MOUNTAINH33L
Esteemed Member
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DOGE Catch-All
- Thread starter nycfan
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Musk is offering $100 to every person that signs a petition against a judge. Is that legal? I suppose it is since a public petition is useless in a court of law.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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Probably not, but it would be a question of Wisconsin state law. A law that would be decided by . . . the judge Elon is running against. LOL.
I have trouble believing this judicial race will be close. The MAGAs are dispirited and loyal only to Trump.
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I'm hopeful Wisconsites will be incensed over this hijacking and attempted purchase of their election and angrily vote against Musk.
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Ron Johnson says hello, I keep getting elected to the Senate by Wisconsinites! Can you believe it?
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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Yeah he barely barely won against a black guy whose skin they darkened in ads, and that was in a good environment for him.
Depending on how bad the economy gets -- not to mention all the other confusion -- 2026 and 2028 are, I think, going to be wakeup calls for the GOP. Especially in the north. I cannot imagine anyone in Wisconsin is happy about the Canada baiting.
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IRS Predicts DOGE Lost Half a Trillion Dollars for the USA
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the...
talkingpointsmemo.com
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax, etc. It’s worth taking a moment to put this number into some context in case half a trillion dollars doesn’t do it for you. Non-defense discretionary spending is the cost to fund the U.S. government once you take out mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the cost of the U.S. military. For 2023 that number was $917 billion. So that’s most of the stuff we think of as the government, apart from those payment programs and the military. In other words, in about eight weeks DOGE managed to lose the U.S. government — more or less light on fire — more than half of what goes to all non-defense discretionary spending.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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I don't believe this. The numbers seem implausibly large. I think this is the blue dye the administration is using to identify leaks.IRS Predicts DOGE Lost Half a Trillion Dollars for the USA
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the...talkingpointsmemo.com
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax, etc. It’s worth taking a moment to put this number into some context in case half a trillion dollars doesn’t do it for you. Non-defense discretionary spending is the cost to fund the U.S. government once you take out mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the cost of the U.S. military. For 2023 that number was $917 billion. So that’s most of the stuff we think of as the government, apart from those payment programs and the military. In other words, in about eight weeks DOGE managed to lose the U.S. government — more or less light on fire — more than half of what goes to all non-defense discretionary spending.
I could see the IRS claiming that. They believe that the more manpower and budget they have, the better it is for the country. So, they would certainly be motivated to calculate the loss that way.
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Blue dye theory is interesting.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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It's what I was thinking about the "Musk gets briefing on China war plans" and the appearance of this memo around the same time reinforces my intuition.
$500B is like 12% of national tax revenue, and 30% when you take out payroll taxes. I'm not sure how much of the remainder is collected through withholding, but it's surely the bulk of it. So maybe there's a pot of $1T in tax revenue that could be lost through non-collection, and 50% of it is going to vanish because of chaos at the IRS in one filing season? I don't buy it at all.
I would definitely buy the idea that some people will not pay taxes on more affirmative knowledge that the government won't come after them. Not necessarily a quid pro quo (though I wouldn't rule that out) so much as a policy of "we won't audit rich people." But how many people are going to have that knowledge, and how many of them would be willing to risk it? Statute of Limitations on tax fraud is, I think, 6 years though I don't know for sure. Might be longer.
Is Lebron James going to stop paying taxes because he thinks he wouldn't be audited? Fuck no. What about his money managers? I doubt very much that any sports money managers would be taking this "opportunity." Is Taylor Swift going to evade taxes? I would consider that very unlikely. What about hedge funds? They are absolutely going to pay their carried-interest taxes, because if they don't, they face the prospect of Congress getting rid of the carried interest loophole entirely.
Would hedge funds dance on the edge of compliance, knowing that some of their more esoteric strategies might not be looked at? Absolutely. But there's only so much income a person can shelter through dodges.
EyeballKid
Esteemed Member
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Sweet. I work on a contract with CDC about Long Covid.
I expect a stop work order tomorrow AM.
Awesome.
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Genuinely sorry to hear that.
More info:
“The Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.
The email was sent Monday by Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice. It said the closing is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ reorganization.
The office’s handful of staff were not told whether they would remain employed in the federal government or whether the office would close immediately or wind down operations over time.
… The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 6 percent of U.S. adults suffer from some form of long Covid, while the National Institutes of Health believes that as many as 23 million people have the illness, which can range in severity from mild to debilitating. …”
EyeballKid
Esteemed Member
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Background on the program I work with. Rs have been fighting funding every step of the way, and are now pretending to be shocked that we still don’t know the full scope of Long COVID effects.
5 years later, long Covid is still a medical mystery: What scientists have learned
Why do some people develop disabling chronic conditions after the initial viral infection?
To be clear, I work in communications and scientific editing. So I’m not on the front lines…but I help write/edit studies and get media stories published, and write/edit website content, as well as guidelines for researchers and a bunch of other stuff. My work is funded by the RECOVER initiative, which is apparently what’s being shut down.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 1 in 20 adults in the U.S., or about 14 million, are living with long Covid. Other data shows that up to 5.8 million childrenmay be affected by the condition as well. However, experts say these numbers are likely underestimated because there’s no official surveillance system in place.
A $1 billion research initiative called RECOVERlaunched by the National Institutes of Health to find the causes of long Covid, as well as potential treatments, has fallen short on its promises, scientists and patient advocates say.
Meanwhile, experts fear that the Trump administration’s extreme cuts in federal spending may undermine long Covid research efforts, which could further delay the discovery of therapies. Just last month, President Donald Trump terminated the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID.
Dr. W. Michael Brode, medical director of UT Health Austin’s Post-COVID-19 Program in Texas, said, “We’re building the boat while we’re at sea, trying to figure it out together [with patients] … but we absolutely need to build on the progress we’ve already made.”
………………………
ETA: I probably should’ve read the info at the link NYC posted above.
“The HHS staffer said that as far as the team has been told, the NIH’s more than $1 billion Recover Initiative funding clinical trials related to long Covid will continue. But even if that is the case, current and former employees warn that closing the office will hurt collaboration and communication among researchers as well as social services for patients.
“Long COVID impacts every facet of somebody’s life — their ability to go to school, their ability to take care of their children, their ability to go to work and get health care,” the staffer said. “So it’s not just clinical trials that need to happen. How does somebody who can no longer take care of themselves, and there’s no medical solution yet, how do they live a life?”
……………………
So perhaps my job is safe for a couple weeks, till the admin decides to shut down the RECOVER initiative.
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ChileG
Iconic Member
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Said it before, but this is conclusive proof that being efficient and cutting waste are obviously NOT the goal of DOGE.IRS Predicts DOGE Lost Half a Trillion Dollars for the USA
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the...talkingpointsmemo.com
The Post reports today that the IRS’ internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax, etc. It’s worth taking a moment to put this number into some context in case half a trillion dollars doesn’t do it for you. Non-defense discretionary spending is the cost to fund the U.S. government once you take out mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the cost of the U.S. military. For 2023 that number was $917 billion. So that’s most of the stuff we think of as the government, apart from those payment programs and the military. In other words, in about eight weeks DOGE managed to lose the U.S. government — more or less light on fire — more than half of what goes to all non-defense discretionary spending.
This loss of revenue alone will be greater than any actual “savings” by DOGE.
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Mulberry Heel
Inconceivable Member
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This is nothing less than an attempt to financially starve the federal government so that services simply have to be cut whether anyone agrees with it or not. They're literally trying to ensure that even a future Democratic administration will be so financially handicapped that it will not be able to restore most of the programs they're gutting. What we're witnessing isn't an attempt to "reasonably" cut government spending or save money, it's a massive, all-out, final attempt by extreme right-wingers to roll back every progressive advance made since at least the New Deal, if not the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century. Trump loves the Gilded Age so much, well Musk & DOGE and his fellow Republicans are doing their damnedest to force us all back to that point. Trump once said years ago that he would fix it so that it would be as if Obama had never been elected, well now they're trying to fix it so that it's as if modern liberalism never happened. An epic final attempt to "own the libs" for good, so to speak.