Discussion on Musk's DoGE ideas, the federal deficit, and GDP

77,560 Views | 1070 Replies | Last: 4 days ago by MinotStateBeav
oski003
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In reply to DiabloWags • 11:54a, 4/2/25
DiabloWags said:
YOU'RE FIRED.

Trump Tells Inner Circle That Musk Will Leave Soon




I posted last week that Musk said he planned to leave the government in May or June. You are terribly misinformed.
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sycasey
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12:30p, 4/2/25
Looks like the libs were right that the Trump-Musk partnership wouldn't last a year.
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bearister
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In reply to sycasey • 1:36p, 4/2/25
sycasey said:
Looks like the libs were right that the Trump-Musk partnership wouldn't last a year.

Not so fast, Buster.


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movielover
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8:30p, 4/2/25
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movielover
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9:04p, 4/2/25
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bear2034
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7:23a, 4/4/25
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DiabloWags
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In reply to sycasey • 7:34a, 4/4/25
sycasey said:
Looks like the libs were right that the Trump-Musk partnership wouldn't last a year.

Shocker.
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movielover
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In reply to DiabloWags • 10:45a, 4/4/25
DiabloWags said:
sycasey said:
Looks like the libs were right that the Trump-Musk partnership wouldn't last a year.

Shocker.


It's always been well-known: as a special government employee, Musk is under a 130-day time limit in his current role as DOGE lead.
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Eastern Oregon Bear
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In reply to movielover • 2:46a, 4/5/25
movielover said:
DiabloWags said:
sycasey said:
Looks like the libs were right that the Trump-Musk partnership wouldn't last a year.

Shocker.


It's always been well-known: as a special government employee, Musk is under a 130-day time limit in his current role as DOGE lead.
It's also been well known that the Trump administration believes that rules and laws don't apply to them and can be freely ignored.
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movielover
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In reply to Eastern Oregon Bear • 9:33a, 4/6/25
We're $36 Trillion in debt, $2 Trillion yearly deficits, and $1 Trillion a year in interest payments on the debt.

- do you think this is a very serious problem?
- when do you propose taking serious cost-cutting measures?
- who do you suggest we have spearhead large systemwide cuts, given that in decades only Newt Gingrich has had success?



Antonio Gracias, a longtime ally of Elon Musk and high-ranking DOGE staffer, detailed the findings on The All-In Podcast, saying, "Every benefit program we looked at was being accessed by these people. 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it's just ramping...."

"I mean, it is shockingly bad. And this is the tip of the iceberg." He continued, "We found people on all the benefit programs. We find them on unemployment. We find them on Medicaid. To your point, people on Medicaid and unemployment, they're not contributingthey're taking out. They're mooching, right? They're criminals."

"Gracias also revealed that some individuals identified in the data were linked to serious national security concerns. "We sent this data list to the National Targeting Center… I don't want to get too far into the data, but I can tell you they found hard hits in the Targeting Center of very bad peoplecriminals and people on the terrorist watch list that are in this group....

"Musk and Gracias recently displayed a chart at a rally in Wisconsin showing more than 5 million non-citizens received SSNs between 2021 and 2025."


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bear2034
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2:02p, 4/7/25

Is this satire or just reality?
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Eastern Oregon Bear
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In reply to bear2034 • 2:34p, 4/7/25
bear2034 said:

Is this satire or just reality?
Hey, if we can spend millions shuttling Trump to his golf courses a few times a week and plan for $100 miilion spent on a pointless military parade, we can probably afford some government waste. It's not like Trump and DOGE are tackling the REAL government waste anyway.
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bear2034
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In reply to Eastern Oregon Bear • 2:49p, 4/7/25
REAL government waste?
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Eastern Oregon Bear
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5:18p, 4/7/25
More DOGE amateur hour "improvements". This time it's the software for the Social Security Administration, which is having it's internal and website software crashing repeatedly for hours at a time after DOGE made untested software changes without factoring in what real world traffic loads would do.

Washington Post article behind a paywall

https://www.removepaywall.com/ got me past the paywall, but since this was the first time I've used that site, I hesitate to recommend yet.
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movielover
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6:45a, 4/9/25
Progs selling kids on sex. Go figure.

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Eastern Oregon Bear
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7:34a, 4/9/25
More Texas obsession with masturbation. This bill was written up by Ken Paxton's wife.

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-lawmaker-wants-women-to-show-id-to-buy-sex-toys-22038057
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movielover
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9:32a, 4/9/25
Where was our Free Press?

DOGE Must Crack Down on the Social Security Disability ATM



"Imagine, if you will, a judge who never says no. Not once. Not ever. Imagine a courtroom where the outcome is predetermined, the evidence irrelevant, and the hearing perfunctory or entirely absent. This is not a scene from a dystopian novel about justice undone but rather a faithful portrait of how disability claims are routinely handled by the Social Security Administration's (SSA) administrative law judges (ALJs).

"These ALJs are not jurists in the traditional sense. They are executive branch employees, shielded by federal unions, and ensconced in a bureaucratic cocoon that rewards speed over scrutiny, volume over veracity. While most Americans imagine judges as stern arbiters of fact and law, the reality inside the SSA is closer to clerical automation, where some ALJs approve disability claims at rates approaching 100 percent. The cost to the American taxpayer? Hundreds of billions of dollars.

"A rational government must distinguish between a compassionate safety net and a careless spigot. The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program was created to aid those who, through no fault of their own, can no longer work. It was never intended as a universal basic income dispensed by bureaucratic fiat. Yet for years, the program has been distorted by a cadre of ALJs whose rubber-stamp approach has made a mockery of due process, science, and fiscal prudence.

"The numbers are staggering. There are roughly 1,300 ALJs responsible for handling about 450,000 cases each year. Some of these judges approve disability claims more than 90 percent of the time. Indeed, over 40 percent of ALJs have allowance rates in excess of 75 percent. More than 20 percent top 85 percent.

"According to the SSA's own Office of the Inspector General (OIG), up to 60 percent of the award decisions made by ALJs are not supported by the evidence in the record. That is, they are legally indefensible.
Take ALJ Charles Bridges, a one-man entitlement machine who approved 95 percent of the cases he reviewed, awarding approximately $4.5 billion in lifetime benefits. An internal agency review found that in a majority of his cases, there was no evidentiary basis for his decision. Worse still, he routinely bypassed the essential due process mechanism of the hearing itself, rubber-stamping nearly 7,000 cases without bothering to convene a session. He ignored vocational experts, or consulted them only after he had announced his decision to approve benefits. One might call it judicial theatre, but even theatre has a script. This was pantomime...."
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movielover
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10:44a, 4/9/25
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sycasey
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1:10p, 4/10/25
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movielover
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8:02a, 4/12/25
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DiabloWags
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In reply to sycasey • 9:18a, 4/12/25
EPIC FAIL.

MAGA FOR GULLIBLE MORONS IN A CULT.

MUSK AND TRUMP FAIL AGAIN!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/11/elon-musk-doge-trump-projected-savings/83040591007/
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movielover
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10:37a, 4/14/25
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movielover
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8:32a, 4/15/25
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DiabloWags
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8:06p, 4/15/25
So many SUCKERS AND LOSERS voted for the Orange Crap Stain.

So gullible.
You all got duped!

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chazzed
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9:08p, 4/15/25
This would be really bad.


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bearister
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7:26a, 4/16/25
"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended two top Pentagon officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked word of a planned top-secret briefing on China for Elon Musk.

Axios learned that Musk or Hegseth didn't just decide to call off that briefing after the leak. President Trump himself ordered staffers to kill it. "What the f@uck is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn't go," Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.

Why it matters: Musk has annoyed several administration officials with his constant presence at the White House, his haphazard social media posts and his slash-and-burn tactics at his Department of Government Efficiency.

The planned Pentagon briefing, however, got him cross with the boss at the Resolute Desk.

"POTUS still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines," the official said. "Elon has a lot of business in China and he has good relations there, and this briefing just wasn't the right thing."
Axios


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chazzed
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3:28p, 4/16/25
DOGE, the gift that keeps on giving (to Russia).

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DiabloWags
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8:31a, 4/17/25
When you're terribly DUMB and easily CONNED and voted for an Orange Clown.

You look like a FOOL.

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LudwigsFountain
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In reply to DiabloWags • 11:38a, 4/19/25
DiabloWags said:
When you're terribly DUMB and easily CONNED and voted for an Orange Clown.

You look like a FOOL.

Even though I think this whole DOGE deal is a con, graphs such as this one still irk me. At the very least, you need to separately reflect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as there is no discretion in spending for those items. The objective should be to track discretionary spending. For all we know, it could be worse or better under Trump than Biden.
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movielover
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In reply to LudwigsFountain • 4:31p, 4/19/25
LudwigsFountain said:
DiabloWags said:
When you're terribly DUMB and easily CONNED and voted for an Orange Clown.

You look like a FOOL.

Even though I think this whole DOGE deal is a con, graphs such as this one still irk me. At the very least, you need to separately reflect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as there is no discretion in spending for those items. The objective should be to track discretionary spending. For all we know, it could be worse or better under Trump than Biden.


VallejoWags has terminal TDS.

Last I read, we're down 300-400K Federal employees, no small feat. In a few months.
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sycasey
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11:08p, 4/21/25
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Eastern Oregon Bear
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In reply to sycasey • 4:43p, 4/22/25
sycasey said:
My agency never did take it very seriously. We were never required to submit our 5 bullets to OPM. Instead we sent them to our local supervisors, who archived them. We're still writing them up at the end of each week. By now, I'm just cutting and pasting 2 or 3 of the bullets from previous lists and adding whatever was different each week.
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movielover
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In reply to Eastern Oregon Bear • 10:14p, 4/22/25
Another example of the arrogant Administrative State aka bureaucracy.
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movielover
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12:26p, 4/25/25
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bear2034
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In reply to movielover • 2:35p, 4/25/25
Democratic Party approval rating is still in the low 20s and trending down.
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