President Trump says he has directed Elon Musk to audit The Pentagon
twitter.com
twitter.com
> "The rest of us sleep less soundly in our beds, Republicans, knowing that you have put Pentagon fraudsters in the care of an auditor who will ignore them the instant they make a good offer! He will not remain loyal to you, taxpayers! Joining in can offer Musk much more scope for his powers and his pleasures than you can!"
-- Not actually Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire pointing out that the government shouldn't rely on dementors as prison guards
And the person in charge of Pete Hegseth is Donald Trump, who just ordered Musk, not Hegseth, to lead the audit.
Not that a Fox news commentator who starts his mornings with a three martini breakfast would be an improvement, mind you.
Reducing waste at the Pentagon is absolutely necessary if they are going to achieve that goal.
The Pentagon has failed 7 audits in a row.
https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-...
If we want to really tackle the deficit we probably need to raise revenue at least for a while, get the debt itself down (debt payments are a large percentage of the budget, and of course compounding). And figure out how to get Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to be more efficient or just say fuck it and cut them.
So far this FY we've accumulated another $700 billion in deficits with $1.79 trillion spent and about $1.08 trillion in revenue. If you look at the spending by agency, the DOD so far this FY has spent $250 billion, a bit more than 1/3rd the new deficit. HHS and SSA are $452 billion and $395 billion.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/natio...
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Yet, here we see that partisans are similarly inflamed by the prospect of the Defense Dept. facing scrutiny. There's truly nothing which can satisfy some of these extreme voices.
Rooting out waste is a laudable goal but it’s easy to use “waste reduction” as a pretext for waging an ideological purge.
I thought we all agreed ideological purges are bad on the basis that you will disagree when the purge eventually comes for you?
They have read only access to the government data.
They are posting every single recommendation they make for spending reduction on their website AND on Twitter for transparency.
What about this process do people have a problem with?
It seems like the real reason people are upset is that dollars are no longer flowing to leftist groups who were using the money to advance leftist causes.
Example:
- $3.9 million for “LGBT causes” in the western Balkans
— $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda
— $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in “priority countries around the world”
— $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa
— $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”
Turns out actually in a court filing today they told the judge they have read/write access.
Does this change your assessment, or will you rationalize it?
> They are posting every single recommendation they make for spending reduction on their website AND on Twitter for transparency.
These aren't recommendations, they are just posting things supporters don't like on ideological grounds as a pretext for cutting entire programs. Which, I can see is your main interest when you bring up the next point about leftist causes (frankly I don't care about any of those causes you linked to).
Which, let's unpack that. Because what are you saying here? That leftist causes should not be funded? Why? America is split about 50/50, which means you're talking about 100+ million people who support those causes. People on the left voted for representatives and passed legislation which provided money to do things they want to do. The same is true for the right. We have to find a way to agree to disagree, and cutting all of the other side's priorities is not that.
But now you're saying that the President can just come in and pull all grants and funds toward political causes his 50% doesn't support? What's stopping the next Democrat then from just defunding everything Republicans supported and voted for?
It looks like they are targeting 2T in savings as a goal.
Remember this the next time they talk about "wasting money".
>$3.9 million for “LGBT causes” in the western Balkans
>$5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda
>$6 million for advancing LGBT issues in “priority countries around the world”
>$6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa
>$8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”
The list goes on.
(Not to mention calling fighting HIV "for men who have sex with men"...)
They're also cutting funding to agencies that make money!
I don’t know where you get this from, there is no evidence of this anywhere. They are talking constantly about paying down the national debt as one of the top priorities for this initiative. It has ballooned to 36T under the previous administration and it is at the point where it could become a real crisis for the country if it’s not addressed. Interest payments alone will outstrip all defense spending soon.
Trump just announced a tax plan targeting the middle class. Specifically removing the carried interest deduction which hurts rich people!
Have you noticed how many of the top leaders in the cabinet are former democrats? Most of these people are moderates who want to actually reduce waste and fraud.
If you want to put your head in the sand now, fine. Remember though that Trump made large tax cuts for the rich last time and they've said they'll do that again.
How does paying down the national debt with them shutting down agencies that make money? Or shutting down CFPB that returned over $20 billion to consumers?
You're getting fooled.
[0]: https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt
Heh.
But all in all: yes, and? You're just listing things as if listing them means there's a problem with them, without even bothering to identify problem with any of them. Or why they would require a fascist coup to address, for that matter.
These are government employees.
Government employees having read-only access to government systems is completely legal.
You can keep throwing around the word “coup” as much as you want, the only thing it’s accomplishing is to make the word mean less. Just like calling everyone you disagree with “racist”. It’s not effective anymore, nobody cares.
I have no reason to believe you know what "these things" are.
> People are outraged that their hard earned tax dollars are being wasted on stuff like this.
And they too don't know, and don't even ask, what "this" is. They see "men having sex with men" and it's off to the races apparently.
> You can keep throwing around the word “coup” as much as you want, the only thing it’s accomplishing is to make the word mean less.
With whom? The people who are going along so far are probably FUBAR anyway, not everything is for them.