How did you Americans allow any of this?
The system is most definitely not working as designed, primarily because Congress has completely abdicated their congressional duty as a co-equal branch of government. Their are good congressional reasons why high-level advisors to the president need to be approved by the Senate. The fact that Musk and his cabal are doing an end run around this congressional requirement by posing as some sort of "special government employee" or whatever is laughable.
Never mind that funding can't just be cancelled because the executive branch doesn't want to spend it, and that is completely contrary to the "power of the purse" that is the purview of Congress.
The voters also elected people to Congress that are aligned with his agenda, so they are allowing him to do what he wants.
> The fact that Musk and his cabal are doing an end run around this congressional requirement by posing as some sort of "special government employee" or whatever is laughable.
A judge just signed off on it so it seems to be legal.
> that is completely contrary to the "power of the purse" that is the purview of Congress.
They are choosing not to exercise that power.
I’ll admit I’m wrong if and when it turns out that I am. Until then, I’m cheering it on.
Social security isn't waste, but it is on the chopping block.
It blows my mind that people are so hungry to hurt so many others and themselves in the process.
I’ll be lucky if my generation will even be able to pull anything out of social security.
But just because I’ve been contributing my whole life doesn’t mean we should double down of a failing program.
If you want to be taken seriously, don't make false claims. It weakens your other arguments. Social Security is 6.2% (12.4% if self-employed since the employer takes care of half) on the first $176,100 of your net income (which for the median US taxpayer is on all their income). Medicare is 1.45% (2.9% if self-employed, same as Social Security).
So if you are self-employed, you pay at most 15.3% of your income below $176,100 in combined Social Security and Medicare. That's a lot, but it's not 25%. If you are not self-employed, you're paying 7.65% on income below $176,100 to both Social Security and Medicare which is very far from 25%.
If you're earning over $176,100 your effective Social Security tax rate will drop.
https://www.semafor.com/article/02/06/2025/inside-doges-marc...
I personally hope that it is more of the second
Patience has expired.
There was lots of time to use the scalpel. The doctor never showed up, so the pre med dropout showed up with a sledgehammer, dumb and self serving as he may be. Trump is the symptom of the disease not the main cause.
To this, we agree. To better understand a why so many are resisting, I encourage you to read up on Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment, then who has associated themselves with that movement. The overlap in the Executive branch and Trump's more outlandish ideas are substantial. Technofascism and neofeudalism are not acceptable solutions.
I’m open minded but so far all I’ve heard is Musk/Trump haters clanging the alarm that somehow they’re going to take over the government or ruin America or whatever. With no explanation and no facts to back it up.
Historically-speaking American presidents are using more and more executive orders to push things through.
That doesn’t inherently make them bad.
I’d be curious which orders you personally find to be “batshit insane?”
That's the only one I'm aware of at this time, but there's in the high 10's of lawsuits in progress, so there's time for others to be found similarly.
I suspect the Christian only faith department would also count as illegal eventually.
And DOGE. You know they are going in and changing safety systems at the FAA, right? Insane.
Or maybe it's just too avoid having to worry about sexually harassing his employees[2].
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-mus...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-paid-250000-to-a-flig...
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musks-enemy-usaid-was-investigating...
His attack on USAID was not "rooting out waste", it was to settle a personal vendetta against the agency.
DOGE found that USAID has actually spent taxpayer dollars to funding terrorists.
I have no idea how we try to connect these dots to be “personal”. USAID was a sham and it’s been exposed.
And they alleged terrorism. They did not show it, FISA and other courts aren't engaged, and they have Flynn, a foreign agent, making those claims and boosting them.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant and we should be ensuring it's shining everywhere.
Get us a real candidate from the Democratic Party and we could have a discussion but Kamala was even less qualified than trump and what many non-Americans seem to miss is that Americans care about policy A LOT. We generally don’t give a shit if our president is a meanie head or says not nice things. In general we care a LOT about what they say they’re going to do.
Trump’s plans for the nation sounded pretty good to myself and a whole heck of a lot of other Americans winning the popular vote, the electoral college, and (my memory is fuzzy) every swing state except 1?
I don't care if Trump has amazing plans or is Mother Teresa and Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin rolled into one, he is anti-democracy and that automatically disqualifies him, and those who support him should be ashamed of themselves for not caring. (and that's before we get into his character; I kind of liked Trump way back at the beginning, thought he might be a Ross Perot type of guy; but once that recording of him talking about women came out (before the 2016 elections), I lost all respect for him. And all of his actions since then have been completely self-serving. There is no way someone like that should have so much power, not just over the country but as commander in chief of the military.)
So when you have someone who is such a poor character, and who is anti-democracy, policy doesn't really matter.
But everything is going great, right?
A Democratic DOJ could very well arrest and charge Musk for what he is doing.
Sure, there's waste as in any large organization, and streamlining is great. But to say that all US foreign aid is "rampant waste" and USAID should be shut down? Because it's not being shut down because it was "wasteful" but because it's full of "radical leftists" (supposedly).
None of the purges at any of these agencies so far have had anything to go with "government waste". They are based on ideology.
Come on, open your eyes -- they're being pretty open about what this is about.
49.8% is less than half.
If you're from anywhere else ... well, then it's really not surprising.
None of this is legal anyways, Trump is bypassing congress and the judiciary branch. It's not really "allowed", more like forced onto them right now.