What information could DOGE glean from the data they stole and how would it benefit this administration?
What information could DOGE glean from the data they stole and how would it benefit this administration?
I can't believe i used the word doge to describe a government agency. I hate the internet.
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They can glean where the absurd amounts of money that our government has been wasting on completely ridiculous things has been going for decades.
Yeah there was a probably a nicer way to do what they are doing but given how slow the cogs of government turn this is probably the "better" way to achieve what they are looking for. By rushing through the door and looking at as many things as possible they are essentially overwhelming the system with speed. By the time the law and due process catch up they will have already reported back all the many, many ways the government has been basically burning our tax dollars on shit we never voted for while telling us there is no money to be had for the things we have been asking for.
I understand the worry that this is coup and I will likely be downvoted for this comment, but if you choose to believe that they are actually trying to trim the fat this was going to be the only way they could get that much data without having to slog through miles of red tape and Democrats trying to block them from digging into financial records the entire time.
They have already uncovered so much insane spending that im actually concerned how bad it's going to get as they dig down further. The Democrats were doing exactly the things they constantly accused the Republicans of doing for years. They were directly paying politico to report what and how they wanted. They were using USAID primarily as a tool for meddling in foreign governments and hiding behind it being a global aid organization (the money spent of being used as a shadow government nearly doubles what I USAID actually spent on giving aid).
Seeing as there is nothing I can do about it as an individual I am choosing to sit back and watch it unfold. Worst case out country folds itself in half and things get spicy for awhile. Best case we cut wasted spending and government bloat significantly while also shining a light into all the dark corners of government that the public has never even been made aware of.
The big flaw here is you placing any faith and trust that Elon et all are acting in good faith and truly have a desire to do right by the American people.
Shutting down USAID was the richest man in the world deciding the poorest people in the world do not deserve food and medecine. There are people in a famine in Sudan that will starve as a direct consequence of Elon Musk's actions at the behest of Donald Trump.
And you think that man might have an altruistic reason for wanting to access the entirety of the treasury department data.
That is confoundingly naive.
The attorney general for USAID was investigating Starlink in the Ukraine.
Elon shut down USAID.
Tesla Received Triple the Amount of OSHA Complaints Than the 10 Largest US Car Factories Combined
OSHA is in their sites to dismantle next.
USAID accounts for 1% of the US government's budget - how is eliminating that at all consequential to reigning in spending?
OSHA accounts for 0.0000537322% of the federal budget at $362,800,000.
The federal spending for 2024 was $6.752 trillion.
The department of defense requested $842 billion for 2024. Want to guess if they got it?
There are obvious places to look for excess goverment spending. Completely gutting agencies that barely amount to a rounding error in the budget is not going to accomplish anything.
They are not acting in good faith. Take the blinders off. These are not good people trying to do the right thing for America.
And just in case you missed this earlier: The richsst man in the world decided the poorest people in the world do not deserve food and medecine.
Edit to add: the budget numbers were the best I could do researching from my cellphone but I am quite confident in the dispropotionate funding for the one department no one is discussing reigning in spending for.
We were talking about the DOD in one of these other comments somewhere.
I doubt they will be thoroughly checking for loose spending in many departments. I'll take some cleaning house vs 0 cleaning house.
Pretty easy to say when you’re not the one dying as a result.
I’ll take some cleaning house vs 0 cleaning house.
This is like dusting the china cabinet while ignoring a giant hole in the wall from someone crashing their car through it.
More akin to dusting the china cabinet with a hammer while ignoring the missing wall behind it.
Yeah but what if the car crash is happening no matter what and you can't do anything about it because it killed someone in the way in so you gotta way for the police to do their thing.
May as well dust the china cabinet. Don't wanna let people think I allow a dusty house.
You think the government has been wasting money, but you're saying that they don't know where that money is being wasted until they get access?
Then how did you know they were wasting money in the first place?
It sounds like you're starting with an assumption and trying to build a case around that assumption.
I mean every single year in their own audit they come back saying they "lost" billions and they "don't know" where it went.
We have known money was going into the government and not going where it was supposed to be going for decades.
It doesn't exactly take a road scholar to see that the people have been asking the government for certain things for ages and they always go "oh we don't have the money". But then they accidentally misplace more than we would have needed to do universal healthcare and other things for ages.
Rhode scholar.
And yes, I agree. But that isn't the Treasury. That's after the Treasury allocated it. So musk won't find that there
It's Rhode scholar? I've been typing it wrong for like 20 years and nobody ever corrected me. God dammit.
It's Rhodes, kinda like Johns Hopkins
Yeah idk why I always just went Road House --> Road Scholar in my head lol
I like that better. You don't need to be smart if you can roundhouse kick someone in the head.
The problem is literally none of these people are equipped to make informed decisions. Every single one is a techbro which means they know fucking nothing about how anything functions in the government. Simply put they lack the education and experience to make any informed decisions.
Why would you think a business guy who is a fucking idiot and a bunch of twenty something programmers are going to understand the US budget and economy? You might as well pick pre-schoolers as they are just as equipped
I don’t think you have any understanding of what is going on here.
I never said they have any idea what they are doing. I said that's what they are trying to do. Time will tell if they succeed in finding all the money that leaks out of our government like a colander.
I agree that there are probably many, MANY more people who would be more qualified to be doing this particular job, but that's not what we got.
I'm just along for the ride at this point. If y'all wanna storm the White House for a real revolution let me know. Until it reaches that point I'm just gonna choose to hope some amount of good can come from all this.
It probably won't, but you never know. Crazier things have happened.
The thing is that’s not what they are trying to do. That is what the propaganda sources you follow are telling you they are doing.
This is about laying the groundwork for the fascist coup.
I don't follow any propaganda sources lol. I don't use Twitter. I don't watch fox news or whatever it is you are assuming I do.
I consume a great amount of news from across the spectrum and I try to find the truth that I assume lies somewhere in the middle.
I speak to my far left friends and family about politics often. I speak to my handful of right leaning friends and family a bit less, but I still talk to them fairly often.
I recognize my methods aren't perfect but it's better than most people will do these days.
You posted a Sinclair owned station so yes you did post a propaganda source even if you are unaware of that fact.
Alright man. You find a source you like. Pretty much every news source has reported on the USAID situation.
Yeah but the take of an actual journalistoc source is going to be better
Yeah there was a probably a nicer way to do what they are doing
I understand the worry that this is coup
but if you choose to believe
Seeing as there is nothing I can do about it
I empathize with the sentiment, but you're delusional.
I don't understand how people can be so credulous as to believe efficiency is the motivator rather than grift simply because some notorious liars said another lie. Trump used presidential visits as an excuse to visit his own properties at inflated rates, and Elon who holds Dogecoin personally and through Tesla now 'as a joke' runs a fake department called DOGE (check the coin's price now). I guarantee another $7 trillion+ tax giveaway for billionaires will be the most important bill Trump will sign, yet people who have apparently never in their life taken a math class are stoked about the prospect of taking $50 billion/year away from the poorest people on earth which among other projects treats HIV to mitigate mutation risk, resistance to current treatments, and further spread of the virus.
Any news on 'efficiency' work for the defense budget, which is $800 billion/year and only expected to increase under Republican plans?
Listen, I don't know a ton about USAID, so I won't defend it-though I've personally not seen any reporting that supports what you're saying. Keep in mind, this isn't Trump's first rodeo. USAID was operating under him during his previous term.
What I'd really like for you to explain is how NOAA is presumably burning tons of cash in a way that doesn't benefit taxpayers.
If they were really interested in trimming the fat, they'd go after the DoD, which is where they'd likely "recover" the largest amount. But I'd guess they don't touch that budget at all. And in the unlikely event they did, you can bet anything to do with SpaceX won't be touched.
KUTV is considered a "center" news source so I hope that will be acceptable for you.
I don't know anything about NOAA so I can't speak to that particular topic at this time, but I am curious so I will be taking a look when I get a chance.
You are absolutely fucking right that the DOD is a giant money burning machine. 5k for 1 screw or whatever that meme was (assuming it's true) is just downright irresponsible spending. Something tells me they won't be touching DOD, but we can remain hopeful that it will be receiving similar scrutiny.
And yes it seems unlikely that Musk and gang are gonna throw the books of space x open for the public but you never know. We are in a wild fuckin timeline right now.
Your source, KUTV, is a Sinclair owned station. They have an insane pro-fascism bias. You might want to find a balanced informed source rather than a propaganda source.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/kutv
They specifically don't use ownership as a measurement for bias. They rate news outlets on the content only.
I doubt that will do much to change your opinion on the matter but I figured I would at least let you know where I got the information that KUTV was a center news source.
I try to keep myself informed from news sources across the spectrum, but that is often easier said than done.
And that's a mistake. Sinclair's owners heavily influence content and across the board they interject roght leaning takes. This is the news network known for making dictates to share soecific right wing talking points as this clip from PBS will show. If ypu watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver you 'll recognize this clip.
I don't know who this rating is but I wouldn't place any faith in them based on this.
Again neigh impossible unless you are fairly comfortable to get a good news source that is conservative as there is only one in English at this moment.
I didn't downvote because you're stating your opinion. Question for you: What would have to happen for you to change your mind from "they're trying to reduce costs" to "oh shit, this really is a coup"?
I mean I guess depending on what definition of coup you are using.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup
First definition... No. It's hasn't been violent and they didn't overthrow anyone. They were elected (well Trump was) and ran on the promise of doing exactly what they have been doing.
Second definition.... Maybe. It depends on if you think this has been or will be "highly successful". It has definitely been sudden. Some would probably call it brilliant.
Now I know that a coup doesn't require violence so you don't need to mention that.
It's not a self coup (yet) so that one's off the able.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/coup
Again if you wanna say it's brilliant and successful sure that coup definition would fit I suppose. It's brilliance has yet to be confirmed and who knows if it'll be successful.
I'm not trying to argue the definition of a coup.
You can remove the word "coup" and just say "overthrow of the government" -- that's really what I'm asking you. Do you think that's happening now? If not, what would signal to you that it is happening?
No I do not think they have overthrown the government as of yet. They ran on the promise they were going to do this. People voted for that knowing that's what they were doing. They were lawfully given power and starting doing exactly what they said they were going to do.
Now I will not pretend that I understand the exact legality of the precise details. As I understand it they only have "read" access to financial records and they are pointing out what they deem to be waste and then the president is signing off on closing,shrinking, firing, restructuring or whatever.
I know the Democrats are claiming everything they have done is illegal, but I hesitate to take the Democrats at their word on that one because much of what has been uncovered does not look good for the Democrats. Especially the ones that have been around far too long such as Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi. Seeing Elizabeth Warren screaming about how illegal it all is in the same speech where she defends big pharma and then makes blatantly false claims about their profit margins just comes across as them trying to throw everything at the wall in the hopes that any of it sticks while also attempting to defend their own self interests.
All that with data they stole from the American people.
Not really sure what you mean by that. This is data the American people would never even know about in the first place.
And as far as I am aware they only have "read" access. They haven't actually done anything but point out their findings.
You mean Americans would have never known about their private data? How sinister.
Actually sounds like unspeakably good stewardship which is unheard of these days.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. On the few occasions I've had insights to the scale of government waste it's been eye watering. Of course, that doesn't change anything about my views regarding trump and musk, but I agree with your point... How else could someone tackle a problem of this scale?
Regardless though, it was just nice to read a thoughtful point of view that counters the prevailing emotions on here
The issue is they are completely wrong about theor perspective.
Musk and the programmers he brought are incapable of understanding what they are dojng because they have no background in economics other than Musk who repeatedly shows a glawef understanding of Macro.
The budget is massive and almost no individual is equipped to do this quickly.
What they ARE doing us laying the ground work to create a police state. That has been a goal of Musk/Thiel/Ellison for years now.
Organizational waste in general seems like an inevitability. Corporations have waste too -- this isn't unique to governments
The problem is it's not a waste if it's being paid as salaries to Americans.
This is what these people don't understand. If the government is inefficient, and that means that they're employing too many people, that's a good thing. It stops being a good thing when we have a good safety net. But we don't, so making up fake jobs is actually a positive.
Japan hiring old people to do nothing has
the right idea... an ideaIt's like UBI, but with extra steps
And what Musk is doing has nothing to do with efficiency
Honestly, I used to say the same thing when my background was mostly large multinationals, banks etc. But I've seen things in government contracts that are way beyond anything I came across in the private sector. If I extrapolate my experience across the rest of the government, it's easy to imagine just how much money is being wasted, and most of it goes straight into the hands of huge consultancy firms.
And it makes sense right? The government is held to way more account than the private sector. Ass covering twinned with lack of accountability is rife. Huge amounts of money are thrown into projects that simply cannot fail or some aspect of the country risks complete shut down.
I've no idea what the fix is, but I believe there is an issue here that is unique to the government. Of course though, it's so sad to think that people would turn to hate and fascism as any kind of solution.
That's the thing -- governments have a lot more requirements than corporations. They've also got a whole lot more riding on them, so the stakes are higher.
You have to pay for consultants since you need to get the best talent, but you can't afford (and don't need) them to be on the payroll forever.
You have to pay for auditors because you're under more financial scrutiny.
You have to take things more slowly because you can't make risky decisions and there are layers upon layers of bureaucracy regarding decisions.
So what do we cut out?
Get rid of the consultants? Well, you either hire them (whose salaries you can't afford -- top talent will leave), or you don't bring on consultants at all (which means you can't do the things you need to do). Or you pay your staff for training, which might work, but then those staff might leave and the investment is gone before anything new is built. And it might cost as much as the consultants, plus take longer.
Get rid of the auditors? But we want more financial scrutiny.
Get rid of the bureaucracy? Sure, everyone would love that. Except when the reason for each strip of red tape is revealed when something goes wrong.
Like you said, there are no easy answers. And when these costs have justifications for existing, I think that's when they turn from "waste" to "necessary (yet unfortunate) expenses".
You seem pretty naive.