Topic: Usds

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly clashing with the United States Digital Service (USDS) over federal data management and legacy systems. A USDS data scientist criticized DOGE's "junior" staffers for not understanding the complexity of 1960s-era COBOL systems used by Social Security. However, proponents of DOGE argue that COBOL is a relatively simple language and that the real issue is the mismanagement of records, such as the thousands of "150-year-old" individuals found in government databases.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly utilizing the legal framework of the United States Digital Service (USDS), an IT task force created by the Obama administration in 2014. By rebranding this existing program, the Trump administration has granted DOGE teams access to every federal database and hiring authority under 5 U.S. Code 3161. This structure makes the program difficult to defund or shut down without rewriting multiple federal laws.

The hosts review a recruitment video for the United States Digital Service (USDS) featuring US CTO Megan Smith. They mock the "hipster" tone of the video and Smith's use of jargon like "scrubbed in together" and "fabulous cross-functional teams," while noting her somewhat derogatory use of the term "coders."