Trump Admin dismantling Dept. of Education — mass firings underway

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Patb78 said:
A big problem with what is going on is Musk and his minions don’t know jack shit about how our government functions. These cuts have been proposed in a time frame where there is no way they could have learned about the departments they are talking about gutting. They are assuming there is massive fraud in the spending of federal funds. Attacking SS by claiming large numbers of dead people are still receiving benefits (something that is impossible) and calling it a Ponzi scheme should set off alarm bells for everyone. The cuts they are proposing for Medicaid will have disastrous effects on the millions of poor people who rely on it for healthcare. By far most people in nursing homes are there because Medicaid pays for them to be there. Drastically reducing the federal part of Medicaid funding will mean a lot of people will lose nursing home care. This will undoubtedly lead to the closure of many nursing homes. Medicare will only pay for a 90 day stay in a nursing home and that is with a qualifying event (stroke, fall, etc) where the patient receives therapy. After the 90 days is up and the patient still needs further time in the facility they have to pay their own way or, if they qualify, they can move to Medicaid which provides open ended care. If what they are planning comes to fruition, then a lot of poor people are going to suffer. Hell, probably a lot of us will so they can give tax cuts to the wealthy.
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Mistakes have been made. That will happen when you come in with a chainsaw and not a scalpel. People that should not have been fired, have been fired and then rehired. The mistakes are being corrected, as far as I've seen. It's not ideal but at least it's something to get rid of waste.

I think the biggest issue, and you see this response from posters here, is that it seems like monopoly money. "$59 million to house illegals in NY? Who cares. $59 million is a drop in the bucket!" Then you add on the next unnecessary, and sometimes ridiculous, "$59 million" and then another and another and another and another and another and another... always under the same guise of "It's just a drop in the bucket".
 
The very way they handle things create waste and uncertainty and run away the most qualified. Get rid of waste, my ass. There couldn't have been a worst approach.
 
And what is Trump's plan for funding public education if the funds from the federal government is discontinued?

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as if there is no plan whatsoever. If that is correct, do MAGAs not see a problem here?
 
ZenMode said:
It ballooned because there simply aren't enough people (Congress, voters, etc) who care enough to do something about spending, which is why I'm inclined to tolerate, maybe even support, what Trump and Elon are doing. Even if they're doing it for the wrong reason, and are light years from resolving the issue, at least they're doing something. Something is more than anyone else has done since Bill Clinton.
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Something can be good or bad. Something for something's sake is not itself a positive. Hitler did "something" to solve Germany's economic woes, but it wasn't a good something.

It is of course true that there is no constituency for actually balancing the budget, because tax cuts and pork get politicians elected, not austerity. Thus, an argument could be made that you need to be unorthodox to break the political malaise.

The problem is that Elon's unorthodoxy is not really about solving the problem, it is about cultural wars and perceived accomplishments. The exact opposite of NC's state motto. If you want to cut the deficit, you need to increase growth, raise taxes, and slash spending -- especially in entitlement programs and defense. And yet, entitlement programs and defense are the least able to be cut. Eliminating 5% of the federal workforce and pausing foreign aid is not even a pimple on the butt of the budget deficit.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
But can we start by getting back to 2019 spending levels?
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Not unless we can get back to 2019 prices and interest rates.

Everything is more expensive now in case you haven't noticed. It costs a heck of a lot more to service our national debt in 2025 than it did in 2019.
 
How much of that 28% increase is to interest in debt? Serious question, I don’t know.
Just the difference in interest rates could be a huge chunk of it, right? I could be wrong.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
1.7/4.5 =0.378
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Yeah, he got you there. Gotta be careful on those callout threads.

A 28% reduction would get you to the 2019 number, but it was a 38% increase to get to the 2025 number.

That said, he is totally wrong on the numbers. Our spending in 2019 was 5.47 trillion, not 4.5 trillion.

fiscaldata.treasury.gov

Fiscal Data Explains Federal Spending

Check out @FiscalService Fiscal Data’s new federal spending page! #FederalSpending
fiscaldata.treasury.gov fiscaldata.treasury.gov
 
Calheel said:
Yeah, he got you there. Gotta be careful on those callout threads.

A 28% reduction would get you to the 2019 number, but it was a 38% increase to get to the 2025 number.

That said, he is totally wrong on the numbers. Our spending in 2019 was 5.47 trillion, not 4.5
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Google and Wikipedia disagree
 
It is actually maddeningly difficult to find solid data on Department of Education budget year over year, at least on a relatively quick Google. I found and downloaded the official DoE spreadsheet but it only goes through 2021 and reports a lower annual number than reported in other places in the media. I did notice that the DoE budget each year during the Trump Admin was substantially higher (25-50%) than Trump’s proposed budget.

Will have to look again this weekend when I have more time.
 
nycfan said:
It is actually maddeningly difficult to find solid data on Department of Education budget year over year, at least on a relatively quick Google. I found and downloaded the official DoE spreadsheet but it only goes through 2021 and reports a lower annual number than reported in other places in the media. I did notice that the DoE budget each year during the Trump Admin was substantially higher (25-50%) than Trump’s proposed budget.

Will have to look again this weekend when I have more time.
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The President's proposed budget is irrelevant, which I am sure you know. Congress just takes the prior year's budget and adds a small increase to each category. Maybe you'll get a small tweak here or there, but I am not sure anyone in Congress even reads the president's proposed budget.
 
Calheel said:
The President's proposed budget is irrelevant, which I am sure you know. Congress just takes the prior year's budget and adds a small increase to each category. Maybe you'll get a small tweak here or there, but I am not sure anyone in Congress even reads the president's proposed budget.
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I know, but for some reason the DoE spreadsheet reports it every year along with the actual appropriations…
 
ZenMode said:
Mistakes have been made. That will happen when you come in with a chainsaw and not a scalpel. People that should not have been fired, have been fired and then rehired. The mistakes are being corrected, as far as I've seen. It's not ideal but at least it's something to get rid of waste.

I think the biggest issue, and you see this response from posters here, is that it seems like monopoly money. "$59 million to house illegals in NY? Who cares. $59 million is a drop in the bucket!" Then you add on the next unnecessary, and sometimes ridiculous, "$59 million" and then another and another and another and another and another and another... always under the same guise of "It's just a drop in the bucket".
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Zen, I see what you are saying. However, the way Musk is going about it is not the way you eliminate fraud. About half of my career was in healthcare. I was the Finance Director for a company that provided services under Medicaid programs. While I can’t speak to fraud in defense, education and other departments, I can speak to fraud in healthcare. First off, fraud is not committed by an individual. That’s virtually impossible. Fraud is committed by healthcare providers. This can exist of companies that provide nursing home services and medical equipment. There are several services that Medicaid pays for. One certainly is nursing homes. Another is in home care. These are called CAP (Community Alternative Programs) services. CAP bring services to people in their home so they don’t have to enter an institution. When a person applies for assistance under a Medicaid program the first thing the agency that will provide the care does is work with Medicaid to see if the patient is eligible from a financial standpoint. If they are, then a plan of care is developed by the agency’s case manager. This plan most fall within the guidelines set by Medicaid. The plan of care is the key. That determines what services the patient is going to receive. The services provided under the plan of care determine what the agency can bill. Each service has a code. The code is how the agency bills Medicaid. If a service is provided that is outside the plan of care (an example would be too many hours) then Medicaid will not pay and the agency must eat the cost. The way fraud is committed is by false billing by an agency. They can charge for services and equipment not provided for by the plan of care. There was a company called the Scooter Store. They guaranteed they could get your grandmother a scooter thru Medicare or Medicaid. When I saw that I knew they were committing fraud. The scooter would have to be part of the plan of care to be covered. They were falsifing plans of care. The company I worked for was owned by what was at the time the largest nursing home contingent the country. They eventually lost both their Medicaid and Medicare licenses. Both the Scooter Store and the company I worked for lost their licenses because they committed fraud. The fraud was discovered, not by somebody who didn’t know what the fuck was going coming to Medicaid and Medicare and telling them to slash say $200B, but by government auditors. A healthcare company can commit fraud for awhile, but they will eventually be found out by auditors. If musk was really serious about reducing fraud in government health care agencies, he would hire more auditors. A strong auditing arm is the best and only way to find and prevent fraud in healthcare programs.
 
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