Trump / Musk (other than DOGE) Omnibus Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 12K
  • Views: 325K
  • Politics 
So Trump signed an executive order that states that nobody in the executive branch can interpret laws except the president and attorney general.

(This is being misrepresented in a lot of places. He is not saying the judicial branch can’t interpret laws. At least not yet.)

Not only is this a power grab but it seems entirely unworkable.

I can’t imagine Bondi making a judgement on every weird tax law scenario that might come up. I can’t imagine military lawyers telling their commanders they can’t opine on the legality of a certain action without going through Bondi.

Lord knows Trump ain’t handling these.
 


DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.​

The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.

“… Almost half of those line-item savings could be attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But it appears that the DOGE list vastly overstated the actual intended value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion. A larger total savings number published on the site, $55 billion, lacked specific documentation.

The contract, with a company called D&G Support Services, was to provide “program and technical support services” for the Office of Diversity and Civil Rights at ICE. The Trump administration has been purging diversity programs from the federal government.

By examining past versions of the contract listed on the Federal Procurement Data System, The Upshot determined that the federal award, approved in September 2022, had initially listeda total value of $8 billion. But on Jan. 22 this year, that figure was updated to $8 million. According to the database, the contract was terminated about a week later. (For context, $8 billion is nearly the size of the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) …”

IMG_5067.jpeg
 
Enigma94 said:
Yes and it shows $55 billion in savings. No way to tell if that's actual waste/fraud or if they are just cancelling things they don't like. Regardless $55 billion is about .7% of the overall budget, so suffice to say we aren't getting to a balanced budget this way. Also, any savings like this will be obliterated by the Trump tax cut plan. So now that I answered your question, please point me to the evidence of the fraud they claim. Thanks.
Click to expand...
It's, uh, classified. Can't just show this data to anyone, right/
 
Silence Dogood said:
How are Republican tax cuts benefitting the rich based on the numbers I gave? Why is this so hard for you guys? Trump also cut taxes on individuals on the lower end, something that keeps getting ignored.
Click to expand...
How are tax cuts benefitting the rich? Seriously? The share of the country's income and wealth going to the rich (whether you want to isolate it to the top 20%, 10%, 1%, or whatever) has steadily increased over the past 40+ years, the time during which the tax rates for the rich have steadily been cut. Their income and wealth are rising by much more than the amount their total tax payments are increasing.

Perhaps you truly don't understand the math side of this. Let's try a simple example, ignoring the marginal levels for the simplicity of the math. Let's say someone is paying a 50% tax rate on $500k of income. That's 250k in taxes. Now let's say 10 years later that same person pays a 35% tax rate on $1 million of income. That's $350k in taxes. The amount of taxes the person is paying went up by $100k even though his tax rate went down! Does that mean the tax cut hurt him? No, of course not. He now gets to keep a much greater share of his much greater income. That is what has been happening for the rich in this country. It's why their wealth and their income is rising much more quickly, on a percentage basis, than anyone in the classes below them.

It's hard to tell whether you just don't understand this or if you're trolling.
 
lawtig02 said:
As this thread gets longer, it's worth remembering DOGE is, in many ways, one of Trump's biggest feints. It's not that we should ignore it, as the very concept of DOGE is creating a horrific precedent, and it's adding tremendously to the disinformation storm that Trump is using to cover his consolidation of power. But the money DOGE will "save" is insignificant in the big scheme of things. The REAL damage Trump's team is doing right now is in (a) foreign policy, where he's actively destroying our most important alliances and handing enormous power to our autocratic enemies, and (b) his dismantling of vital federal agencies and departments, which as I understand it is largely being done through Trump's appointees and his legal team, and not through DOGE. He will also wreak havoc on the economy, but he's not able to do that as quickly as the harm he's causing to our foreign relations and the infrastructure that keeps the government functional.

So, all good to point out DOGE's absurdities. But the hyperfocus on Musk's irrelevant vanity project is distracting a lot of attention from the things Trump is doing that really matter.
Click to expand...
I'm just using DOGE as shorthand for all the firings and agency cuts Trump is making. I understand that there are a lot more people than Musk involved. But clearly Musk has a real influence in it - see him quoting his Twitter "fork in the road" emails to government employees, the staff reporting to him being given direct access, him being the mouthpiece for the cuts, etc. I don't think it's that DOGE is a feint so much as Trump finding it convenient to use Musk as a public-facing buffer who he can throw under the bus at some point if it becomes necessary. You're certainly right that the administrative cuts themselves are the big issue.
 
superrific said:
He clearly listens to the people around him. They are, of course, not responsible. However, pulling troops out of the Baltics is so daft that even the irresponsible people could talk him out of it. Just like with Gaetz. He put zero effort into defending him once he realized that he'd been played, and even the Senate GOP was like, "no fucking way."

Someone told him to kill the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. That person was probably not responsible, but anyone could see that tanking the markets was a bad idea.
Click to expand...
It was the tanking stock market, not a strategy.
 
superrific said:
He clearly listens to the people around him. They are, of course, not responsible. However, pulling troops out of the Baltics is so daft that even the irresponsible people could talk him out of it. Just like with Gaetz. He put zero effort into defending him once he realized that he'd been played, and even the Senate GOP was like, "no fucking way."

Someone told him to kill the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. That person was probably not responsible, but anyone could see that tanking the markets was a bad idea.
Click to expand...
There are no more Adults left in the Room.
 
Duke Mu said:
Our own Neville/Nazi Chamberlain

Click to expand...

What a great negotiator Trump is! Putin gets everything he wants and more, Ukraine gets nothing, and we abandon Europe. If this report turns out to be accurate, would any of our resident Trumpers or bosiders like to chime in and defend Dear Leader's brilliant negotiating strategy?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top