DOGE shutters the government’s in-house tech consultancy . . Political loyalty appears to be more important than tech skills
Over the next month or so, many Americans filing their tax returns have a new option. Instead of paying an accountant, or buying third-party software, they can log onto a government website, which will automatically input personal details of their wages earned and tax already withheld from the Internal Revenue Service’s data. The tool, called Direct File, is available this year to around 30m taxpayers in 25 states.
The creation of Direct File was in large part the work of 18F, an in-house government tech consultancy. On March 1st Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who is the new head of the government’s larger Technology Transformation Services, in which 18F is embedded, announced its abolition. Just weeks before, Mr Shedd had said the group’s employees represented “the gold standard” of tech in government.
The consultancy was created in 2014 after glitches hobbled the launch of Healthcare.Gov, the website intended to help Americans find health plans under Obamacare. The idea was to create a group of cross-agency tech experts able to modernise IT systems and improve procurement, says Christopher Whitaker, the director of the Alliance of Civic Technologists, a support network. Waldo Jaquith, a former employee, says he and three others once saved $500m in four days while working with the Department of Defence by identifying and cancelling a software project that was already being duplicated elsewhere.
In some ways that makes 18F’s work close to what Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” claims to be doing. Its shut down, former employees say, suggests doge’s agenda is more about loyalty and ideology than efficiency. The consultancy had long attracted conservative ire. Its logo on X, Mr Musk’s social-media network, featured the transgender-rights pink and rainbow flag. On February 3rd Mr Musk claimed to have already “deleted” the group. One month later it is gone.
Reproduced from The Economist, 6 March 2025.
The creation of Direct File was in large part the work of 18F, an in-house government tech consultancy. On March 1st Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who is the new head of the government’s larger Technology Transformation Services, in which 18F is embedded, announced its abolition. Just weeks before, Mr Shedd had said the group’s employees represented “the gold standard” of tech in government.
The consultancy was created in 2014 after glitches hobbled the launch of Healthcare.Gov, the website intended to help Americans find health plans under Obamacare. The idea was to create a group of cross-agency tech experts able to modernise IT systems and improve procurement, says Christopher Whitaker, the director of the Alliance of Civic Technologists, a support network. Waldo Jaquith, a former employee, says he and three others once saved $500m in four days while working with the Department of Defence by identifying and cancelling a software project that was already being duplicated elsewhere.
In some ways that makes 18F’s work close to what Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” claims to be doing. Its shut down, former employees say, suggests doge’s agenda is more about loyalty and ideology than efficiency. The consultancy had long attracted conservative ire. Its logo on X, Mr Musk’s social-media network, featured the transgender-rights pink and rainbow flag. On February 3rd Mr Musk claimed to have already “deleted” the group. One month later it is gone.
Reproduced from The Economist, 6 March 2025.
36-40, F
