Despite the hype, DOGE hasn't found a shred of fraud | Hacker News Reader

Despite the hype, DOGE hasn't found a shred of fraud

publicnotice.co

86 pointsbelter22 comments

I can only encourage fellow Americans to consult with international media. It can be quite informative, I find, to get a foreign perspective on American affairs.

I started reading The Guardian around 2006 or so, BBC News occasionally but it feels more like clickbait titles these days... The Guardian is not totally "international media" since I think they have lots of US staff and contributors, but its removed enough in my opinion, and I appreciate the criticism of the US as an American. Lots of quality content in lots of areas. I think lots of fellow Americans would find it very palatable too.

Occam's razor... The number of things that need to go right for there to be organized and/or systemic fraud, and nobody to be able to come out, let alone provide credible evidence for it is enormous.

Yeah, you know all that oversight and red tape they hate so much and just threw out? All those inspector generals? Their whole purpose was to make sure the government follows the law. It was quite effective.

The mistake some fools have made is to take what Trump, Musk, and Republicans say in good faith. When they say they are going to get rid of fraud, what they really mean is they are going to commit it.

Why is this flagged?

Musk interns at work again....

"Liars gonna lie." --Katt Williams

Feb 24th

I have some prime real estate in Brooklyn for sale if you ever suspected otherwise.

Was the goal ever 'fraud', and not simply funding for things voters/Trump/Musk either disapprove of, or think is wasteful? Such as animal transgender studies [1], DEI departments [2], and yes, a whole lot of uncontroversially useful programs. There are very valid criticisms to be made against DOGE (and have been made), but the article is attacking a strawman.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-edits-fact-check-saying-tr...

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doge-slashes-over-100m-dei-...

"Elon is doing a great job, he's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste"

Guess who said that

"The Liar-in-Chief". Final answer, Regis.

And the article is correct on the fraud part (I assume), but then conflates this with overall waste, which, judging from DOGE's name, is its main goal. Though it does claim it found zero waste [1], 'waste' is highly subjective - e.g. to some, DEI departments and transgender activism in Guatemala is waste [2]. Simply deciding that all of these programs are crucial and therefore no waste was found, is not honest journalism.

[1] not a single instance of fraud or waste has been discovered

[2] https://nypost.com/2025/02/05/opinion/transgender-recognitio...

Did you even read my post? Doesn't seem like it. That's what the President said Elon is doing.

>Simply deciding that all of these programs are crucial and therefore no waste was found, is not honest journalism.

Nor is the description of them as "waste" but that doesn't seem to be a problem when it's something you like.

> That's what the President said Elon is doing.

Then the article does a great job of debunking that one specific statement by Trump, but not a good job of debunking the entire DOGE department. And I don't particularly care about Trump's random statements.

Oh, you don't? That's nice for you.

I wonder if the general public perceives DOGE as being an effort to root out corruption because that's the only thing the President mentions about. But hey! You don't care!!

Also, what's "random" about the statement? It seems pretty specific and relevant to me. I think random would be if he started talking about Rosie O'Donnel again for no explicable reason.

Maybe, but it's also not like "efficiency" isn't right there in the name

"efficiency" doesn't mean "finding fraud" though.

I do think Elon Musk does think he’s the smartest person in the world and he was going to roll in and find fraud easily.

Trump himself from this article: "And they’re finding what will be hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of fraud — I say waste and abuse."

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