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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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?
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
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?
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I'd rather have Elon Fucking Musk shipped to Siberia and not touching any dollars or data that I fund.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
How do you know that? You don't think any entities are getting payments from the government that they shouldn't have based on social securities incorrect database? Seems pretty plausible to me.
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Lol...and Elon operating in good faith also seems plausible to you so there's that.

The man literally has ALL the data from every organization and is cross referencing all of it in real time. If those payments associated with those SSNs existed, it would already be plastered by Elon and you know it.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Just imagine it wasn't a very popular government program.
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Social Security benefits represent about 31% of the income of people over age 65. Among Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and older, 39% of men and 44% of women receive 50% or more of their income from Social Security. Among Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and older, 12% of men and 15% of women rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income.
Getting rid of Soc Sec woud be ridiculous. "Fixing it "would be fairly easy-but congress is not interested in doing any work that might offend high earners
 
Paine said:
That’s how these things work gt. I think you’re smart enough to realize this.

This is the same line Republicans have used for decades and decades. They can’t come right out and say they want to cut social security as you point out. So what they say is there is some kind of fraud going on. Dubya did the same exact thing. It is a pretext to cut benefits. They trot out the same language about Medicaid.
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So the strategy has failed for decades and decades but now it's going to work? I guess I'm just not connecting how a program that is extremely popular with a very large voting block would be in danger because folks are pointing out fraud and working to correct it.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
How do you know that? You don't think any entities are getting payments from the government that they shouldn't have based on social securities incorrect database? Seems pretty plausible to me.
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He's literally killing people with some of these cuts that are unwarranted. I don't mind rooting out fraud but not at the cost of people's lives.
 
Paine said:
It’d about pretext and undermining trust. You undermine trust in social security, get enough people who aren’t currently receiving benefits to not care or think there’s fraud or whatever, and then you cut the program/privatize.

This is the natural outcome of undermining trust in one of the most trusted and cherished programs the government offers. We’ve seen it happen time and time again with other programs.
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If that is their plan, let me know how that works out for them. At this point, we can only know for sure what has happened over the last few decades.

I think we should also remember what Elon has said. Rogan asked him if dead people are receiving Social Security benefits. He said he didn't think so. He said other programs might be providing incorrect payments based on the Social Security database. That doesn't sound like he wants to undermine the trust in the social security program which again is extremely popular with a very important voting block. It sounds like he wants to undermine trust in a social security database which to me seems pretty fixable.
 
wmheel1287 said:
Nothing associated with Musk or what he's doing has anything to do with Democracy. He was not a candidate. He has not been vetted or congressionally approved. Everything he is doing is contrary to precedent, statute, and every other check we have in our governance.
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Well that's working its way through the courts but there are plenty of government employees and unpaid concerned American citizens that were not candidates, were not vetted, and were not congressionally approved. I don't think that really proves your point.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
If that is their plan, let me know how that works out for them. At this point, we can only know for sure what has happened over the last few decades.

I think we should also remember what Elon has said. Rogan asked him if dead people are receiving Social Security benefits. He said he didn't think so. He said other programs might be providing incorrect payments based on the Social Security database. That doesn't sound like he wants to undermine the trust in the social security program which again is extremely popular with a very important voting block. It sounds like he wants to undermine trust in a social security database which to me seems pretty fixable.
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Sure...labeling the entire system as a Ponzi scheme in the very same interview was not meant to engender distrust.

Yep, makes total sense.
 
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