Elon Musk Stuff
- Thread starter LonghornCatholic
- Start date
Nope, either the House or Senate could have.
Yes, but not just any President. One with no fear and the balls to seek the truth. Believe me when I tell you that you NEVER want to be the one or one of the ones trying to "start the investigation".
It seems to me that all the stuff Trump is doing has to be done near-simultaneously, like blitzkrieg, so the opposing forces have no time to organize an effective counter. If you don't do them all, or most of them, at nearly the same time, the ones left untouched can (and have in the past) fund and function to thwart the work.
Actually, I think you're both right. I think it is becoming a bit of a farce in some ways, and I think it is providing some much-needed exposure to the left wing grift that has been happening at taxpayer expense.
There has been some significant hyperbole about the savings (like promises of $5K checks, etc.), and the "what did you do last week" e-mail is a bit of a farce. DoD, State, Homeland Security, and Energy officials are telling employees not to respond, presumably because of national security concerns. However, that of course, sets up a dilemma for the employee. Do you obey OPM (who's obviously taking orders from Musk), or do you obey your boss?
However, it's also exposing some terrible and corrupt things happening within the agencies like USAID. I say keep it going, despite the missteps.
My biggest concern though is that DOGE is getting a hell of a lot of attention and focus, and though I think it's doing some good work, it wasn't Trump's mandate. His mandate was to deal with inflation and the cost of living and of course, immigration. He can't take his eye off those balls and can't be perceived to have taken it off them.
My other concern is that DOGE is likely being perceived by some as an alternative to true deficit reduction. It isn't. Congress appropriates money. The Executive has some discretion over how some of it is spent, but the real spending is done on Capitol Hill. What I'd really like to see is DOGE put pressure on Congress to truly cut spending by legislation. That is the right way to do it and the only way to do it and reap major savings.
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This was five days ago and DOGE is a farce for Congress and what the media, Fox in particular, isn't telling the public is how money is appropriated and how the Senate Republicans are not listening to DOGE recommendations. I hope they do on next year's budget bill.
^The speech by Rand Paul is well worth hearing - the man makes good sense.
Yep. The budget writers and appropriators on Capitol Hill need to get the message as much as the filthy little degenerates at the NSA do.
My son works for the DOD. He's on probation. It ends March 12th. He was advised by the uppers not to take the severance offer and he didn't. Now he's kicking himself. He's waiting for the axe to fall. He also was advised not to respond to the email request, so he didn't send it in. There was a meeting and one of the employees said he was going to send one in. Musk's response that it wasn't literal is maddening. Everybody is receiving conflicting information and do not know how to react. Anything could be the wrong move.
Many people do not care about government workers and I had the same cynicism about them. Of course, now that it's my family I have skin in the game. It's pretty awful. We're stressed out and feel very powerless. Note that he's been working in the office the entire time. His boss made them so he's not one of those RTO whiners.
My son is in something called a PAQ program. It's basically a 3-year training that involved starting last March at $50K plus payments on your student loan. It has a track where he'll be promoted each subsequent year. We were concerned that if he took the severance package he'd have to pay back what has been paid down on his loan which is around $9K at this point (meaning he makes $60Kish but lives on $50K). He would have to pay it back had he quit outright. That hangs over everyone in this program so it keeps them put. But apparently he would not have had to pay it back as part of the severance deal which we found out later because some moron in his agency failed to disclose it until after the fact. My son was delaying his decision until the judge ruled and then when he did, Trump immediately announced the offer was over. We were stunned by the lack of even 24 hours to mull it over. Nobody on the street knew how the judge would rule (union had no standing; court had no jurisdiction). So to me, Trump made the offer to look good ("I made the offer") then yanked it because they didn't really want that many people to get that deal which sounds great (but the protections in the actual document were slim). Now they can shitcan people with zero severance which is what we're looking at.
The ruthlessness and confusion made it hard for him to trust the offer especially because Trump/Musk have asked for agency's to prove their existence by statute which means any future spend will be subject to that and the severance agreement would be a contract and you had no chance to have a lawyer review it.
Many people do not care about government workers and I had the same cynicism about them. Of course, now that it's my family I have skin in the game. It's pretty awful. We're stressed out and feel very powerless. Note that he's been working in the office the entire time. His boss made them so he's not one of those RTO whiners.
My son is in something called a PAQ program. It's basically a 3-year training that involved starting last March at $50K plus payments on your student loan. It has a track where he'll be promoted each subsequent year. We were concerned that if he took the severance package he'd have to pay back what has been paid down on his loan which is around $9K at this point (meaning he makes $60Kish but lives on $50K). He would have to pay it back had he quit outright. That hangs over everyone in this program so it keeps them put. But apparently he would not have had to pay it back as part of the severance deal which we found out later because some moron in his agency failed to disclose it until after the fact. My son was delaying his decision until the judge ruled and then when he did, Trump immediately announced the offer was over. We were stunned by the lack of even 24 hours to mull it over. Nobody on the street knew how the judge would rule (union had no standing; court had no jurisdiction). So to me, Trump made the offer to look good ("I made the offer") then yanked it because they didn't really want that many people to get that deal which sounds great (but the protections in the actual document were slim). Now they can shitcan people with zero severance which is what we're looking at.
The ruthlessness and confusion made it hard for him to trust the offer especially because Trump/Musk have asked for agency's to prove their existence by statute which means any future spend will be subject to that and the severance agreement would be a contract and you had no chance to have a lawyer review it.
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And this is all foolish. I understand that there are major problems with the government workforce. However, this assumption that they're all nefarious actors who deserve whatever crap comes to them is wrong, and frankly it encourages federal employees to become nefarious actors.
In reality, though inefficiencies exist throughout the government sector, virtually none of them are the fault of rank and file federal employees. Furthermore, outside of the DC area, most federal employees are basically regular people and not particularly political. Most of them just saw a job opportunity and took it.
Rand Paul is right. If there are really "trillions" in FWA illuminated by DOGE then we should be applying it towards fixing our budget and debt issue rather than spending more on programs we already can't afford.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Exactly, but as we saw this week the Republicans passed a budget bill that significantly increases government spending. This is why I am no longer a Republican even if I vote for them occasionally.
There's a lot of hypocrisy. Their wanting to raise the debt ceiling is exhibit A. They just don't give a F. I understand why the Dems were pissed about SCOTUS because the Republicans gamed the nomination process to stiff arm Garland. So the Dems treated Kavanaugh so badly. At this moment, the Republicans have total power and if riots break out, I would understand.
I agree. What we've seen so far is a different approach to the same old Washington. Kill the programs the opposition favors and replace them with money pits our side favors.
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