Can you state specifically what this foreign national is going to do that is so terrible for Americans? And on what authority? Specifics please.
Here's what Elon Musk is doing
- Thread starter Double Bogey Dawg
- Start date
I voted for Trump to set a madman on the loose.
America has long been run by unelecteds living in a decadent, isolated imperial city. The culture of DC is foreign to most of America.
For the first time, political power is not working in their favor. A golden age, indeed.
Take it from the famous podcaster, essayist, vaccine denier, and attorney Tom Renz:
“I like what DOGE is doing but am not convinced it’s legal and hate the precedent. What happens when we have the next Democrat presidency and they invite George Soros and Bill Gates in to do what DOGE is doing? Why aren’t conservatives concerned about the precedent? What’s the plan to keep this from being misused in the future?”
DOGE doesn't work the other way, because DOGE is about negative action - cuts and elimination. The inverse of DOGE is more spending, more agencies, sub agencies, government-funded NGOs, etc.
The progressive version of DOGE is essentially the status quo of Washington for a century.
If the unions for federal workers are suing him to prevent his access to how they are paid, he is on the right track. I am trying to see where you are coming from here. I know it is based on no trust of Trump foremost and now Elon. Lawsuits were always going to happen no matter who we picked to do the oversight. Or retool. Maybe it will set a precedent for politicians not to beleive they can get so many ridiculous grants or monies approved for things. Some of the stuff on the list is ridiculous. That is now been brought into the light. You act like Elon is a terrorist calling him a foreign national. It is absolutely a ridiculous statement. He has voted for Obama twice. Joe and Hillary once. Now Trump. But you classify him as a foreign national. Do you even smell any hypocrisy when you type this stuff out? Your concerns are duly noted. I even understand them. But the benefits far outweigh how we get the results at this point. And this was part of trump’s platform. He won the election. The overwhelming majority wants this to happen.
I do get people worrying about the precedent this sets. But I don’t know how the left will send someone in to make something more efficient and get away with adding back these ridiculous programs. The left could try this when they are back in. But if they are eliminating wasteful spending with right leaning agendas, I will be all for it.
Super vague. What specifically should we be afraid of? What service or payment should we as Americans expect to no longer receive due to the "dangerous precedent" of independently asking what taxpayer funds are being used for?
Bottom line is that the only thing keeping the funding in place for a program that 70% of common sense Americans would not support is secrecy. All this effort is doing is attempting to eliminate that secrecy, and it is scaring the shit out of the left for some reason.
Rest assured that if Trump and / or Musk attempt to eliminate something that a majority of common sense Americans support, it will not happen. Why? It does neither Trump nor Musk any good to do that.
Why is there such an effort to keep US taxpayer uses of funds in the dark?
Musk declared in a post, "Doge has not looked at, nor is there any interest in, private financial data. What would we even do with it? The outgoing payment review process just looks at potential fraud and wasteful spending to organizations. Corrupt politicians are the ones complaining. I wonder why?"
If they invite Soros and Gates to cut government waste? The more the merrier, but we know that won’t happen.
Maybe because the unelected bureaucrats have demonstrated close ties with avowed national enemies and made us dependent on them for everything from meds, to national security necessities. Musk, like every other CEO of large corps is waist deep in China because those which you seem determined to protect made it almost impossible to survive without doing business with China. If it's a choice of Musk might be corrupt but is exposing the corruption of the entrenched bureaucracy vs allowing the bureaucracy to continue operating in the dark, I'm choosing Musk 100 out of 100 times.
Last edited:
The problem is a lot of good, well-intentioned people on the "right" have been psy-oped for years that it is dangerous to govern effectively for their causes, because the left might do the same thing. Very intelligent people can find all sorts of constitutional arguments to avoid using power.
Of course, the left doesn't care about any of this and attempts to do anything they can get away with.
This is why the Republican Party has, for the most part, been the Washington Generals of American politics (the one exception being the Bush years where Republicans didn't care about limits and were very successful at growing the very government they ran against for decades.)
It's over Dude. The decades long grift by left wing NGOs and unelected bureaucrat virtue signaling on our dime is done.
In the area of trying to cut out wasteful spending, I think we can rest assured that whatever precedent Trump / Musk set will not be weaponized when the democrats are in power. By definition, getting aggressive in this area runs completely counter to the purpose of the democratic party.
I just called the bank that holds my mortgage--needed some information from them, and to reset my online password. They asked for my loan #, the last four of my ss#, my property address, my full name as it appears on my loan document. This was information I was happy to give them, because several years ago I chose this bank as my mortgage provider and I believe the people at this bank will protect my valuable personal information.
I do NOT give Elon Musk or anyone he would designate that same permission to access my personal information. Elon has not been elected, he has not been vetted, he has absolutely no business knowing my social security number or any other personal ID information of mine.
Let's say that the organization I was calling just now was the Small Business Administration (as as a multi-decade small business owner, I took out SBA-guaranteed loans at least twice). Elon Musk would already have all my personal info and could use it however he pleases. How would he use my info?--why would he want to use my info? It doesn't matter, I would've never given him permission to use it, he has no right to it, and he's already broken the law by accessing it.
I'm not really "afraid of" Elon, but as a US citizen I am concerned about him and extremely pissed off about what he's doing.
Dude, USAID was created by EO by Kennedy ain’t no congress in it. And your info is all over the dark web.
I love this, we now get to use the same defense you guys did for 4 years. "Your sources are trash, trust the government, nothing to see here except people who lost the election, blah blah blah....." You discounted everything, including logic for 4 years. Now you are getting ignored and marginalized
Smell it
It really shows in your posts you don't like losing. Unbelievable that it took losing for you to get mad at government. The rest of the chat knows the last 4 years nearly destroyed the country. Most of what they are trying to do in reforming government only has an upside -because not doing anything guarantees we are doomed. Better to go down with a fight.
Good thing. We aren’t a democracy. When that term is used, it comes from the uneducated, naive, emotional.
Bottom line is that for anyone to knock a man who is exposing ridiculous expenditures of taxpayers money must be a fool.
One of my favorite metaphors that I have used on this board myself many times!
Time to bring out the doll and show us where he touched you. Unbelievable the hatred for him this has created in you.
The bureaucrat at SBA wasn't elected and has access to your private info.
Does Elon Musk have a high security clearance?
The fears have been compounded because Mr. Musk has a top secret security clearance at SpaceX, which makes him privy to classified material such as advanced U.S. military technology.Dec 17, 2024
Yeah but unlike Musk that guy isn’t gonna use that info to wire himself thousands of dollars. That’s the risk here - that the richest man on the planet, because he wasn’t elected, will steal thousands of dollars from individual American taxpayers. And it is for this reason we can’t allow him to see what the US federal government is spending money on.
Actually, that is not true. USAID has been pushing US interests abroad through supporting humanitarian aid programs. Just ask George Bush, who leveraged this organization to advance US interests. It is a lever we utilize to gain international support. What we support should always be questioned. However, this is one of the most efficient government organizations and comprises less than 1% of the budget. It is basically a group of contractors that directs funds per congress to assist humanitarian relief. So the juice while making headline news is barely worth the squeeze.
USAID has been pushing Washington's interests abroad, and Washington's interests have largely been aligned with leftwing activists. I don't know how one measures "efficiency" with an amorphous target such as "humanitarian aid." In fact, USAID was criticized last year for "poor oversight of grantee and contractor overhead costs" by auditors.
Now cutting USAID does not make a significant dent in the larger fiscal issue, but it's an easy of low hanging fruit. If this can't be plucked, we have less reason to think bigger targets can be.
Loading…
www.devex.com
No where to run...no where to hide....pull back the curtain to purifying sunlight....and watch the roaches scurry
Last edited:
The main argument against saving money seems to be "That's only $1 billion dollars. A tiny fraction of the budget.".....rinse and repeat, for hundreds of different things, maybe thousands. The obvious questions:
1) Ever think that maybe it was this kind of thinking that took our deficit to where it is? A million different instances of "well it's not that much money (and more importantly, it's not MY money).
2) Any wasteful dollars saved at any level is by definition a good thing. Do we abandon the whole effort because there isn't $2 trillion in one place that we can find? I see headlines like "no way Musk can cut $2 trillion." I totally agree....but if we cut $500 billion of wasteful spending, that is an incredible thing, no?
3) To the extent that USAID has very good legit purposes, there is nothing to fear. The only thing that Musk is doing is calling attention to what specifically is being spent, and where. Good programs / causes need not worry. Doesn't mean that cutting the bad shit out of any organization is bad.
DOGE sounded like a really good idea. Now the level of protest coming from the left over simply pulling the wool back makes me think it is an absolutely incredible idea.
Thou doth protest too much.
What you are saying about this organization is 100 percent true. Other than one small thing. It may have been efficient, but it isn’t anymore. It is being abused under the guise of humanitarian aid. Otherwise you wouldn’t be hearing daily of some new ridiculous payout that serves no purpose other than to propel some ideology’s agenda. I wish people weren’t inherently so flawed. But you don’t have the reaction here without some major things being wrong with how the money is being appropriated. A guy resigned rather than have to face the music. Pretty much all that needs to be said.
A billion or more dollars is still nothing to sneeze at.
Ha Ha! The Biden Crime Family had it before & yes - they stole everybody’s money! Elon is just exposing it!
If the precedent is to authorize a two year long program to cut profligate, unaccountable government spending with a figurative cudgel, I think a lot of the same people would support it again in the future. The plan to keep it from being misused is the expiration date. If DOGE doesn't dissolve as promised when the 2 years are up I'd have a problem with it.
