The hottest Oversight Substack posts right now

Congressional Republicans are weakening their own institutions to support Trump. This makes it hard for them to check the power of the executive branch.
In the past, Congress has tried to improve its ability to oversee the presidency, but now it seems to be accepting Trump's attacks on their oversight capabilities.
The budget cuts to important analysis groups like the GAO are not about saving money. They are aimed at making it harder for Congress to challenge government actions that don't follow the law.

The EPA allegedly parked $20 billion of taxpayer money with an outside financial institution, which raised concerns about accountability. People are worried because this is the first time something like this has happened at the EPA.
There seems to be a rush to commit this money without proper oversight, which means mistakes could happen. Many believe this can lead to misuse or corruption.
This situation highlights the need for more transparency and scrutiny within government financial practices. It's crucial for citizens to understand how their tax dollars are being managed.

Over $203 million in wages were stolen from workers in New York between 2017 and 2021, with the most theft happening in industries like restaurants, health care, and construction.
New York lawmakers are introducing bills to combat wage theft by suspending licenses, certificates, and issuing stop-work orders for businesses that violate wage laws.
States like California and Colorado are also taking action against wage theft by holding accountable large companies and subcontractors who exploit workers by stealing wages.

Partisanship is important in politics but can become harmful if taken too far, leading to government dysfunction.
Transparency and proper communication are essential in high-ranking government positions, like Secretary of Defense.
Having a functioning opposition party is crucial for proper governance, as it ensures accountability and oversight.

Biden's Administration has spent more taxpayer money on 'sue and settle' than any recent president.
Settlements without public debate can lead to new regulations.
The House Committee on Oversight is investigating the sue and settle practices at the EPA.

Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

Transparency in government spending is crucial in holding politicians accountable and changing how we are governed.
New technologies allow us to bring government spending into the light and make it accessible to the public in real-time.
Citizens play a key role in demanding transparency and responsible spending of tax dollars to bring about positive change.

The paper discusses a new method called weak-to-strong generalization (W2SG) which involves finetuning large models to generalize well from weaker supervision, eventually aiming for human supervision.
Combining scalable oversight and W2SG can be used together to align superhuman models, offering flexibility and potential synergy in training techniques.
Alignment techniques like task decomposition, RRM, cross-examination, and interpretability function as consistency checks to ensure models provide accurate and truthful information.