> This sort of thing is happening across the federal government. There is no rhyme or reason. DOGE has been given an unrealistic target for cuts and they're desperately cutting whatever they can get their hands on

You make it sound like poor DOGE employees are being forced to do this on this kind of schedule, which definitely isn't the impression I got. They're all a bunch of incompetent overconfident weirdos who think they know better and what to do. Is there any pressure to do anything quickly?

And the US federal budget is quite easy to trim. E.g. remove an aircraft carrier from the planned construction pipeline and you've saved $15 billion with no actual ramifications.