Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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the government will need to rehire more people than most pubs realize. The effects will be a total shitshow. Indeed, most people have zero understanding how our fed gov works and why it needs the people it does
 
superrific said:
Gutting the CDC and the NIH in a world of infectious disease is political suicide. If there's a disease wave (even short of a pandemic), Trump now owns it. It doesn't matter if the CDC funding actually contributed to it. Cut public health funding, and the public will blame you if there's disease.
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I wish and hope you are correct.

If a disease wave can be blamed on a foreign lab or immigrants, a huge percentage of Americans will back Trump. Hell, if the disease(s) can be blamed on American scientists, that’ll work, too.
 
altmin said:
"Things are not okay. I am not okay."
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Raphael Warnock has an answer for you, dude:



Still gives me goosebumps. Probably the most inspirational political moment I've seen in a while. That's the guy who could convince me to run through a wall for him.
 

Office of the Inspector General

The Office of the Inspector General is directly responsible for meeting the statutory mission of promoting economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of Social Security Administration programs and operations and to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in...
oig.ssa.gov oig.ssa.gov

From back in August

SSA also has not implemented a number of recommendations related to its processes to recover overpayments and issue underpayments. OIG’s audits found the Agency’s actions to process over and underpayments were not always effective or consistent. SSA anticipated a new debt management product would address many of the recommendations. However, the Agency stopped implementation efforts in FY 2024 because the new product was not funded.

“Improper payments have been a longstanding challenge for SSA. While the Agency has taken actions to address this challenge, it needs to do more, and OIG’s recommendations can guide the Agency as it determines those corrective actions,” said Michelle L. Anderson, Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Acting Inspector General. “Without better access to data, increased automation, systems modernization, and policy or legislative changes, improper payments will continue to be a major challenge for SSA into the future.”

So we know it's happening, but DOGE is bad lol
 
Silence Dogood said:
Tax cuts promote economic growth.
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Not in general. It depends on the tax rates that currently exist.

A long time ago, I used to have this conversation with randman. It drove him to mouth-frothing even by his standards. First, we agreed that the optimal tax rate was not 100% or 0%. Somewhere in the middle. That means that raising taxes doesn't necessarily increase revenue (the current estimate for the Laffer turning point is about 70% IIRC), but also that cutting taxes doesn't necessarily improve economic performance. It's only a good thing if the tax rates are already too high.

There's not much evidence I'm aware of that our current tax rates are too high and choking growth. In fact, most of what I've seen is that our current tax rates are suboptimal, and they can be justified as preferences but not as efficiencies. Those are professional studies by professional policy people.
 
Silence Dogood said:
I didn't say for the rich, I meant in general.
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So it's just a coincidence that Republicans consistently give the biggest tax cuts to the rich?

But in any event, Republicans have been advocating tax cuts in general for the past 45 years; we've cut taxes; and the lower and middle classes aren't prosperous. There is no more basis for believing that tax cuts create prosperity than for believing that the tooth fairy is real.
 
lawtig02 said:
It also depends on how you define waste. The Fourth Circuit courthouse in Richmond is massive and beautifully ornate. I can’t imagine how much it costs to maintain, heat and cool it. Most of the time, the building is largely empty. But a few weeks every year, it’s packed with lawyers and judges. The hearings held there could surely be spread out among other smaller courthouses if necessary.

Is that building a waste? I’d say not, but from a purely financial perspective, I could see the argument that its cost outweighs its benefits.

Lots of things like that in the federal government, which is why those decisions are best made by our elected representatives in Congress and not by a neo-Nazi billionaire who runs his social media company like a chop shop.
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Excellent point. I'd say the courthouse is waste, though. If only there were a process by which we could have our opinions registered and tallied, along with many other people, to arrive at the result most people want.
 
Silence Dogood said:

Office of the Inspector General

The Office of the Inspector General is directly responsible for meeting the statutory mission of promoting economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of Social Security Administration programs and operations and to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in...
oig.ssa.gov oig.ssa.gov

From back in August

SSA also has not implemented a number of recommendations related to its processes to recover overpayments and issue underpayments. OIG’s audits found the Agency’s actions to process over and underpayments were not always effective or consistent. SSA anticipated a new debt management product would address many of the recommendations. However, the Agency stopped implementation efforts in FY 2024 because the new product was not funded.

“Improper payments have been a longstanding challenge for SSA. While the Agency has taken actions to address this challenge, it needs to do more, and OIG’s recommendations can guide the Agency as it determines those corrective actions,” said Michelle L. Anderson, Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Acting Inspector General. “Without better access to data, increased automation, systems modernization, and policy or legislative changes, improper payments will continue to be a major challenge for SSA into the future.”

So we know it's happening, but DOGE is bad lol
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Interesting that you would quote from the inspector general's recommendations when the Trump admin has just summarily fired numerous inspectors general. Why do you think an administration that claims to want less fraud and more efficiency is firing the government officials who are responsible for investigating fraud and inefficiency? Could it be...that Trump and Musk are not really being honest about their motives? The same people who in only a month have repeatedly lied about the "fraud" and "waste" they are supposedly uncovering? Surely not.

Also did you miss the part where the IG's recommendation to purchase new software to address over- and under-payments was not implemented "because it was not funded"? How do you expect DOGE is going to solve this particular problem? By randomly firing people?
 
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ZenMode said:
I've worked at a large company since 2008 and have gone through at least 3 significant downsizes. That's the cycle. We add people at all levels and we spend money and then we realize that there are too many managers, too many support people in specific jobs, too many unused tools, underutilized buildings we're paying for, etc and then we downsize. Then the cycle starts over again.
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Interesting, Do you think that means that your company is rife with fraud and waste? Because that's the logic you're applying to the government.

I mean you've been there since 2008 and the company keeps having these problems - do you think that means you need to be fired? That's the logic Trump and Elon are applying to the thousands of government employees they're summarily firing for no reason at all.
 
rodoheel said:
So it's just a coincidence that Republicans consistently give the biggest tax cuts to the rich?

But in any event, Republicans have been advocating tax cuts in general for the past 45 years; we've cut taxes; and the lower and middle classes aren't prosperous. There is no more basis for believing that tax cuts create prosperity than for believing that the tooth fairy is real.
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There's more to an economy than just taxes. You can't oversimplify it like you just did. Whether the "rich" is getting a tax cut is irrelevant considering the top earners are paying over 90% of the tax burden. The US has one of the highest corporations taxes. So cutting "rich" peoples taxes isn't really happening like you think it is. This has been debunked constantly. Democrat ran cities are struggling even you can't defend that garbage.
 
rodoheel said:
Interesting that you would quote from the inspector general's recommendations when the Trump admin has just summarily fired numerous inspectors general. Why do you think an administration that claims to want less fraud and more efficiency is firing the government officials who are responsible for investigating fraud and inefficiency? Could it be...that Trump and Musk are not really being honest about their motives? The same people who in only a month have repeatedly lied about the "fraud" and "waste" they are supposedly uncovering? Surely not.

Also did you miss the part where the IG's recommendation to purchase new software to address over- and under-payments was not implemented "because it was not funded"? How do you expect DOGE is going to solve this particular problem? By randomly firing people?
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Only 8 were fired and none at the social security administration
 
rodoheel said:
Interesting that you would quote from the inspector general's recommendations when the Trump admin has just summarily fired numerous inspectors general. Why do you think an administration that claims to want less fraud and more efficiency is firing the government officials who are responsible for investigating fraud and inefficiency? Could it be...that Trump and Musk are not really being honest about their motives? The same people who in only a month have repeatedly lied about the "fraud" and "waste" they are supposedly uncovering? Surely not.

Also did you miss the part where the IG's recommendation to purchase new software to address over- and under-payments was not implemented "because it was not funded"? How do you expect DOGE is going to solve this particular problem? By randomly firing people?
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Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
 
WaynetheDrain said:
First of all, that’s not a website for Doge. It’s a link to follow Doge on X.

But let’s roll with it.

So, perusing the Website, here is a post from Musk discussing all the Social Security recipients who are dead. Then he provides as proof an Excel document with random numbers attached, posting about death fields being set to false, with no explanation of what he’s actually talking about.

Does this seem transparent to you?



IMG_2637.jpeg
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That is probably true but what dogood fails to comprehend is that none of that proves any fraud. It is just that they can't account for how those people died.

As I have pointed out, when they did the study in 2015, of the 6.6 million over 112 with the death field set to false , only ***** 13 ***** were receiving any benefits. I am sure they investigated those 13.

Musk is implying that all of these people are getting some type of check. We have known since 2015 that that is false.
 
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Silence Dogood said:
There's more to an economy than just taxes. You can't oversimplify it like you just did. Whether the "rich" is getting a tax cut is irrelevant considering the top earners are paying over 90% of the tax burden. The US has one of the highest corporations taxes. So cutting "rich" peoples taxes isn't really happening like you think it is. This has been debunked constantly. Democrat ran cities are struggling even you can't defend that garbage.
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But you were talking about taxes. What are you talking about now?

90% of the tax burden? Talk about debunked. The top 1% pay about 25% of taxes. 90% of the tax burden is paid by . . . the top 55-60% or so.

itep.org

Who Pays Taxes in America in 2024

America's tax system is just barely progressive, and not nearly as progressive as many suggest or as progressive as it could be. There is plenty of room for lawmakers to improve the progressivity of the tax code to combat economic, wealth, and racial inequality.
itep.org itep.org

As for the cities "struggling," don't you think it's odd that the people most convinced of this are also the people who don't live in cities? Or even visit them? I mean, how the fuck would you know if NYC is "struggling." I lived there for a long time and it was wonderful. I have friends there, and they don't have anything to complain about. We have posters on this board who live there, and they dispute your characterization.

One city that is definitely struggling is San Francisco. But that's not because of politics; it's because of work from home. Portland suffered from a progressive reform that turned out badly. The reform has since been rescinded, and that is . . . one city, and not a particularly big one at that.
 
Silence Dogood said:
Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
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What would you know about incompetence?

Here's what I would consider a signature example of incompetence:

1. Fire mission critical people who maintain the nuclear weapon supply because you don't know what they do;
2. Try to rehire them in a pinch
3. Struggle to do so because you forgot to (or chose not to) get a contact number of forwarding address.

THAT is incompetence.
 
Silence Dogood said:
Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
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You still haven't provided any evidence that the outlandish claims being made by DOGE are true. Just a website showing $55B in cuts that doesn't indicate any fraud or waste beyond what Musk doesn't like combined with general platitudes around how government is bad and tax cuts stimulate the economy. I ask again, any evidence that the claims being made are true? If not why do you believe anything they say?
 
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