I spoke with a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee who said they discovered significant benefits were being paid to dead people. He quipped that assuming “someone must be checking this” was always wrong.

This makes sense as the U.S. is ~250 years old. Government employees inherit most problems from the people before them. I wouldn't want to clean up others’ messes either.

In most jobs, identifying problems adds value. In government, it can make you a pariah. Exposing waste just adds extra work and embarrasses your boss for not finding it sooner. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." So we can't just trust people will "do the right thing". Systems like this are good for reducing waste.

Perhaps I'm a biased Elon fanboy, but paying dead people shouldn’t be partisan.