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Comment by arghandugh | Hacker News Reader

The already highly compromised ideologues who seized control of the federal government are dismantling it because they said they would.

Every comment on this post is frighteningly uninformed about current events.

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The number of “believe them when they say they will do…” articles over the past year contrasted with what happened in November and now, is a sobering picture of the state of things.

Not a single person has any license to be surprised at anything that’s happening.

At best we can say “this will be variously slowed down at points due to legal battles,” and hopefully even infighting with the broligarchs. But none of this is a shock.

It's just the beginning. There's a good breakdown of what it would take to reduce the government by Musk's "at least 2 trillion" and it doesn't look very good (for US citizens). I mean he what, is going to cut SpaceX contracts? Please...

https://youtu.be/5fvDfDDZ4Ms

> Musk's 2 trillion

There is no evidence this is an actual target for anyone in government.

Not for the government. For people outside of the government tasked with reducing the government. Musk is one of them

Musk did backtrack on the $2 trillion goal.

'Musk told political strategist Mark Penn in an interview broadcast on X that the $2 trillion figure was a “best-case outcome” and that he thought there was only a “good shot” at cutting half that.'

'That figure was quickly dismissed as implausible by budget experts, who said the entire discretionary budget was only $1.7 trillion. Musk hadn’t waved people off the number until Wednesday, and it has been widely cited in reports about DOGE’s plans. '

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-say...

"Half that" is still a massive problem. He's digging himself deeper.

> people outside of the government tasked with reducing the government

My point is we have seen zero evidence of this influence in Trump’s executive actions thus far. DOGE is analogous to the Federalist Society or NRA. Influential. But not policy prescriptive.

2 trillion is not prescriptive, but is there any unambiguous number published officially? Otherwise 2 tril is the only figure publicly advertised and I guess TFA is a sign they are starting to chip at this campaign promise

> 2 tril is the only figure publicly advertised and I guess TFA is a sign they are starting to chip at this campaign promise

Not a campaign promise if it didn’t come from the campaign!

This isn’t cost cutting. The DHS budget hasn’t been slashed. This is deregulation. (Which was a campaign promise.)

Wasn't one of campaign promises to reduce the government? And this is the only figure made public so far

> The DHS budget hasn’t been slashed.

Rome wasn't built (or destroyed) in a day. Once there are no members or investigations then what are the money spent on?;)

Blame it on Musk, replace the humans with computers. It could be an chronological digitalisation step and since the US is leading in the AI field they just start replacing the government with artificial intelligence.

Ah so you're saying he not only will not cut his existing gov contracts but actually add some more now for "AI government"? Sounds great and totally no conflict of interest

I'm inclined to write a Firefox addon that just replaces every headline out of the US with "Leopards Eating Faces official caught eating faces"

What other headlines are there? Though it's quite sad, I suspect that demeanor would match the rest of the stories in your feeds. I strongly suspect the anger has nothing do to with these committees, and would be reflected across the board.

“Then makes weird noises, nothing bad happens, and continues eating faces”.

If there are no consequences, it just reinforces their power.

I'd argue this government has not just experienced no consequences, they've experienced the opposite of no consequences. Somehow the American people saw everything they'd done and were saying they'd do and then the people emphatically voted for it. I'm still gobsmacked.

Just wait. Hitler was very popular too. Until he unequivocally lost, at least.

By then, the country was destroyed along with most of it’s citizens, but boy howdy was it a ride eh?

Hitler apparently had solid 15-20% support even up to a decade after defeat and Nazism generally had 50% support (before and after, as a good idea executed badly) so both your high and low are off.

I was going to write something pithy about "Sure, we screwed up, but we'll get right the next time!", but that really doesn't feel funny right now.

I’m not sure you’re saying what you think you’re saying.

hE's HiTlEr!!

Every time. I lived in Austin in the early 2000s and have no idea how many "BUSH=HITLER" bumper stickers I saw. It was stupid then, it's stupid now.

This has been a definite problem with the rhetoric starting at an intensity of 10/10 and having nowhere to go. The other problem is that everything that's happened has had people actively diminishing it, to make the reaction seem more outrageous, so we're all numb to so much of it. I've thought of it as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but that's incorrect, because there's always been a wolf.

The problem has been - what happens when the truth is so obvious, bad, and direct that many are unable to see it?

Yeah. How do you point out the truth when people will believe obvious and blatant lies?

Eh, it’s even worse frankly.

Have you heard stories about women (and men) who believe ‘they love me, they’d never cheat on me’ while their spouse is not only clearly cheating on them, but bragging to friends that they are cheating on them?

That’s what is happening. And the more in-your-face it is, the more they’ll double down or even attack the people trying to tell them.

Uh huh. How about we check in in about 5 years eh?

And don’t worry, I don’t think he’s literally Hitler. Hitler actually went to jail when he got convicted, after all.

It works both ways.

"Department of Mission Creep, Pork-Barrel, Tax and Spend, continues to tax and spend as it endeavors to expand pork-barrel mission."

Congress writes the tax laws and allocates the budgets to agencies for specific purposes. People can go to jail if they spend that money on something which Congress didn’t authorize.

Yes, it has been authorized. This hasn't been effective in limiting the scope of bureaucracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qByWF30jKiw

So don’t blame the agency for doing what they’re required to do, blame the people who make the rules. If your cable company does something you don’t like, do you blame the clerk in front of you or the CEO who sets policy?

Perhaps someone came in and realized that this advisory board had 0 benefit and just a waste of tax payer money? If so, I’m all for getting rid of wasteful spending

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