Thom Goolsby MBA, JD me-retweet
Bureaucrats in Raleigh still licking the ice-cream cone of endless funding while forms breed like rabbits. Time for AI + a DOGE-style private-sector wrecking crew to slash the waste. Hilarious (and deadly serious) article:
AI to the Rescue: Bureaucrats, Meet Your New Boss (It’s Not Even Unionized)
Listen up, North Carolina—and every other state where the government still runs on punch cards, rotary phones, and the faint hope that maybe this fiscal year the forms will finally stop breeding like rabbits.
I’ve just read Andrew Dunn’s piece on how our public sector is stuck in the technological Dark Ages, shuffling paper like medieval monks while the rest of the planet zooms ahead on AI. It’s hilarious in a “please don’t audit my taxes” kind of way. But here’s the punchline nobody in Raleigh wants to hear: the bureaucrats aren’t going to fix this themselves. Ever. They’re too busy licking the ice-cream cone of endless funding, asking for one more scoop of staff, one more dollop of authority, and promising—cross their cold, clammy hearts—that this time they’ll do things slightly less expensively and marginally less incompetently.
You know the type. The average government lifer looks at a budget shortfall the way a toddler eyes a birthday cake: “More! More! And don’t you dare suggest we share with the taxpayers.” Ask them how to streamline anything and you’ll get a 47-page report titled “Preliminary Findings on the Feasibility of Considering Efficiency Initiatives (Phase One).” Translation: “We need three new divisions, six consultants, and a bigger office fridge.”
That’s why the solution isn’t another blue-ribbon panel of the same people who tied the ribbons in the first place. No earnest task forces. No earnest hearings where earnest legislators nod earnestly while the bureaucrats earnestly explain why AI is “concerning” and requires “further study” and “equity impact assessments” and probably a new holiday called National Paperwork Appreciation Day.
What we need is DOGE on steroids—a lean, mean, private-sector wrecking crew with one mission: rip through every state agency like a chainsaw through red tape. Call it the North Carolina Efficiency SWAT Team, or the Taxpayer Rescue Rangers, or whatever doesn’t sound like it came from a focus group of accountants. Import the sharpest operators from Silicon Valley, the guys who actually ship products instead of studying the shipping forms. Give them total access: every dusty database, every procurement contract, every midnight overtime form that somehow costs more than a small car.
Their job? Total review. Map every government function, then slam AI into it like a rocket booster on a tricycle. Fraud detection? AI spots the phony unemployment claims before the ink dries. Benefits processing? Chatbots that actually answer the phone instead of playing “hold music from 1997.” DMV renewals? Done in 30 seconds while you’re still looking for a parking spot. The same tech that lets Amazon deliver your socks in two days can finally let the state mail your tax refund without a six-month detour through bureaucratic purgatory.
And here’s the beautiful part—the part that makes the ice-cream lickers break out in a cold sweat: pay these private experts a straight percentage of the money they save. Five percent, ten percent, whatever the legislature haggles down to. It’s the ultimate capitalist hack.
They eat only what they kill. No savings, no check. Suddenly you’ve got entrepreneurs lined up around the block, salivating at the chance to turn $100 million in waste into $90 million in actual services and a nice payday for themselves. It’s not charity; it’s a bounty on inefficiency. The Founding Fathers would approve. Thomas Jefferson would probably tweet about it.
Bureaucrats will howl, of course. They always do. “You can’t replace us with machines!” they’ll cry, right before demanding a 20 percent raise and a new wellness coordinator to help them cope with the trauma of change. But here’s the dirty secret they don’t want you to know: AI doesn’t want your pension. It doesn’t call in sick on Fridays. It doesn’t write 500-page environmental impact statements on why the copier needs a new toner cartridge. It just works—quietly, cheaply, and without pretending it’s performing a public service by existing.
We’ve already seen the proof in pockets around the country. The feds are using AI to claw back billions in fraud. North Carolina’s own Treasurer’s office ran a pilot and got 10 percent productivity gains with pocket change. Imagine that scaled up, not by the people who benefit from the status quo, but by outsiders who get rich only when you get relief.
Politicians, here’s your cue. Stop pretending the bureaucracy will reform itself. It’s like expecting your house cat to start paying rent. Pass the bill. Create the DOGE squad. Tie the bonuses to real, audited savings. Then sit back and watch the ice-cream cone melt while the rest of us finally get government that costs less, works faster, and stops treating our wallets like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The technology is here. The talent is willing. The only thing missing is the political courage to tell the bureaucrats, politely but firmly, to lick their own cones somewhere else. Time’s wasting. The forms are multiplying. Let’s unleash the AI already—before the next budget cycle turns into another $10 billion game of bureaucratic musical chairs.
@NCGOP @JohnLockeNC @ncspeakerhall
#NCGA #GovernmentEfficiency #DOGE #TaxpayerFirst
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