Trump Admin dismantling Dept. of Education — mass firings underway

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gtyellowjacket said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by bad faith but I'll try to interpret. I honestly think that going on an interview style program where the interviewer can ask questions to challenge Musk is a bit more helpful to understand his actions and more difficult for Musk than just tweeting.

And I really don't think Musk is speaking in hypotheticals as much as he's generalizing the scope of some of the problems. He's also put up his wall of receipts of real cuts he's making for people to examine and criticize. This is in contrast to someone like Trump who just says there's fraud and waste and we're going to get rid of it.
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What's it worth when most of what he puts up are lies and misrepresentations? Musk's lies end up looking worse because they are overt.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by bad faith but I'll try to interpret. I honestly think that going on an interview style program where the interviewer can ask questions to challenge Musk is a bit more helpful to understand his actions and more difficult for Musk than just tweeting.

And I really don't think Musk is speaking in hypotheticals as much as he's generalizing the scope of some of the problems. He's also put up his wall of receipts of real cuts he's making for people to examine and criticize. This is in contrast to someone like Trump who just says there's fraud and waste and we're going to get rid of it.
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Have you tried to use the wall of receipts? Because I have. It is a sham as disclosure — limited data that is not searchable, nor can be organized by state or any other metric. It is not much more than tweets with links to popup boxes with limited details — just claims without actual receipts (like a link to the actual contract). …
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by bad faith but I'll try to interpret. I honestly think that going on an interview style program where the interviewer can ask questions to challenge Musk is a bit more helpful to understand his actions and more difficult for Musk than just tweeting.

And I really don't think Musk is speaking in hypotheticals as much as he's generalizing the scope of some of the problems. He's also put up his wall of receipts of real cuts he's making for people to examine and criticize. This is in contrast to someone like Trump who just says there's fraud and waste and we're going to get rid of it.
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Musk also called social security a Ponzi scheme in that interview. He is not operating in good faith and has proved that time and time again. Why should anyone take what he is saying at face value? We all know Rogan isn’t going to push back.
 
finesse said:
What's it worth when most of what he puts up are lies and misrepresentations? Musk's lies end up looking worse because they are overt.
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Most? I'm sure Musk has put up a few that were lies and misrepresentations have been pointed out here but hasn't he put up thousands of programs at this point?

And that kind of proves the point that he's not just spouting hypotheticals. He doesn't have to put that stuff up. That's certainly not the norm in government. I'm sure he's putting it up to get support for his programs but the downside is that people can find and fixate on the ones that he's wrong about.

I really think when folks step away from the partisan lens, this is good for the American taxpayer. Government has gotten too bloated and no one really had the political will to fix it before. Next I hope a Democrat gets in there and starts slashing some bloated GOP favored programs. Looking at you, USDA.
 
North Carolina ranked 48th in the country in terms of public education funding for the third year in a row, according to the latest annual state-by-state analysis of school funding from the Education Law Center.

The state also ranked 49th in terms of funding effort, which looked at school funding as a percentage of state GDP.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by bad faith but I'll try to interpret. I honestly think that going on an interview style program where the interviewer can ask questions to challenge Musk is a bit more helpful to understand his actions and more difficult for Musk than just tweeting.

And I really don't think Musk is speaking in hypotheticals as much as he's generalizing the scope of some of the problems. He's also put up his wall of receipts of real cuts he's making for people to examine and criticize. This is in contrast to someone like Trump who just says there's fraud and waste and we're going to get rid of it.
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I see you're desperate to try and prove me wrong for giving you the benefit of the doubt about believing this nonsense vs just conveying this nonsense.

That wall of receipts, when fact checked by people who actually understand facts, has demonstrated virtually no waste or fraud. Just spending with which Elon disagrees. Spending does not become waste or fraud because Elon disagrees with it. And these receipts are routinely revised and things that were touted or taken down because it is proven that they are not actually cutting waste or fraud.

And going on Joe Rogan is not actually a great medium for either an in depth understanding *or* accountability. A sit down interview with someone who actually understands literally anything other than HGH and MMA *might* be more instructive, but again, that assumes that Elon is operating in good faith and would respond truthfully, which we have absolutely no reason to accept given the last 10 years of Elon Musk.

If this was actually a very serious effort to cut down on waste fraud and mismanagement of government assets than the correct thing to do would have been to approach it from an actuarial standpoint. Commission wide scale studies done by expert auditors about the funding, where it goes,what it does, who it gets to, where it's spent, etc. It categorically does not involve 22-year-old programmers with no formal education in finance accessing goverment records and making snap judgments about whether they like it or not.

So I say again, I appreciate that you're just bringing this here and that you aren't actually stupid enough to believe any of this nonsense. Right?
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Most? I'm sure Musk has put up a few that were lies and misrepresentations have been pointed out here but hasn't he put up thousands of programs at this point?

And that kind of proves the point that he's not just spouting hypotheticals. He doesn't have to put that stuff up. That's certainly not the norm in government. I'm sure he's putting it up to get support for his programs but the downside is that people can find and fixate on the ones that he's wrong about.

I really think when folks step away from the partisan lens, this is good for the American taxpayer. Government has gotten too bloated and no one really had the political will to fix it before. Next I hope a Democrat gets in there and starts slashing some bloated GOP favored programs. Looking at you, USDA.
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It’s not good for the American taxpayer that the programs we pay money into are being cut to the bone. It’s not good for the American taxpayer when the IRS, which gets $6 back for every $1 spent, is being cut. That’s losing us money. It’s not good for the American taxpayer to lose what little government services we have just because someone doesn’t understand or care what a particular agency does.

I think I’ve proven myself as not being a partisan Democrat. This is not a partisan thing. This is about a billionaire picking the pocket of American taxpayers while claiming to be helping them. You’ve taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. These cuts will only exacerbate the inequality of American society and lead to worse and worse outcomes.
 
Paine said:
Musk also called social security a Ponzi scheme in that interview. He is not operating in good faith and has proved that time and time again. Why should anyone take what he is saying at face value? We all know Rogan isn’t going to push back.
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Just imagine it wasn't a very popular government program.

Imagine it was some guy in a Ramada inn conference room pitching a life-changing investment to you. All you need to do is give me 15% of your earnings for 40 years. I'll use that money to fund the retirements of the folks that were in the program before you but don't worry, the people that get in after you will be paying for your retirement. Would you invest in something like that or would you call the police?

And I don't think anyone is going to confuse Rogan with Tim Russert, but he did ask some pretty pointed questions about Social Security fraud. This is certainly better than just tweeting.
 
nycfan said:
Have you tried to use the wall of receipts? Because I have. It is a sham as disclosure — limited data that is not searchable, nor can be organized by state or any other metric. It is not much more than tweets with links to popup boxes with limited details — just claims without actual receipts (like a link to the actual contract). …
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I have not. I'm sure there are better ways to structure it to make it more searchable but people are finding things to criticize. Before he put that information out there, there were plenty of programs somewhat shielded by federal government bureaucracy. Which would you rather have? A bad database or no database at all?
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Just imagine it wasn't a very popular government program.

Imagine it was some guy in a Ramada inn conference room pitching a life-changing investment to you. All you need to do is give me 15% of your earnings for 40 years. I'll use that money to fund the retirements of the folks that were in the program before you but don't worry, the people that get in after you will be paying for your retirement. Would you invest in something like that or would you call the police?

And I don't think anyone is going to confuse Rogan with Tim Russert, but he did ask some pretty pointed questions about Social Security fraud. This is certainly better than just tweeting.
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Social security has never missed a payment in its entire existence. You are searching for a problem that doesn’t exist in order to give billionaires more money. The alternative is seniors starving on the street. Raise the threshold on taxable income for social security. That’s the issue.
 
Paine said:
It’s not good for the American taxpayer that the programs we pay money into are being cut to the bone. It’s not good for the American taxpayer when the IRS, which gets $6 back for every $1 spent, is being cut. That’s losing us money. It’s not good for the American taxpayer to lose what little government services we have just because someone doesn’t understand or care what a particular agency does.

I think I’ve proven myself as not being a partisan Democrat. This is not a partisan thing. This is about a billionaire picking the pocket of American taxpayers while claiming to be helping them. You’ve taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. These cuts will only exacerbate the inequality of American society and lead to worse and worse outcomes.
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I'll be the first to criticize him for slashing the IRS. I think that's a mistake and I think you're exactly right that it tends to benefit rich people that don't earn their income from a W-2.

I don't think cutting programs that we pay money into that have very limited benefit for the American taxpayers is a bad thing, and there seem to be plenty of them.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I'll be the first to criticize him for slashing the IRS. I think that's a mistake and I think you're exactly right that it tends to benefit rich people that don't earn their income from a W-2.

I don't to cut programs that we pay money into that have very limited benefit for the American taxpayers and there seem to be plenty of them.
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Even if you think that is the case, social security is NOT one of those programs. Think about whose agenda you’re serving.
 
Paine said:
Social security has never missed a payment in its entire existence. You are searching for a problem that doesn’t exist in order to give billionaires more money. The alternative is seniors starving on the street. Raise the threshold on taxable income for social security. That’s the issue.
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I'm sure there was a point where Bernie Madoff had never missed a payment. Now calm down. I don't think Social Security is going to miss a payment because I think any politician that tried to do that, including Trump, would be committing political suicide. But I do think as it's currently structured it sounds an awful lot like a Ponzi scheme.
 
Healing said:
I see gt is playing the dumb and gullible tune, this AM. It’s a good one, though a bit played now on the 1148th rotation.

This PM he’ll sorta kinda agree with a fact based consensus, followed by an oblique “whatabout” or not so vague support of another whitewashing project.
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GT don't play.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I'm sure there was a point where Bernie Madoff had never missed a payment. Now calm down. I don't think Social Security is going to miss a payment because I think any politician that tried to do that, including Trump, would be committing political suicide. But I do think as it's currently structured it sounds an awful lot like a Ponzi scheme.
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Again, if you think there is an issue with social security’s ability to continue paying full benefits, the solution is to raise the threshold on which income can be taxed for social security.
 
Paine said:
Even if you think that is the case, social security is NOT one of those programs. Think about whose agenda you’re serving.
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Is he claiming he wants to cut Social Security? I haven't heard that. I'm going to have egg on my face if he has but it seems like it would be a pretty big story if he did.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Regarding the Social Security fraud, he did talk about that in a Joe Rogan interview. Rogan asked him directly if dead people were receiving Social Security benefits and Musk said he didn't think so. He said where the fraud is occurring is that other Federal departments use the Social Security database to determine if someone is alive or not. Since just about everybody has Social Security, I'm sure that was an expedient way to determine that. So the fraud occurs when a different department or agency looks at the social security database and says yes, this person is still alive, and should be getting whatever benefit.

Musk also pointed out that it may be fraud or it may be waste or a bit of both. Say a large nursing home business is getting a check for a deceased resident. They haven't requested that payment but they also haven't confirmed that the resident is alive or gone out of their way to tell the government they shouldn't be getting the check. Is that fraud or waste or a bit of both?
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It's not happening so....neither.
 
Paine said:
Again, if you think there is an issue with social security’s ability to continue paying full benefits, the solution is to raise the threshold on which income can be taxed for social security.
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Okay. That's certainly one solution. There are a few others.

I don't understand why Elon finding and pointing out fraud or just incompetence necessarily prevents your fix, any other fixes, or would lead to a dismantling of the program.
 
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