform to elevate far-right talking points and unfounded conspiracy theories. In short, he reshaped it to serve his own political ends, making it meaner as well as leaner. It remains to be seen if Musk will do the same with DOGE. There are plenty of places where Uncle Sam could spend America's hard-earned tax dollars more wisely. But there are also plenty of places where the man Trump's family now refers to as "Uncle" Elon could deploy what DOGE calls "unglamorous cost-cutting" to bend the federal government to serve his own financial needs.Musk has acknowledged that Americans will feel "hardship" as a result of the cuts he wants to see implemented. But that doesn't mean he won't be able to juice more performance out of fewer resources, as he did at his own companies. When Musk slashed the workforce at Twitter, critics predicted that the app would collapse without enough staff to maintain it. Two years later, after a few initial glitches, it works much the same as before — at a far lower cost. Doubting Musk, even when he seems to be operating at his most extreme, can be a fool's game.<a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/amanda-hoover">Amanda Hoover</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

Elon Musk downsized Big Tech. Can he do the same to Big Government?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>President-elect Donald Trump has tasked Elon Musk with slashing government spending.</li><li>Defense could be a prime target: It's the largest discretionary spending category in the federal budget.</li></ul>President-elect Donald Trump has tapped <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-ceo-elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> to help spearhead cuts to government spending, and the defense sector could be a prime target.The Defense Department's budget for the 2024 fiscal year is $841 billion, roughly 12.5% of the total federal budget, and the Pentagon has struggled with cost overruns and waste.Musk plans to review federal spending as part of a newly created "Department of Government Efficiency" — or <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-department-government-efficiency-doge-2024-11">DOGE</a>. It's not an official agency, and Congress controls budgets for federal agencies. DOGE's role may be limited to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-doge-government-efficiency-what-us-spends-2024-11">offering advice to Trump</a>.There are still a lot of unknowns around DOGE as it solicits direction from X, formerly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter">Twitter</a>, including where and how it'll find up to $2 trillion in promised cuts.But Musk's past comments hint at one area he could target: defense contracts.Musk has criticized government contracts with top defense companies that put the government on the hook for overages in the construction of warships, aircraft, and combat vehicles. And his company, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-elon-musk">SpaceX</a>, has won some government contracts by bearing higher risks of cost overruns.<h2 id="83ac3479-807f-4415-a020-96d80c7f3594">Musk's way of doing business</h2>Before Musk founded SpaceX in 2001, NASA and the Pentagon often used "cost-plus" contracts, which reimbursed contractors for their expenses and provided a set profit margin.<div type="image" title="President-elect Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last month." height="2365" width="3541" msid="115359364" hostid="261" sizebytes="435768"></div>The contracts allowed for cost overruns and placed much of the risk on the US government, Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Business Insider.Musk compared the contracts to "gravy trains" in journalist Walter Isaacson's biography of the billionaire. "You just can't get to Mars with that system," Musk said. "They have an incentive never to finish. If you never finish a cost-plus contract, then you suckle on the tit of the government forever."Musk built SpaceX's business model around fixed-price contracts. This means the government and contractors set a price for the project at the onset, and the company is paid predetermined amounts once it hits certain milestones.SpaceX has had several fixed-price contracts with NASA, including a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/first-contracted-spacex-resupply-mission-launches-with-nasa-cargo-to-space-station/">$1.6 billion contract</a> in 2008 for 12 missions under the agency's Commercial Resupply Services program and a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/spacex_nasa_crs-5_presskit-105.pdf">$2.6 billion contract</a> in 2014 that covered six crewed missions to the International Space Station.The US government previously reserved fixed-price contracts for off-the-shelf products that did not need to be specially made for the government, but SpaceX demonstrated that it could fund missions more efficiently, Swope said.Without the processes and tracking required for cost-plus contracts, companies like SpaceX "can be more agile to changes in the market and iterate on their products faster," Swope said. "When it's done right, it can be beneficial to both the government and the company."<div type="image" title="A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with a NASA spacecraft bound for Jupiter lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in October." height="2969" width="4453" msid="115359363" hostid="261" sizebytes="315044"></div><h2 id="b3b24f6e-1253-4bfb-9623-5ba146b04d68">Overspending and delays</h2>The Pentagon has often been criticized for mismanagement, delays, and ballooning costs on expensive systems. Earlier this year, for instance, a government watchdog found that the F-35 stealth fighter program has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-f-35-stealth-fighters-to-fly-less-costs-soar-2024-4">become more expensive</a>, with expected lifetime costs topping $2 trillion, even with the aircraft flying less often than in the past.The defense industry, like the military, has also been called to account. Major shipbuilding projects, for example, are severely delayed. Coming off problems with the Zumwalt-class destroyers, first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford, and the Littoral Combat Ship, new constructions like the next Ford-class carrier, Constellation-class frigate, and Columbia-class submarine are, in some cases, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-grappling-with-another-ford-class-supercarrier-delay-2024-4">years behind schedule</a>. This is a concern as the US military aims to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-not-ready-china-war-military-economy-2023-5">maintain its edge</a> against its "pacing challenge" China.Separately, DoD has faced criticism over use-it-or-lose-it spending toward the end of the fiscal year, overpayment for common products, and seven consecutive failed audits of the department's $4.1 trillion in assets and $4.3 trillion in liabilities.To tackle the contracting conundrum and save money, Mike Gallagher, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin and the current head of defense at Palantir Technologies, suggested in a Wall Street Journal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/two-years-to-prevent-world-war-iii-trump-sec-def-needs-to-overhaul-bureaucracy-cut-waste-c9a162d8?mod=opinion_lead_pos5">op-ed</a> this week that the incoming Pentagon leadership should enforce fixed-price contracting to put more burden on private contractors rather than the US government."The Defense Department's cost-plus contracting model has destroyed competition and innovation while exploding costs," Gallagher wrote, adding that the defense secretary should be required to sign off on cost-plus contracts.Musk's new initiative could recommend exactly this: a move away from cost-plus contracts toward fixed-price contracts.<div type="image" title="The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia in April 2016." height="2475" width="3841" msid="115359367" hostid="261" sizebytes="649290"></div>But fixed-price contracting may have its own set of problems. Bryan McGrath, a retired naval officer and the managing director of The FerryBridge Group LLC, responded to Gallagher's article <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/conswahoo/status/1857138300307624153?s=46">on social media</a>, saying private companies shouldn't have to face all the costs for systems that only the US government wants to buy.Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on defense strategy and budgeting, said switching from cost-plus to fixed-price contracting doesn't necessarily save the government money. It also doesn't necessarily produce more effective systems designed to withstand combat or decades of use."What it does is, by moving the risk to industry, it creates more stability for government and what they're going to pay for things," he told BI, adding that "it puts better incentives on industry, because if industry has a cost overrun, they pay for it — it's coming out of their profit. If they can deliver below cost that they expected, they can make more money. So it really just changes the incentives."Harrison said that there had already been a shift toward firm-fixed-price contracts, which tends to advantage smaller and newer defense companies — a trend he expects will accelerate during the Trump administration. But there are some areas where cost-plus contracts are sure to continue.Shipbuilding, especially for projects like aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines, is often arranged with large, multi-year contracts. This is because there may be only one company that can build the system, with one buyer (the Pentagon), and the product is unique to the US military.<div type="image" title="A digital rendering of the Constellation-class frigate." height="869" width="1876" msid="115359361" hostid="261" sizebytes="144122"></div>"In those areas of the defense-industrial base," Harrison said, "you have to manage it more like a public utility, where the free market does not exist, and free market principles do not work."<h2 id="719bae83-1982-40bc-bd4e-defb6b11920c">More efficient programs</h2>Mid-development changes to weapons systems designs are a major cost driver. To tackle this, the government could fix requirements for these systems early in the design process and enforce stricter rules around changes."One way that we know saves money is if you fix a design and don't add features," Michael Bohnert, a licensed engineer at the RAND Corporation, told BI.Today's F-35, for example, is "almost a different plane" than what was defined in its original requirements. Changes in scope have added costs. "You look at other programs that have been pretty narrowly defined — they've stayed in budget," he said.Archer Macy, a retired Navy admiral and missile defense expert at CSIS, told BI there's a history of abusing contracts where there's too much fluidity with requirements and specifications, making them vulnerable to changes.He said the government needs to find the "right type of contract for the right purpose (where you are in the development and acquisition cycle), stick to and don't abuse requirements and specs, and make people accountable."<div type="image" title="Aerial view of the Pentagon" height="3598" width="5396" msid="115359368" hostid="261" sizebytes="1410730"></div>Musk's new initiative may target other areas of Pentagon spending, as well.He could consider reducing the Pentagon's large civilian workforce and officer corps, for example, or crack down on instances like the US Air Force paying more than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-wildly-overpaid-c-17-bathroom-soap-dispenser-2024-10">80 times the regular commercial value</a> for bathroom soap dispensers for its C-17 aircraft.Overall, experts warned against any changes that could harm US warfighting capabilities or compel companies to cut corners and deliver substandard weapons systems."However well-intentioned, the reach for efficiency could also undercut your military effectiveness, and you got to keep that in balance," John Harvey Jr., a retired Navy admiral, told BI.In fact, some members of Congress think the US should spend even more on defense. Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.wicker.senate.gov/2024/5/senator-wicker-unveils-major-defense-investment-plan">warned earlier this year</a> that the country's defense investment is not sufficient to counter America's adversaries."Our defense industrial base is underfunded and unprepared for the wars of today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable future," his office said in May.

Elon Musk is looking for trillions in government waste, and defense is a massive potential target

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The FTC finalized its rule to make canceling subscriptions easier.</li><li>The rule targets "negative option" programs, such as auto-renewing subscriptions.</li></ul>The government has had it with <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cancel-subscriptions-easier-flight-refunds-customer-service-gym-memberships-2024-8">companies making it difficult for consumers to cancel</a> their subscriptions.The Federal Trade Commission <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-click-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-consumers-end-recurring">announced in a press release</a> on Wednesday a final "click-to-cancel" rule that will require companies to make canceling subscriptions just as easy as signing up for them."Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the agency's press release. "The FTC's rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want."The agency said that its amended rule, most of which goes into effect 180 days after being published in the Federal Register, will apply to "almost all negative option programs in any media." A negative option, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/24/2023-07035/negative-option-rule#:~:text=Negative%20option%20offers%20come%20in,as%20acceptance%20of%20an%20offer.">according to the Federal Register</a>, is when an offer contains a term or condition that lets the seller interpret a customer's silence, or lack of affirmative action, as acceptance of an offer — like, for example, auto-renewing subscriptions.The updated rule will prohibit companies from misrepresenting or omitting facts when marketing negative options, require companies to provide important information before the customer gives over their credit card, and make sure that the companies get the customer's explicit consent before they are charged, the FTC explained.The agency said its rule aims to address common problems with these types of subscriptions, such as companies obscuring the terms of their subscriptions, customers getting billed when they didn't agree to pay, and companies making it difficult or impossible to cancel subscriptions.The FTC said it gets thousands of complaints a year about companies' subscription practices. According to the FTC, that number has been on the rise in the last five years. In 2021, for example, the agency received an average of 42 consumer complaints a day, according to the press release. In 2024, the agency has received nearly 70 complaints a day on average.The FTC's crackdown on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cancel-subscriptions-congress-ftc-dark-practices-autorenewal-2023-2">deceptive subscription practices</a> has been a long time coming. The agency <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-subscriptions-cancel-negative-option-rule-gym-memberships-2023-3">first announced its proposed rule last year</a> but had to go through a lengthy public comment process before it could be finalized. During that process, the agency said it received more than 16,000 comments from consumers, federal and state government agencies, consumer groups, and trade associations.

The government steps in to make it easier to cancel your subscriptions 

Union Finance Minister <keyword id="129243" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nirmala-sitharaman" source="Orion">Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> on Saturday morning chaired a <keyword id="20255269" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pre-budget-meeting" source="keywords">pre-budget meeting</keyword> with Finance Ministers of all States and Union Territories. The Pre-Budget Meeting is organised by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs with Finance Ministers of all the States and Union Territories (with Legislature) to take suggestions for the upcoming <keyword id="20387181" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-Budget-2024-25" source="keywords">Union Budget 2024-25</keyword>. Ministers of State along with other stakeholders are participating in the meeting and visuals showed Uttar Pradesh finance minister Suresh Kumar Khanna, and finance minister of Rajasthan Diya Kumari at the Bharat Mandapam venue before the meeting commenced this morning. The Union Finance Ministry had begun consultations on the budget a few days ago with different stakeholders of economy. Sitharaman has met economists, finance and capital market experts and industry bodies. Sitharaman chaired the first pre-budget consultations with leading economists on June 19. The meeting was attended by Union minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, the finance secretary, secretaries of the departments of economic affairs, revenue, financial services and corporate affairs and the chief economic adviser. Meanwhile, Sitharaman will also chair the 53rd <keyword id="19922145" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Goods-and-Services-Tax" source="keywords">Goods and Services Tax</keyword> (GST) Council Meeting scheduled in the second half of the day. This is the first meeting of the <keyword id="19994390" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="GST-Council" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="GST Council" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="GST Council">GST council</keyword> after the formation of the new government. State finance ministers will also be present at the 53rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax Council. As is the norm, the GST Council gets together to discuss issues pertaining to the GST regime, such as tax rates, modifications to policies, and administrative challenges. The Council is a key player in shaping India's indirect tax system, making sure that it facilitates company and citizen tax relief while also being in line with the country's economic objectives. The information on the agenda of Council meeting is not yet in public domain. However, the decisions and recommendations arising from the 53rd GST Council meeting will be closely watched by various stakeholders, including businesses, policymakers, and the general public, as they have the potential to influence taxation, trade, and overall dynamics. Goods and Services Tax was introduced in the country with effect from July 1, 2017, and states were assured compensation for loss of any revenue arising on account of the implementation of GST as per the provisions of the GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017 for five years. Meanwhile, preparation has commenced for the Union budget 2024-25, the first for the third term of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led <keyword id="22141478" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="National-Democratic-Alliance-government" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="National Democratic Alliance government" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="National Democratic Alliance government">National Democratic Alliance government</keyword>.

Union Finance Minister Sitharaman chairs pre-budget meeting with finance ministers of states, UTs; GST Council to meet later today

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="20346186" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Secret-Service" source="keywords">Secret Service</keyword> is under scrutiny after a would-be assassin got in close range of <keyword id="19918985" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Donald-Trump" source="keywords">Donald Trump</keyword>.</li><li>After <keyword id="20347466" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ronald-Reagan" source="keywords">Ronald Reagan</keyword> was the target of an <keyword id="20039518" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="assassination-attempt" source="keywords">assassination attempt</keyword>, the agency faced a lesser reckoning.</li></ul>As a gunman fired shots at former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday, nicking his right ear, US Secret Service agents instantly sprung into action. The agents surrounding Trump dove on top of him, covering his body to protect him from any more bullets. Another agent, his eye looking through the lens of a sniper rifle, shot the would-be assassin in the head, killing him. A major question remained: How did the Secret Service let a guy with a rifle <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-secret-service-agents-how-trump-assassin-could-fire-shots-2024-7">get so close to Trump</a> in the first place? The last time a president or presidential candidate was the subject of a similar <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reagan-secret-service-agent-says-trump-shooting-failure-for-agency-2024-7">assassination attempt</a> was Ronald Reagan. Back then, the Secret Service faced less of a reckoning. On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. got within a few feet of Reagan outside a Washington, DC, hotel where the president gave a speech to union representatives. Hinckley Jr. fired six times with his pistol. As Secret Service members shoved Reagan into his limousine, one bullet ricocheted off the side of the vehicle, went through the one-inch gap between the limo's body and open door, and penetrated Reagan's left side, breaking a rib and puncturing a lung, according to government records from the time. The Secret Service came under some scrutiny at that time, too. The US Senate and US House of Representatives <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://time.com/archive/6700383/protecting-the-president/">each held hearings</a>the following month to evaluate how well the agency did its job. But members of Congress mostly praised agents for their performance and mused on the nature of protecting politicians in open societies. Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.congress.gov/97/crecb/1981/11/12/GPO-CRECB-1981-pt21-1-2.pdf ">advocated for gun control legislation</a>. The Treasury Department, which housed the Secret Service at the time, prepared its own report. The 100-page document, completed in about five months, reviewed its own procedures and was full of praise for itself, writing that the agents protecting Reagan "reacted in precisely the manner required by their training and the applicable procedures," and recommending awards for the four agents who protected him. The report, prepared by Treasury Department General Counsel Peter J. Wallison, offered a few recommendations for the future, including better ways for the Secret Service to communicate with other federal agencies and having a paramedic travel with the presidential detail. "In many ways, that transfixing encounter with fate was an easy case: the gunman acted alone; on a weekday; with a low-caliber weapon; in Washington, D.C.; while the President was at the door of his limousine; within a mile or two of a fully equipped and staffed metropolitan hospital; above all, the President's wound was not mortal," the report read. "Anyone can imagine less favorable circumstances, and it is for these that Treasury and other agencies must be prepared." <h2>The Secret Service has been plagued by scandal</h2>Reagan was seriously injured in the <keyword id="19909929" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shooting" source="keywords">shooting</keyword>, as were a Secret Service agent and DC police officer on the scene. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-advocate-james-brady-dies-2014-8">James Brady</a>, his press secretary, suffered the worst injuries, with a bullet to the head that caused lifelong neurological issues. On Saturday, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-was-thomas-matthew-crooks-the-trump-rally-shooter-2024-7">Thomas Matthew Crooks</a> shot and killed <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/victim-trump-rally-shooting-corey-comperatore-shielded-family-from-gunfire-2024-7">Corey Comperatore</a>, an attendee of the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, and injured two other bystanders, even as he failed at his attempt to kill Trump himself. By 2024, the Secret Service's longstanding reputation as an elite force has been damaged by controversies in recent years. Members of the agency <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/secret-service-messages-deleted-three-weeks-after-jan-6-attack-2022-7">deleted text messages</a> from January 6, 2021, making them unavailable for a congressional panel investigating the pro-Trump insurrection attempt. Earlier this year, an agent was <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/30/us-news/kamala-harris-secret-service-agent-had-screws-loose-ex-colleague/">removed from Vice President Kamala Harris's detail</a> after reportedly assaulting a superior officer. In 2022, two agents were placed on leave after <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/two-secret-service-agents-seoul-incident/">reportedly getting into a fight with a cab driver</a> in Seoul. A 2015 House panel report faulted the Secret Service for numerous security breaches, which more recent agency leaders have tried to clean up. <div type="image" title="donald trump after being shot" height="536" width="715" msid="111792212" hostid="261"></div>Already, congressional oversight is more intense after the Trump shooting than it was after the Reagan shooting. Six committees have demanded answers from the Secret Service, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/inside-congress/2024/07/15/trump-shooting-probes-sweep-capitol-hill-00168451">according to Politico</a>: the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee, House Homeland Security Committee, House Intelligence Committee, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senate Judiciary Committee. Members of each committee received briefings from law enforcement Monday or were scheduled to receive them Tuesday, Politico reported. Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, is scheduled to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee on July 22. Some members of Congress are considering whether to create an independent commission to examine the Trump shooting in the same mold as the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/us/politics/house-inquiries-trump-assassination-attempt.html">according to The New York Times</a>. The Department of Homeland Security — which took over control of the Secret Service from the Treasury Department when it was created in 2003 — has already announced a beefed-up security detail for Trump. President Joe Biden also ordered a Secret Service detail for independent presidential candidate <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-robert-kennedy-jr-leaked-call-bullet-mosquito-2024-7">Robert F. Kennedy Jr.</a>, whose father was killed in a political assassination in 1968 and whose previous requests for Secret Service protection had been denied. <h2>The Reagan assassination attempt investigations focused on Hinckley</h2>The main difference in the government agency reactions in 1981 compared to now is that Reagan's would-be killer was still alive. Hinckley Jr. was arrested immediately. His motives were readily apparent: He wanted to impress actor Jodie Foster by killing a US president. At trial, a jury found him not guilty, agreeing with his insanity defense. Hinckley Jr. was placed in a mental health institution and ultimately released in 2016. The FBI is investigating the Trump shooting, and it isn't clear what actions they'll ultimately take. The motive of Crooks, a registered Republican and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-shooting-suspect-rejected-from-school-rifle-team-ex-classmate-2024-7">reported gun enthusiast</a>, is much less evident. Representatives for the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment on whether they'd publish reports about the Trump shooting. <div type="image" title="Police and Secret Service diving to protect then-president Ronald Reagan during the attempted assassination in 1981." height="1683" width="2500" msid="111792214" hostid="261"></div>The FBI investigation into Hinckley Jr. was overseen by then-Assistant Attorney General <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1981/04/05/080499.html?pageNumber=30">Rudy Giuliani</a>. That investigation focused on building the criminal case against Hinckley Jr. A <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://vault.fbi.gov/president-ronald-reagan-assassination-attempt">1,000-page report</a> — completed just two months after the Reagan shooting — featured interviews with eyewitnesses, medical records, forensic evidence, and a deep dive into Hinckley's past. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, members of Congress and the media focused on an earlier incident with Hinckley. He was arrested in Nashville the prior October on weapons charges, possessing guns and handcuffs, when then-President Jimmy Carter visited the city. Journalists immediately found records related to the arrest, which <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1981/03/31/064339.html?pageNumber=1">took up prominent space on the front page of The New York Times</a> a day after the shooting. But Hinckley <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/03/us/fbi-notice-on-hinckley-arrest-at-issue.html">hadn't been on the Secret Service's internal watchlist</a>, and members of Congress <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1981/04/01/127/house-section/article/5948-5975?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22John+Hinckley+Jr.%22%7D&amp;s=6&amp;r=37">demanded to know</a> why the FBI didn't inform the Secret Service about the earlier arrest. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms played a role in the investigation, too, tracing the purchase of Hinckley's handgun to a pawnshop in Dallas. The Justice Department also <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.justice.gov/file/149506/dl?inline">prepared a memorandum on presidential succession</a> after then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig falsely claimed he was "in charge" at the White House until then-Vice President George HW Bush arrived (the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate were in line before him). Congress later passed two significant laws following the shooting. After Hinckley's acquittal, Reagan signed a law in 1984 restricting the use of the insanity defense — shifting the burden from prosecution to the defense in criminal cases. In 1993, with support from Brady and his family, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Act, which regulated handgun purchases, after versions of the law floated through Congress in the aftermath of the shooting. The Reagan shooting took place in a period of history when attempted and successful assassinations were not uncommon. John Lennon was killed just a few months earlier, and Pope John Paul II was shot a couple of months later. In the Treasury Department report, Wallison wrote that violence struck at the heart of democracy itself. "What is already clear is that a democratic system which values an orderly transfer of authority through free elections cannot allow the results of these processes to be redirected or reversed by violence," he wrote. Correction: July 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated how long it took for the Treasury Department to complete its report into the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. It took five months, not less than one.

The public is outraged the Secret Service appeared to allow a shooter a clear shot of Trump. After Reagan was shot, the agency was widely praised.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Supreme Court overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling restricting the removal of homeless encampments.</li><li>Governments can now bar people from sleeping on the street, even when shelter beds aren't available.</li></ul>The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that it's constitutional for local governments to make it illegal to sleep in public places, even when there aren't sufficient shelter beds.The case — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf">City of Grants Pass v. Johnson</a> — is the most consequential the court has decided dealing with homelessness in decades. The majority opinion was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by the Court's five other conservatives. The three liberal justices dissented.The case comes out of Grants Pass, Oregon, where local officials <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/12/us-supreme-court-takes-grants-pass-oregon-case-homeless-policies/">were prevented from clearing a homeless encampment</a> by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rulings in <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/04/01/15-35845.pdf">Martin v. Boise</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/09/28/20-35752.pdf">Johnson v. Grants Pass</a> requiring local governments to have sufficient shelter beds available before forcing unhoused people off the streets.The appeals court — which controls nine western states, including California — decided in both cases that barring people from sleeping in public spaces without providing alternative shelter violates the <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-8/">Eighth Amendment's</a> protections against cruel and unusual punishment.The Supreme Court's conservative majority disagreed. Gorsuch argued that policy responses to homelessness should be left up to policymakers and voters, writing that "a handful of federal judges" cannot "begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, called criminalizing unhoused people for sleeping outdoors "unconscionable and unconstitutional." They argued that not having a place to call home is a state of being, rather than a choice."Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option," wrote Sotomayor, who read her dissent from the bench. "The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless."State and federal court cases on the legality of clearing homeless encampments reflect a debate between some governments who say they need more authority to protect public safety and address homelessness and advocates who argue authorities are exacerbating the problem by criminalizing homelessness.<div type="image" title="Homeless rights activists held a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day the court heard oral argument in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson." height="846" width="1280" msid="111346291" hostid="261"></div>While conservatives have led the charge in pushing to overturn the Ninth Circuit's decision, some prominent Democratic leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also pushed to overturn the 9th Circuit ruling. California — which is home to 12% of the US population — has struggled to deal with rapidly rising homelessness and is now <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-homelessness-crisis-homegrown-unhoused-are-californians-2023-6">home to 30% of people experiencing homelessness</a> and half of the unsheltered population in the US.In <a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/280288/20230922163648635_Amicus%20Brief%20for%20Governor%20Newsom%20-%20Grants%20Pass_Final.pdf">an amicus brief</a> filed with the Supreme Court, Newsom argued that the 9th Circuit ruling forces local elected officials "to abandon efforts to make the spaces occupied by unhoused people safer for those within and near them."An increasing number of cities and states across the country have passed laws — often anti-camping ordinances — similar to that in Grants Pass. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis <a target="_blank" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/21/florida-camping-ban-homeless-public-spaces/73048034007/">signed legislation in March</a> that bans people from camping in public places. Critics say the state isn't providing enough funding for services, including shelters and addiction treatment.Critics say criminalizing homelessness doesn't address its root causes — and actually makes the problem worse."If you are living outside and are impoverished, a ticket or a fee is probably something you can't afford, and then you have unpaid tickets, which impacts your credit rating, which makes it harder to find a place to live," Jesse Rabinowitz, communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, previously told Business Insider. "Or you get arrested and then you have a criminal record, which both makes it harder to get a job and harder to get an apartment."There are several proven pathways to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-fight-homelessness-nationwide-spike-chicago-new-york-seattle-philadelphia-2024-2">alleviating homelessness</a>, including, most importantly, building more housing. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/despite-a-national-spike-in-homelessness-some-us-regions-are-finding-solutions/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=293074558&amp;utm_source=hs_email">Researchers say</a> other key policy solutions include removing barriers to shelter construction and tenants' rights, creating crisis response systems that don't involve the police, strengthening housing and employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated people, and increasing government support of public spaces.

The Supreme Court just made it easier for governments to remove unhoused people from public spaces

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russia will resume public sector layoffs, affecting up to at least 40,000 workers, per Kommersant.</li><li>Layoffs were paused due to COVID-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.</li></ul>Russia is expected to lay off at least 40,000 government officials next year, according to a report by the Russian <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7296193?tg">Kommersant</a> newspaper.Russian President Vladimir Putin last month<a target="_blank" class="" href="http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202410290050?index=1"> ordered regional branches of federal government agencies to cut staff by 10%</a> by July, per the publication.The layoffs were believed to be planned for much earlier but were put on hold for several years due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.According to Kommersant, the cuts are designed to make the civil service more efficient and raise the salaries of existing staff.Russia's official wage statistics, published in January, showed wages in the private sector rose by 8% to 20% last year.The cuts would also allow more people to enter Russia's labor market which is experiencing a widespread shortage of workers amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.According to an estimate from the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Economics, Russia was short a record 5 million workers at the end of 2023.Workers have been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-raises-mobilization-age-some-reservists-can-be-called-70-2023-7">pulled into the </a>Ukraine war or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-russians-fleeing-draft-bigger-1st-invasion-force-uk-2022-9">forced to flee</a> after Putin enacted a major mobilization to increase wartime recruitment.Russia has turned to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-making-labor-crisis-worse-sending-workers-to-war-ukraine-2023-11">migrant</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-economy-worker-shortage-prison-labor-ukraine-war-putin-kremlin-2023-10">prison labor</a> to supplement its workforce, but those aren't sustainable solutions to its population problem, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-population-decline-worker-shortage-growth-outlook-ukraine-war-2024-8">report</a> by Harley Balzer, a professor emeritus at Georgetown University.Last year, Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina warned that continued <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russias-depleted-workforce-threatening-economic-growth-says-central-bank-2023-11-09/">workforce depletion</a> would threaten Russian economic growth.However, so far, Russia's economy has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-outlook-defense-budget-spending-ukraine-war-putin-sanctions-2024-10">held up</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-ukraine-war-moscow-military-spending-inflation-worker-shortage-2024-2"> partly because of its war spending</a>, which has boosted growth despite soaring <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-outlook-stagflation-recession-inflation-gdp-growth-ukraine-war-2024-9">inflation</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-central-bank-raises-key-interest-rate-to-21-2024-10">high interest rates</a>.Inflation<a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/keypr/"> hit 9.8%</a> in September, and potatoes, which are a staple of Russian diets, saw a<a target="_blank" href="https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/172_08-11-2024.html"> 64% increase in price</a> this year.Russia is expected to spend <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-defense-sector-on-overdrive-but-firms-warn-of-collapse-2024-11">$140 billion on its defense industry in 2024</a> and up to $145 billion in 2025, or 6.3% of its GDP.

You Searched For "government and public services" and got 11 results

Atishi set to become Delhi's new Chief Minister as Arvind Kejriwal steps down months before the assembly elections

BI India Bureau

Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk is a champion of efficiency and could save the US government a fortune

PTI

60,000 student-loan borrowers in public service are getting $4.5 billion in debt cancellation while Biden's broader relief remains blocked in court

Ayelet Sheffey

Elon Musk's 'gamification' of government spending taps into our natural competitive instinct

Gabby Landsverk

Elon Musk downsized Big Tech. Can he do the same to Big Government?

Amanda Hoover

Elon Musk is looking for trillions in government waste, and defense is a massive potential target

Jake Epstein,Grace Kay

The government steps in to make it easier to cancel your subscriptions

Grace Eliza Goodwin

Union Finance Minister Sitharaman chairs pre-budget meeting with finance ministers of states, UTs; GST Council to meet later today

ANI

The public is outraged the Secret Service appeared to allow a shooter a clear shot of Trump. After Reagan was shot, the agency was widely praised.

Jacob Shamsian

The Supreme Court just made it easier for governments to remove unhoused people from public spaces

Eliza Relman

Under strain from war, Russia plans a massive layoff in its public sector: report

Hannah Abraham

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