DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
(theatlantic.com)868 points by perihelions 3 days ago
868 points by perihelions 3 days ago
The presidency is not a monarchy! The president might be commander-in-chief but it can’t just order random people killed just because he is “in charge” of the military. There are laws and layers of control saying who can do what. These laws are on the books and are being completely ignored!
Most of this power is vested in congress whom is abdicating their power.
In a sense, I agree.
The president should not be able to declare war without an act of Congress. The constitution grants the power to make law to congress, but then congress has enacted many laws which create agencies under the executive branch, which in turns empowers the executive branch.
So I agree that Congress should make/repeal laws that reduce the size of the executive branch so that only necessary powers are entrusted to the executive branch.
However, until that day comes, the separation of powers is the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive. Within the executive, inward looking (not external like killing people), yeah, the president and his appointed cabinet should have control. Without that control, you are defining an unaccountable form of government.
> So I agree that Congress should make/repeal laws that reduce the size of the executive branch so that only necessary powers are entrusted to the executive branch.
This is essentially what the courts are doing through the interrogation of the limits of the offices power. If that’s what you are looking for it’s already WAI.
Then you should likewise believe that the legislative branch should continue to determine how funds are allocated, and which agencies and departments are created and continue to function.
Let's not be disingenuous.
I don't think these two things necessarily go hand in hand. If the head of the executive branch should have absolute control over the branch, as the above user suggested, then if congress wants to control government agencies that are currently in the executive branch, those agencies should be placed outside of the executive into a different category that is either under the legislative branch or shared with the executive. In the status quo, all of the large government agencies being cut by DOGE are technically under the executive.
The Constitution does not provide for agencies in the legislative branch with power over the executive branch. Congress itself does have power over the executive, but mainly in that only it can pass laws, only it can raise revenue, only it can appropriate funds for expenditure, and, of course, only it can impeach executive officers and the president. Congress does not have the power to limit the president's executive orders to the executive branch agencies, for example.
The U.S. Digital Service (which is what DOGE actually is) does have a budget allocated by Congress.
DOGE is finding monies are being spent without Congressional authorization, and is stopping that, exactly as you asked for. The president is also stopping expenditures that are allocated by Congress -- many presidents have done this.
Hear me out. Elon wants ultimate control over people’s lives and choices. Why he would want this is a psychological question about which we can only speculate. This is a change from (at least in appearance) his previous libertarian leanings. Whatever the case, this is the plan:
1) Acquire god mode access to government systems and citizens information (contacting, grants, spending, taxes, SSI benefits, you name it).
2) Add features to the Treasury Department’s software to allow him to, with extremely high granularity, control what payments go out. Friends can be rewarded, enemies punished. At first it will take the form of government entities he doesn’t like (USAID, for example). Next will be government opposition in our federal system, mostly blue cities and states with whom he disagrees. Next will be large private entities with whom he disagrees or are business competitors. Finally, individuals opposing him or the government will be personally targeted (for example, by not paying SSI benefits or paying out tax returns, perhaps extended to family members of the opposition, etc). These individual sanctions could extend to large geographic area he dislikes (all of coastal California, for example). He’s putting in place the tools to accomplish this right now as we speak.
3) Fire all bureaucratic opposition elements who might prevent this. Dress it up as a government efficiency measure if you like.
4) Eventually they will pressure large (and maybe small, too) private financial institutions to take part in this scheme (they may have already succeeded, see Citibank and NYC federal funding for migrants).
He’s putting in place the tools for total control by controlling access to money and resources. I don’t exactly know what he plans to do with them but I don’t want to find out given constant interaction with racists and neo nazis on his site.
It's pretty obvious isn't it? Trump stacked the Supreme Court the first time round which turned out to be the best thing he ever did.
Now they'll control payments to defund opponents as well as sacking anyone who doesn't support them to gain total loyalty. In fact, the way they're doing this is clever: Sack and then make former colleagues compete to be rehired. That way they'll feel extra grateful to have a job and will toe the line in future.
I expect they'll use this data for leverage against opponents in future. They probably haven't decided how yet, which is why they're in hoover mode. Loot the systems quick while they still can.
But it's ok. Half the US thinks there's nothing to worry about. Good luck getting fair elections ever again.
The plans were laid down with "Red Map" in 2010, and reinforced in 2020: this is control of the GOP "at the base" via gerrymandering and primary control. It means that the individual representatives no longer control their own districts since a central authority (Trump) can easily out primary the individual representatives if they don't toe-the-line. One of the non-obvious impacts of the 2010 gerrymander we learned was that the populace actually votes roughly in line at the state-level as they do at the district level; this means you can use the district-level gerrymander to control Senate-level seats. This has bought the GOP a ~+3-+8 bias in the Senate.
> gerrymandering
> this means you can use the district-level gerrymander to control Senate-level seats. This has bought the GOP a ~+3-+8 bias in the Senate.
What?? No, you cannot gerrymander States (and therefore Senate seats). You can only gerrymander districts smaller than States. States with one House seat can't gerrymander that House seat either. State legislature seats can be gerrymandered. U.S. House seats in States with more than one House seat can also be gerrymandered. (EDIT: Well, I suppose if Oregon counties are allowed to move into Idaho then that would be a gerrymandering of States, but this is a very very rare event.)
The GOP might have a bias in the Senate, but that would be due to small-population States having more oomph in the Senate than large-population States. Though in 2024 the Electoral College was neutral in terms of partisan bias, which implies at most a small bias in the Senate for one or the other party.
As for gerrymandering of U.S. House districts, that has been going on since the very beginning, and even since before, since Colonial legislatures did it, and the English parliament did it before that. In fact, part of the reason for the Democrats' 62 year dominance of the U.S. House from 1933 to 1995 was gerrymandering.
But as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explained in one of her decisions, gerrymandering is self-limiting because the party in power (in the legislature) can only optimize for seat safety (thus reducing their majority in their House delegation) or for number of seats (thus rendering some if not many of those seats not-very-safe). Since that decision we've had numerous wave elections in the House, including numerous changes in party in control of the House: 1994, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2018. Arguably in today's day and age gerrymandering doesn't count for all that much compared to the heyday of the Democratic party between 1933 and 1995.
I think what is worse is people literally driven insane by the psyops that bad been running for last few years.
Documentation found of US agencies funding psyops to basically crush critical thinking skills and scream what their handlers want them to scream. "Hate the smoke detector, not the fire!"
For this situation, that these agencies and their psyops have put you in, you have my greatest sympathy.
What the actual fuck are you talking about. Gonna need some proof that isn’t a 4chan sewer please.
To be clear, Security Clearances is just an EO thing.
The actual laws just speak about things being critical to national security and don't use the words like "Top Secret" and etc.
The whole actually labeling things "Top Secret" and etc started off with Clinton [1] but then Bush [2] and Obama [3] modified the rules around classification.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12958
"Top Secret" goes back a long ways, to before WWII I believe.
They do. Elon already had top secret due to NASA/military work. The rest were authorised/given clearance for the work.
Who says they don't have them? Elon Musk certainly does.
Move fast and break things meets root kernel access to government.
What could go wrong?
I hope they at least open the original documents to the American public, instead of posting on X. IMHO the public should have the rights to review and grill the officials about the spending.
Whenever I see "follow the law", my first reaction is always: Is the law fair and just? I'm merely posing the question. If you find the law to be fair and just, then for sure everyone should and probably will follow the law.
I used to know Thomas during my first internship at Tesla. He's incredibly talented and a very kind, thoughtful guy. Keep up the goodwork Thomas, and ignore all these haters!
> “We’re operating believing our systems are completely bugged,” one person told us.
Doesn't everyone at work, any $WORK, do this? I do! I even type my thoughts "aloud" so to speak in order to help anyone viewing my sessions on replay.
An audit only needs read access, not God mode. It should be conducted by a neutral third party, not someone on a witch hunt who has conflicts of interest. The people on the ground should have auditing qualifications, clear background checks, and knowledge of specific systems or processes, not a random 19-year-old named "Big Balls" with a history of selling company secrets to a competitor. Their findings should go through QA, and they should take the time to come up with an accurate report, rather than rushing through and blurting out whatever they think is happening.
Yes. Democracy's intent is not efficiency. It is to provide a rule of law that is fair enough for most citizens. All other forms of rule are worse. As soon as you have 'efficient government', you no longer have democracy. But something worse.
This response is so funny to me.
You'll be on your knees begging for bureaucracy after all your info is sold to the highest bidder and you spend the next 20 years fighting identity theft.
Would you buy shares in a company if the sole auditor of their financials was the CEO's best friend, who had no experience or qualifications in auditing, and he was not accountable to anyone if he was wrong? "Trust me bro" does not cut it. These structures and processes can be onerous but they exist for good reason. BTW our government is not so strapped for cash that they can't afford to do this properly.
They have read-only access, as the latest court documents (Google "Zeitner DOGE") show, and contrary to the fakenews that were peddled in the early days of that stuff. Big Balls can only use this read access from a provided Treasury laptop, on premises, and he's operating under review of other Treasury employees.
Wouldn’t you expect some sort of forensic accountant leading an audit of a multi trillion dollar organization?
Yeah exactly.
The article is hyperbola and ultimately trying to push the "Auditing and finding corruption is bad"
> No good reason or case can be made for one person or entity to have this scope of access to this many government agencies containing this much sensitive information.
The president should obviously have this level of access.
Often what you'll find is that the power was limited through separation of privileges. One person would not be able to do much beyond a limited boundary. Sounds like that's no longer true.
They're not talking about Fortune 500 companies, they're talking about the literal government and the rules for sharing information between agencies.
This further emphasizes a need that is only growing: addressing the disparity between our government's reliance on technology and its members' understanding of it. Government and technology are inexorably linked at a fundamental level. Take data for example. Data is inherently untrustworthy if sufficient measures are not taken to ensure its integrity while being recorded, its integrity while being maintained, the integrity of its interpretation, and the integrity of its further utilization.
We need political pressure to design these systems correctly to avoid "god mode" nonsense, and for that we need politicians who understand and embrace the technological need. If the system is designed correctly you don't need "god mode" access to conduct an audit or even to make lasting changes. Their changes should be non-destructive writes, with an audit trail.
Also, I'm going to need more information than "god mode". God mode over which specific databases? And what specific access levels? And which admin granted the permissions? If DOGE is serious about transparency they will communicate this sort of thing.
Yes, and the chances of that person being technically smarter than the DOGE is close to zero.
Well, yes, because 1 is pretty close to zero, on a scale of 0 to infinity. However, if you look at their actual technical skilz:
The incompetence at DOGE is staggering. Absolutely no security on their .gov webiste: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43045835
can't even get mail merges to work, see some of their emails terminating people. Telling people to sign the doc and then not attaching the doc.
The search for 'probationary' employees failing 3 times because they didn't check the definition of the term.
No, technical competence really isn't DOGE's strong point.
Truly incredible how so many people can attribute “whiz kids” to a group of people who can’t even do the most basic due-diligence.
Honestly when DOGE was first announced, I thought it will be a tiny department that does almost nothing and produces recommendations and PDFs that nobody reads. I didn't expect this.
My brain immediately latched on to how much control could be exerted through the guise of "efficiency", you could effetely run a whole government from there. But I was expecting more installing a bunch of so-called "efficiency officers" in every department to report back when they weren't being loyal... er efficient.
I was not expecting the complete takeover of computer networks and rapid firing of large numbers of employees.
Musk has basically discovered that you can ignore existing laws, since by the time lawyers sue and courts order injunctions, it'll be too late and too expensive. Especially when lawyers can argue against basic facts like "Musk doesn't head DOGE". It's the same playbook as the twitter layoffs - when you are so rich, you don't need to care about laws.
There were signs but people thought it implausibly stupid:
> Vice-president JD Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence, saying in 2021, "So there's this guy Curtis Yarvin who has written about these things," which included "Retire All Government Employees," or RAGE, written in 2012. Vance said that if Trump became president again, "I think what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'"[17][52]
Vance is just a figurehead for Theil, Musk, Sacks etc.
It's obvious from recent video of Musk and Trump that Trump is also a figurehead at this point.
Read the Bufferfly Revolution by Curtis Yarvin (April, 2022)
> We’ve got to risk a full power start—a full reboot of the USG. We can only do this by giving absolute sovereignty to a single organization—with roughly the powers that the Allied occupation authorities held in Japan and Germany in the fall of 1945.
> Trump himself will not be the brain of this butterfly. He will not be the CEO. He will be the chairman of the board—he will select the CEO (an experienced executive). This process, which obviously has to be televised, will be complete by his inauguration—at which the transition to the next regime will start immediately.
For context, this is Moldbug, the leading voice in the "Dark Enlightenment" movement. Basically he convinced the tech bros this was a good idea
But also when you make cuts, you go hard, fast, and recover from there. Any effort of small trimming over a long period achieves no saving while producing the same negative publicity. I doubt such cutting effort will happen for another 30y.
There is a french say I like. If you need to cut a dog’s tail, don’t cut an inch every day, chop the whole thing quick
Several employees have already been put at risk: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/foreign-servic...
Dismantling USAID overnight will do a lot of damage.
> There is a french say I like. If you need to cut a dog’s tail, don’t cut an inch every day, chop the whole thing quick
Well there’s cutting off the dogs tail, and then there’s accidentally cutting off your own fingers in your haste to get the dogs tail.
There is another saying:
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Act quickly when needed but not so quickly that you don’t have time to assess. You should know what you’re cutting before you cut.
In the French saying is cutting the tail off a dog seen as a cruel and unnecessary action, that you shouldn't prolong any longer than necessary, or a valid task that needs done?
I see the legal status of tail docking is slightly laxer in France but in North America the US and Canadian Vetinary Associations disavow the practice as bad for the dog.
The French, famous for their budget cuts and government efficiency.
What’s beyond a man who would lie about being a gamer (for credz), be so lazy in his lie he is instantly caught, double-down on his lie despite the obviousness of his inability to even use basic mechanics of said games and then beef with Internet personalities while leaking their private convos? I would wager this man has absolutely no ethic and is purely concerned with his own short-sighted greed and vanity.
I honestly have not a single idea why there wasn't this type of department before monitoring and auditing everything.
>> I honestly have not a single idea why there wasn't this type of department before monitoring and auditing everything.
You mean like the Government Accountability Office? [1] Or the dozens of Inspector Generals at most agencies? [2]
[2] https://www.oversight.gov/where-report-fraud-waste-abuse-or-...
The US federal government has lots of laws, agencies, and procedures to address, investigate, and remediate fraud, waste, and abuse.
It's like people think every agency just got infinite money until Musk came in.
And they have been doing a bang up job. Bottom line is that this sort of transparency was needed in the last administration.
Because then they would have found the fraud, and some very powerful people would be out of money....
People being convinced it's a bad idea, By the same politicians and beaurocrats who have wasting, laundering and getting kickbacks, They are the joke.
"Blame the smoke detector, not the fire" people are demoralised people driven insane
A huge problem with this is that from all accounts, these engineers going in don't seem to have any accountability. No one knows who is in charge and making the decisions (presumably Musk though official statements say he's not the DOGE administrator, but no one knows who is), they come into offices like an FBI raid demanding access but won't give reasons, say who is in charge, what they are doing, or even their names.[0] Its much worse than an FBI raid, and reminiscent of Gestapo tactics.
So even if DOGE is benign (and I don't think they are, but lets assume for a moment), if something goes wrong, who is to blame? Where is the transparency they are expecting of government agencies?
Would you trust an outside team like that, say some brash McKinsley team of "experts", to come in and do whatever they want with your systems? What company would allow that?
Also turns out that they're making up shit. $8 billion "saved" was actually $8 million because they didn't do their homework.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/doge-mu...
They're only listed source is an employee of USAID.
I have no reason to believe anything in this article.
Well, it is a government agency tasked with audits. Why shouldn't it have root access?
Your employer is being audited. An unaccompanied stranger wearing a visitor pass comes up to your desk. He says "Hello I'm the password security auditor, tell me your password so I can make sure it's secure"
Will your company fail the audit if don't hand over the information?
Or will your company fail the audit if if you do hand it over?
You've clearly never been audited by the federal government.
In the case of the IRS, generally, you must hand over the data they request or you go to jail.
Whether or not it's behind a password protected internal system is irrelevant. Everything is potentially material to any conspiracy to commit tax fraud.
I see no reason why the Federal government itself, which works for us, should not be subject to reciprocal treatment.
Big difference between the IRS and random friends of the President. Congressional Acts is one
Usually, you do not hand out “root access” to auditors. Auditors are there to gather information (e.g to audit) and report.
In general, you don’t give out broadly permissive access to sensitive systems because people (yes even incredibly competent people) are prone to getting confused or mistyping and you really don’t want anyone deleting the entire database at the drop of a hat because they didn’t have enough coffee that morning and were logged into the wrong system.
>> Is it an actual government agency?
Yes. In 2014, after the disastrous rollout of the Healthcare.gov site, President Obama created the "United States Digital Service" (USDS). Its stated mission was to modernize technology and improve efficiency across all US departments and agencies.
President Trump renamed the USDS to the "United States DOGE Service" (USDS) and created a temporary "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) organization within the USDS that will operate until July 4, 2026.
Every US government agency is required to establish a DOGE team within that agency to work with the USDS to "improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems".
It's not. But pseudo-intellects and idiots are still under Elon's spell.
> Well, it is a government agency tasked with audits. Why shouldn't it have root access?
Why should it? I've participated in a number of audits. None of them involved giving the auditors root access. They get read-only access to exactly what they need and nothing more, if they get access at all. Oftentimes it's the people with access pulling data based on what they request.
No, it is not a government agency.
No, it is not tasked with audits. It is not performing any audit before its actions, nor is it producing anything resembling an audit.
No, audits do not require root access. And in fact root access (the ability to change data) contradicts audit best practices.
This is an idea you just made up to defend this BS.
Like, audit's require root access? What? Is this real life? Are people just making things up and saying whatever to defend someone who has no allegiance to this country getting the keys to the kingdom while also coincidentally making a fortune off of taxpayers through federal subsidies? Are you slow?
i hope they try to use cjis data bc it's taken me 6 months to build a system that is technically compliant and it still doesn't fully pass. they definitely will fail the data security policy requirements.
This isnt a dig at you but something i have noticed over the last few weeks. People keep saying X/Y wont be able to do something because of rules, laws, requirements and i have to keep reminding people rules/laws are only as good as those willing to enforce them
fair point! i guess it does sound like an inept democrat lol.
though you don't wanna fuck with the fbi https://le.fbi.gov/cjis-division/cjis-security-policy-resour...
The FBI reports to the president. They aren't going to stop anything.
well, at least they are trying: https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/fbi-...
Putting aside the whole idea that Elon "bought" his way into this position, it's crazy this is the path that Trump is taking. He has a house and a senate that would likely happily cut all these programs, and it could be done legally and without all this mess. Why let Elon run roughshod over the government?
It's in the Project 2025 playbook. They're trying to overwhelm everyone so you can't possible keep track of all they're doing. Store security could handle one shoplifter at a time; but when you have a riot and mass looting - you have fewer options and often just step aside and let them loot. Then deal with the mess later.
Also - he's a narcissist and he wants all the credit.
Also - he's a wannabe dictator, and on his way to making it a reality, so he's demonstrating that he does not need permission or help.
Not related to Project 2025, and they have countless times said they aren't associated with that project.
But yes, "Flood the Zone" is the strategy to combat Democrat's media and court strategies.
It was started by Steve Bannon in 2018, but expanded massively under Stephen Miller.
The rest of your post is just hysteria so I won't comment on that.
No. The current GOP administration, starting from before this election:
- supported funding Project 2025's development by GOP members
- talked about Project 2025 favorably
- saw Project 2025 demonized by the media
- THEN denied they support Project 2025
- got elected using Project 2025 tactics
- hired Project 2025 author INTO this new administration
- are currently implementing Project 2025 policies.
SO "THEY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH PROJECT 2025" seems closer to "true" and "fact" than unlikely.
I'm trying to sort out if there is a particular political bent to the HN crowd.
> they have countless times said they aren't associated with that project
Right, but they are visibly are. Russ Vought (project 2025) is the Office of Management and Budget director. He drafted the executive orders months ago that would lead to exactly this. Part of Project 2025
Other members in Trumps cabinet from Project 2025:
- Tom Homan (Border Czar)
- Brendan Carr (FCC)
- John Ratcliffe (CIA Director)
> The rest of your post is just hysteria so I won't comment on that.
Maybe don't accuse others of hysteria while you spout that Democrats are the ones coordinating every independent attorney and judge to come after Trump.
> In every instance, he has said he is not affiliated with it and doesn't support it
You sound like you were born yesterday. If you can't imagine why a politician would say one thing and do the other, I really can't help you. You're maliciously ignorant.
Having someone in your cabinet doesn't mean their views override yours.
It's good to have a cabinet of diverse thought. You can pool all perspectives to make a final informed decision.
That's why he has ex-democrats like RFK and Tulsi. Doesn't mean he will implement all of RFKs views though.
And I didn't say they coordinated every judge/attorney, you put those words there. I simply said court strategies.
It's a well known strategy to shop around for judges to bring a court case. Republicans do it too. Though Democrats excel at it.
> Not related to Project 2025, and they have countless times said they aren't associated with that project.
lmao the chief author is the head of the OMB my guy[1]
[1]https://apnews.com/article/trump-russell-vought-confirmation...
There's plenty of people in the cabinet and other positions with many political views and proposals, including ex-democrats.
That doesn't mean all of their views will be implemented. Just a subset that Trump agrees with, or even some they disagree with that Trump tells them to.
The goal is to reduce government spending by $2 Trillion in 4 years. If you want to see how this is going: https://polymarket.com/doge
That's not the goal at all. And that's not how its going.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates...
> Of the DOGE list's initial claim of $16 billion in savings, half came from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) listing that was entered into the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) in 2022 with a whopping $8 billion maximum possible value.
> According to a DOGE post on X, that number was a typo that was corrected in the contract database to $8 million on Jan. 22 of this year before being terminated a week later, and DOGE "has always used the correct $8M in its calculations."
Jeez, that's pretty damning.
This linked website has an incentive to portray this "savings" as larger than it actually is.
Why is this a bad thing if their job is to audit budget and spending? The article also does not go into technical details on what this supposed god mode actually is.
That's the issue right? No one knows what access they have, so you should assume the worst. They've already been claiming that they are making writes, so full write privilege isn't off the table.
It's not even the access that's the issue though, it's the lack of oversight. If I login to a Prod database, my commands are logged which allow the team to go back and figure out what happened if something didn't go as expected. We have backups and response processes to deal with "oops" situations. I strongly doubt the DOGE team has any fallback plan, and it would be irresponsible to simply assume they've thought fallback through.
This is more troubling with the systems being tricky legacy systems. You might have the best intentions, but it is really easy to make mistakes in brittle systems even if you are careful. We've already seen evidence that the team may have no idea how to interpret the data they're seeing. It'd be reckless to start making edits while only having a partial understanding of the system.
The story from DOGE is "look at all this fraud we've found, we're going to fix it now". It's not "here's a bunch of things we want to investigate further". It's not "here's how we're going to test whether this is actually fraud". It's not "here's what we're going to try and how we're going to revert if we are wrong".
They aren't auditing anything. Programmers/engineers don't audit budget and spending. If they were doing an audit, they would have accountants on their team, which they don't. If you bring coders/engineers into a system, it's for accessing/manipulating data/code/infrastructure. This is an enormous and unprecedented overreach.
They're data scientists amongst other things, you need to tie different data tables and sources together to get hotspot reports.
The DOGE is mainly staffed by former employees of Elon Musk's companies, many of them being in their early twenties and one being 19 years old [1]. The presence of so many Musk associates is a conflict of interest: supposing "god mode" means that DOGE has unfiltered access to the private data of US citizens, there's not much stopping Elon Musk from exploiting that data for personal gain. And besides, would you want your private data to be in the hands of so many very young people who have little prior experience in anything?
[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/doge-list-staff-revealed-2029965
If you want accountability someone needs to have root access. If you don't want accountability, you are a politician getting kickbacks through obfuscation.
That someone needs accountability themselves. Musk is not elected, his role isn’t defined. Really, he’s a patsy, he can do what he does, fortify his corporations, maybe trim some waste, have a falling out with Trump (it’s inevitable) and then trump blames him for the damage.
> I think people hate musk, if they do, for the things he does and has done.
No, they hate Musk for the things he says and has said (And things he allows other people to say on his platform).
Some people treat actions more seriously than words. Others choose to treat words more seriously than actions.
I mostly liked Musk until he decided that a vindictive, incompetent moron was the best person to run the country, and poured vast resources into ensuring that happened.
You might say this just shows it’s because I hate Trump. To which I’d ask, do you really think my description of the guy is inaccurate?
What is the point of all of this? Reducing federal income taxes? It seems to me that these people are pushing a rope if that's the goal.
For example, USAID is 1% of federal spending, but buys the US a disproportionate amount of soft power and good will for that investment.
Also, why 20-year olds? You'd think a person as resourced as Musk would have access to more capable people. When I was 20 years old I didn't know a thing about the Federal government or all the ways it benefits Americans.
I don't see DOGE solving an actual problem, and even if it did, this is a horribly incompetent way to go about it.
We are adding 1 trillion dollars to the deficit every 100 days.
The difference between DOGE and previous overreaches of power like the Department of Homeland Security is the attack on the truth.
What do I mean by that? Well, during the previous political era (loosely 9/11 through the COVID-19 pandemic), when intellectuals spoke truth to power, power listened.
So people like us could voice our opinions on constitutionality, historical precedent, etc, and eventually our points made their way up through the news cycle and someone in a position of power would validate our concerns.
Whereas today, people like Elon Musk belittle academic arguments as nonconstructive because they haven't made us money and we aren't rich. So obviously we're wrong.
This wasn't always the case. Some billionaires could be very stubborn, but at their core, they still held themselves to a higher standard, a geek ethos. It mattered what academics thought.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I side with Bill Gates on this.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/27/bill-gates-e...
Why not just say they have root access? 'god mode' is a ridiculous expression and just obscures the truth.
I get that some people need information dumbed down but this is pathetic.Trump/Musk are using "corruption/fraud" as a lie to remake the government in their image (or Project2025's image), in the same way that Bush used WMDs as a lie to invade Iraq.
Where's the evidence of widespread corruption? If there really was corruption and fraud, then we'd be hearing of people being investigated and/or charged with breaking the law, not randomly fired or fired for ideological/loyalty/retribution reasons.
This reminds me of that scene in Don't Look Up where the planet puts all of their hopes in an eclectic oligarch's dumb plan to blow up the asteroid about to obliterate the planet, and it fails miserably. There is no chance any of this bodes well for many people not directly standing to profit directly from this pillaging of the federal government, and I'm not sure there is a way to recover from whatever is being done here. GG, I guess.
People did not vote to give Elon Musk absolute, unaccountable access to the most sensitive machineries of government.
They've fired and hobbled all of the inspectors general and parties that are supposed to monitor and hold them accountable. This is nothing short of a security nightmare and insider threat of the highest degree.
Here is my prediction...I know nobody asked for it :-) But they are only fun if you make them before the events...A massive, unpriced risk looms over financial markets... Its scale defies prediction.
The current administration’s safeguards are faltering, running like a government still in FSD beta. With U.S. debt dismissed as “just debt,” inflationary tariffs in play, and an emergency Fed rate hike imminent, shockwaves are inevitable.
Deficit panic may soon lead to manipulated figures and a narrative bent to suit unstable agendas. The bond market’s credibility will collapse, making the Liz Truss debacle seem trivial compared to the turmoil expected over the next two years.
Even the most sophisticated hedge funds and quants can’t quantify an administration gone off the rails... But just look at the current price of gold...
The narrative already started: "Trump says US may have less debt than thought because of fraud - Trump says some Treasury payments might 'not count'" - https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-might-have-...
"The World’s Most Important Market Sends a Warning" - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-18/the-wo...
You bet: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/donald-trump-needs-to-fear-the-bo...
HN clearly not :-))
I think I have a hunch what Trump is going to do next.
He's going to fill these fired probationary workers with new loyal probationary workers hand picked by him.
He will then make these new probationary workers in charge of the agency.
If they don't do what he wants, they can be fired at will.
I disagree. He'll wait until things start breaking, use that as more reason that government isn't effective, and start selling the parts to new, different contractors.
I legitimately believe his reasoning is money and ego pumping. But mostly money.
This is basic disaster economics, but with a self-made disaster instead of a natural disaster.
I don't disagree, I think some disasters will be or are being made.
However, he needs these groups to some extent to roll back regulations. He can't be assured existing people will play ball.
So with hand picked cronies with no job security pushed to run the show over the ones with some job security he can push for deregulation.
If disasters happen along the way he can blame Brandon er Biden, etc and sell a heroic fix for profits.
I think over half of this article is wildly speculative hyperbole. "Here is a list of things we can imagine that DOGE might do with this data: 1. Invent super solider zombies. 2. Blackmail you (you specifically are at risk here) 3. Sell all the data to China who will work with Israel and Mexico to conquer America
You should be extremely worried! Run in Fear of what might come to pass!" because some guy filled out a request to have admin access to some government data stores. Ridiculous. Between United, BCBS, and existing Chinese infiltrations into OPM and telcos your data is already compromised by real / confirmed bad actors. This is disappointing click bait from the Atlantic and their editors should be ashamed of its publication.
China already had full access (and extracted) all treasury information in a recent cyber attack. Look it up
I’m not interested. I don’t care, I’m on a different continent and we will soon have other problems.
len("EGO") == len("GOD") == 3
Half Life 3 confirmed.
You have to stop being your information from CNN and Reddit. It destroys your critical thinking skills and ultimately drives some people insane
The last time this topic came up, I manually and then with AI analyzed 13 articles talking about 'read/write' access - and all of it was 2nd or 3rd party info from anonymous sources.
Reading this article it appears on the surface to be a little more conclusive... but once you peel back ther layers, we are back to square one. There are many red flags still that make me question the reliability of this:
the senior USAID source said. “What do you do with this information? I had to ask myself, Do I file my taxes this year or not? I had to sit and debate that.”
Ok this is kind of silly - assuming they are being fully honest and forthright, then their account information would already be 'compromised' unless they change banks yearly which seems.. unlikely.
So why wasn't their question "Should I close the account I used for tax refunds in the past? Should I try to create an insulated account instead" -- rather instead, they subtly implant the idea that maybe they should do something illegal in response to this supposed breach. (not file taxes, like them or not - not interested in sovereign citizen arguments btw).
So this right out of the gate feels like FUD by virtue of that alone... and if you are cynical enough you could probably argue this is propaganda meant to cause well-meaning citizens to break the law out of fear, which is deplorable.
"Over the past few days, we’ve talked with civil servants working for numerous agencies, all of whom requested anonymity because they fear what will happen if they lose their job—not just to themselves, but to the functioning of the federal government."
Ok so it's all anonymous sources again - everyone is up in arms and there isn't even clarity in this article if the anonymous sources are first party, second party, third party, or what. Previous FUD campaigns at least made that clear, but I'll try to pick this one apart as well. Additionaly, they are implying that somehow not being anonymous may jeopardize the entire functioning of the federal govt... excuse me, what??
I did the same AI analysis using CoPilot as I did on previous articles, and this is what it came up with breaking down the 'sources':
Anonymous Source: Type: Anonymous Details: The article cites an anonymous source described as a “civil servants” who provides insights into the Doge God Mode Access incident.
NOTE (from me not CoPilot): This is entirely irrelevant, they are presenting a 'nightmare' situation a security researcher and asking their opinion of it. This does not mean the scenario is happening, and does not support the thesis.
Hypothetical Scenarios: Type: Hypothetical Details: The article includes hypothetical scenarios, such as the one about NASA’s thermal-protection or encryption technologies, to illustrate potential risks and vulnerabilities.
NOTE (from me not CoPilot): I think we can all agree hypotheticals are pointless if you haven't reliably established baseline 'facts' the support the hypothetical - so far there is a running trend, as it's all based on hypothetical fear mongering
That's it - that's the meat of this article.
The articles is also riddles with other clues that this is a slanted report like: "One experienced government information-security contractor offered a blunt response to the God-mode situation at USAID: “That sounds like our worst fears come true.”" -- ok but he clearly has no knowledge, so describing a worst fear and then going 'omg that soudds bad' is pointless..
People really need to step up their media literacy skills if they want to get through the next four years without having an aneurhysim -- and this to me just says that the work DOGE is doing is probably threatening the pocket books of many 'important people'.
Hey speaking of important people, who funds The Atlantic anyway...
The Atlantic: https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/the-atlantic/
"The Atlantic is a left-of-center literary, political, and ideas magazine that publishes ten issues per year. It was founded as The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 by several prominent American literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1 In 2017 the Emerson Collective, a left-of-center private grantmaking enterprise funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow and heir of Apple Computer executive Steve Jobs, purchased majority ownership. 2 Jeffrey Goldberg, previously a prominent writer for the magazine, was named editor-in-chief in October 2016. 3
In contrast to most of its editorial history, after 2016 political criticism became a much larger priority for The Atlantic. From its founding in 1857 to 2016, the publication had endorsed only two presidential candidates, but then did so for two elections in a row in 2016 and 2020, declaring in 2020 that President Donald Trump “poses a threat to our collective existence.” After Trump’s 2016 election, the magazine sharply increased the attention it dedicated to politicians and the presidency. From 2016 through 2019 (covering the 2016 election and first three years of the Trump administration), President Donald Trump was the subject of eight cover stories–all negative. This contrasts with President Barack Obama, who—following a cover story for his January 2009 inauguration—was not the subject of another cover story for the next two years. Similarly, from 2000 through 2003 (i.e.: the 2000 Presidential election and first three years of the George W. Bush administration) President George W. Bush was directly referenced in just one cover feature."
I bet these guys are super duper impartial and we should all just trust that this journalists 'anonymous sources' who never are quoted in any manner which implies the god mode claims are true must be true. I couldn't conceive of a situation where they may lie about something this egregious through carefully worded articles which state nothing of the nature of the access, are all off record anonymous sources, and which clearly has an axe to grind with Trump in particular.
"Jeffrey Goldberg was named editor in chief of The Atlantic in October 2016 and held the position as of November 2020. Prior to being elevated to the top editorial spot, Goldberg had been a correspondent for the magazine since 2007 and had written numerous essays covering foreign policy in general and the Middle East in particular. 3
Just days prior to Goldberg’s promotion, the magazine endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, The Atlantic’s first presidential endorsement since 1964 and only the third in its history. In October 2020, the Goldberg-led publication made its fourth presidential endorsement for Democratic nominee (and eventual winner) Joe Biden. The essays were respectively titled “Against Donald Trump” (2016) and “The Case Against Donald Trump” (2020). The 2020 endorsement asserted Trump “poses a threat to our collective existence” and that “the choice voters face is spectacularly obvious.
In July 2017, David G. Bradley, then the owner of The Atlantic, announced he was selling a majority stake in the magazine to the Emerson Collective, a left-of-center private grantmaking enterprise funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple Computer executive Steve Jobs. The announcement stated the Emerson Collective would likely assume “full ownership” of the publication within five years, or by summer of 2022. The reported purchase price for Jobs’ initial 70 percent stake was $100 million. ”
....
“It felt like the place was becoming a hot-take factory,” said one recently departed writer. “That can be profitable, of course, because hot takes don’t cost much.”
Now if you got this far and are still thinking "yeah but I trust the Atlantic, they are the pinnacle of news and they don't need to show their work!" I would urge you to read the full 'Controversies' section @ https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/the-atlantic/
Here are a few choice items though that just -might- impact their impartiality and should maybe cause you to second guess if 'anonymous, unquoted sources' are a great journalistic bar for 'the truth':
"A September 2020 report authored by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, cited “multiple sources” claiming President Donald Trump had disparaged the historical sacrifices made by American military personnel. The headline read “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’” with a sub-headline sentence stating “The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.” 15
Both the content and context of the allegation was disputed in whole or in part by the president, his staff, and even some of his critics, including left-wing journalists.
The two opening paragraphs set the context and provided the sourcing for the allegation:
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. 15
John Bolton, the President’s former National Security Advisor turned Trump critic, was on the 2018 trip and involved in the discussion regarding the motive for the helicopter grounding and cancelling of the motorcade alternative. Despite having become a severe Trump critic who had by September 2020 stated that President Trump was not fit for office, Bolton gave the New York Times an eyewitness account of the incident that differed sharply from that presented by The Atlantic
Mr. Bolton said he was in the room at the ambassador’s residence when Mr. Trump arrived and Mr. [White House Chief of Staff John] Kelly told him that the helicopter trip had to be canceled. A two-hour motorcade would have put him too far away from Air Force One and the most capable communications array a president needs in case of an emergency, per usual protocol, Mr. Bolton said. “It was a straight weather call,” he said." .... "Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated: “I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion — this never happened.” And Jordan Karem, the former personal assistant to the president during period in question, replied to the story with a Twitter statement: “This is not even close to being factually accurate. Plain and simple, it just never happened.”"
So they literally have just 'made up' stuff about Trumpt to make him look vein and stupid, and people who basically hate him even called them on this charade. And I know for sure I remember this making the rounds -- so their lies get around due tot their perceived authority.
This was the rationale:
Goldberg replied: “They don’t want to be inundated with angry tweets and all the rest … In this case I decided that I felt I knew this information well enough, from high enough sources, and multiple sources, that I thought we should put it out.”
I'll stop here - but if you go on to read the rest, Glenn Greenwald (an actually good investigative journalist with integrity) rips The Atlantic to shreds, they have multiple other controversies, they have dubious financial ties... and so on
If you believe this 'God Mode' article it is strictly an act of faith in the party you have pronounced your allegiance to.
If they have the ability to change data, then absolutely none of their claims can be trusted. Neither Musk nor his A-team of hackers have demonstrated any integrity through their career - contrary to HN guidelines, the default position is to assume the worst from them.
Think about it once they begin putting the opposition on show trials.
their claims can't be trusted because they fail at basic accounting and reading. Something something malice incompetence.
https://twitter.com/electricfutures/status/18918983362081056...
> The single biggest ticket item is a DHS contract listed as saving $8 billion. Wow, that's a huge contract! Actually no, it's $8 million. They must have tried to automate scraping the FPDS form and failed.
This talking point keeps blowing my mind.
They occasionally make minor mistakes! If only voters had known that occasionally minor mistakes (in reporting of all places) might be made, they'd have insisted we stick with the bureaucracy they know and love!
But hey, I guess it at least did happen. It's better than the grasping-at-straws "they'll probably leak your SS number" talking point. And the "he'll redirect treasury payments to himself" talking point.
This is inaccurate. In September 2022, the agency contracting officer mistakenly wrote $8B instead of $8M when logging in the FPDS database. DOGE discovered this error in January 2025, and the agency updated FPDS accordingly.
Except DOGE (at the time of this article) kept their claim of saving $8B and pointed at the old contract to make their stats look better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/upshot/doge-contracts-mus...
The DOGE website initially included a screenshot from the federal contracting database showing that the contract’s value was $8 million, even as the DOGE site listed $8 billion in savings. On Tuesday night, around the time this article was published, DOGE removed the screenshot that showed the mismatch, but continued to claim $8 billion in savings. It added a link to the original, outdated version of the contract worth $8 billion.
Trustworthy and transparent. I guess fixing a typo is worth $8B?
Your comment is vague so it's not clear if you are accusing voters in general of uncrtitically accepting obvious propaganda or if you yourself have believed obvious propaganda generated by DOGE.
Now that they can edit data, nothing can be proven, as they broke the chain of trust and accountability.
A criminal case can be thrown out if policemen didn't follow procedure, the same applies here. Those rules are put in place to protect all of us, and can't be handwaved because "that guy got elected" (with 49.8% of popular votes BTW).
The distinction between whether or not someone is formally registered as dead and whether or if they receive money are two completely different things and should not be confused. If you conflate the two issues then you can only be being disingenuous.
I've worked at a company which had people who have been dead longer than America exists in their database and some of them do not have a recorded date of death. That does not mean they are not dead, just that the death was not confirmed. And no they weren't being paid.
However if you get some junior developer in with no real knowledge of what they are doing on the job, stuff like this will appear and you can use it for political collateral because no one cares enough to understand the problem and ask questions. Like yourself.
No 300 year old pensionier got a paycheck. There was an audit just a few years back which didn't find big/relevant issues.
The USA Gov is not completly brain dead.
And no 'people didn't vote for this'. 1. only about 60-70% of people voted and from them around 50% voted for Trump.
The question is still valid if this should allow the current gov to overhaul the whole system that agressivly.
A gov and the people depending on it, are not tech bros who can afford to get fired.
Musk/Trump is already responsible for real death alone through the way they cut USAID: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
There is a 'okayisch' way to stop everything (its the USA choice if the most powerful and richest country is no longer able or motivated to help around the globe despite the damage a country like the USA does around the globe, think co2, resources etc.) and there is the Musk/Trump way and no this is not okay at all. Its a breach of social contract, respect etc.
Related to a comment on a now-flagged subthread: can anyone who believes that DOGE is uncovering fraud please post a reliable reference that gives a specific example of fraud uncovered by DOGE? To be clear, this should be a third-party analysis of some credibility, not DOGE's or Musk's twitter feed or "receipts" website which shows cancelled contracts with no clear link to fraudulent activity.
The claims of fraud are a pretext for going into the agencies and making the partisan changes they wanted to make anyway. There's no point asking for a detailed discussion because the whole plan is to use the discussion of fraud as cover for the thing they're actually doing.
I think wired nailed it:
"This is incompetence born of self-confidence. It’s a familiar Silicon Valley mindset, the reason startups are forever reinventing a bus, or a bodega, or mail. It’s the implacable certainty that if you’re smart at one thing you must be smart at all of the things."
"And if you don’t believe in the public good? You sprint through the ruination. You metastasize from agency to agency, leveling the maximum allowable destruction under the law. DOGE’s costly, embarrassing mistakes are a byproduct of reckless nihilism; if artificial intelligence can sell you a pizza, of course it can future-proof the General Services Administration.
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-incompetence-mistakes-featu...
It’s marketed as “fraud, waste and abuse.”
The top-line summaries are definitely consistent with “waste.” Probably some of them have more nuance when you dig deeper, but does anyone disagree that there is not waste in the government?
Fraud and abuse are less clear. But it’s also difficult to ascertain the legitimacy of payments when they’re leaving treasury on checks with no memo or reference, and they’re compared to “do not pay” lists that lack frequent updates.
Here are some of my opinions, as someone who is mostly supportive of the effort but also realistic about its outcomes and risks:
1. The people voted for smaller government, and if the executive doesn’t have the power to reduce the size of its own bureaucracy, then there is no check on ever-expanding government. The executive must have full authority to examine all data produced by itself.
2. Federal spending on salary, agencies and operations is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements and defense budget. Slashing jobs and even deleting entire agencies will not make a significant dent in the deficit. But if DOGE can really cut $1 trillion by end of year, it will have positive knock-on effects in the bond market.
3. Entitlements shouldn’t be treated with same bull-in-a-china shop approach as the current one towards agencies.
4. Social security probably has some fraud but I doubt it’s significant and is better resolved by identifying and punishing retroactively. Most of the “150 year old people” problems are exaggerated or outright wrong. However, it’s worrying that a system of age-based payouts has such uncertainty in its data.
5. It’s widely known there is significant fraud in Medicaid and Medicare. The true volume of this fraud is unknown and any effort to quantify it would be welcomed. But while fraudulent claims may be an issue, the real problem is unaccountable pricing of the healthcare system that allows for “legitimate” claims to cost more than any sane person would pay out of pocket.
6. In general, “if nothing breaks, you’re not cutting enough” is obviously true. But it does not follow that “things breaking” is an acceptable cost to pay. The approach needs to come with a well-defined rubric for evaluating not only “what to cut,” but also “which cuts to rollback.”
> However, it’s worrying that a system of age-based payouts has such uncertainty in its data.
The data itself may have to be interpreted, which I would classify as 'suboptimal', but seemingly 'normal' for most projects I work with. I often have to join together various tables, remembering to include or exclude specific data via conditional logic. The conditional logic may be context-dependent, and documenting those cases is really key. Why include/exclude specific subsets of data to answer questions XYZ? Have those criteria changed over the years (and if so, why?)
Looking at raw data tables it's often quite easy to come up with ways to show the data to support whatever case you're trying to make.
> 1. The people voted for smaller government, and if the executive doesn’t have the power to reduce the size of its own bureaucracy, then there is no check on ever-expanding government.
Congress specifies the size of most government bodies through its Article 1 power of Appropriation. The Executive's job is to administer what the People's delegates have decided to do. Deciding how much to spend is not the President job, and never has been.
The Republican Congress that was also presumably just elected to reduce government can at any time send legislation to the Republican President that will reduce the size of government; in fact, they are working on a budget bill right now. They are free to restructure government as much as they want, because Congress has been explicitly vested with that power.
A lot of people don't like this, but the Constitution is very clear on this point. It's also quite readable; you can read it yourself and verify that I am not making this up!
If I may:
Their is a huge conflict of ingerest of giving this power to a major economical actor that vastly depends on public investment and under public scrutinity.
Executive should have the audit right and in some measure probably it should be widespread to all citizens up to sensitive data not being leaked. But what good is there to give this power solely to one of the richest and more powerful man in the world? This is crazy.
> 1. The people voted for smaller government […]
The people voted for President and the people voted for Congress. If Congress, who under the US Constitution controls the purse, votes for a level of "X" spending why does the President get to decide to spend <X?
> 6. In general, “if nothing breaks, you’re not cutting enough” is obviously true.
It is not obviously true. Because what you're cutting may be resiliency.
To use a tech analogy: if I have two firewalls in an HA configuration, then decommissioning one to save on support costs will not break things… until the first one goes belly-up and there's no failover.
There's a reasonable argument to be made that more government capacity is actually needed (at least in certain sectors):
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...
The IRS for example would probably do better with more resources:
> That’s one reason that five former commissioners of IRS, Republican and Democrat, have argued eloquently that additional IRS resources would create a fairer tax system. The logic is simple. Fewer resources for the IRS mean reduced enforcement of tax laws. Though the tax code has become more complex, prior to the IRA real resources of the IRS had been cut by about 23 percent from 2010 to 2021.
* https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/cutting-irs-resources-and...
> Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.
* https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...
> But if DOGE can really cut $1 trillion by end of year, it will have positive knock-on effects in the bond market.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the US economy will be affected by $1 trillion less money circulating.
How and why would this produce positive knock-on effects in the bond market?
I presume the idea of $1 trillion less bonds being issues would decrease supply and decrease the price we need to charge. (More demand for the same supply decreases bond prices). This would have the impact of reducing the interest payments in the federal budget, which is becoming burdensome.
I personally am just as worried that reducing US gov spending will worsen a potential 2025 or 2026 recession (which might lower rates...)
> The top-line summaries are definitely consistent with “waste.”
Can you give a reference for an analysis of some cancelled contract or program that illustrates your point that it was wasteful spending? I'm looking for something that explains what the contract or program did beyond the 10-word title of the appropriations document saying something like "DEIA Training". (I work for a big private corporation and we also have such training, and I don't think from the corporate perspective its waste; I strongly suspect they attempt to balance the spend on that training to the cost reduction on lawsuit payouts. And especially from the government perspective, harm reduction should also be accounted separately from pure cost considerations.)
With regards to (4), it's been well known for a while that since Social Security doesn't check the payments being made into the program with any sort of scrutiny illegal immigrants can often get away with giving the social security numbers of dead people to their employers. Here's an article from 2024 that mentions the problem.
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/immigration-social-se...
From a policy perspective making it harder for illegal immigrants to be employed might make it worth cracking down on this. But doing so would cost the government money both by preventing these payments into Social Security that don't have to be paid out and also the cost of the crackdown itself.
Every large organization needs reviews/audits to find waste. I think the problem with the 'right' is the idea that because there is waste, then government is evil and we should abolish it.
But, every organization accumulates waste, and then needs to have a review process to make corrections. The whole burn it all down is pretty immature take on leadership.
Every corporation has waste, and bloated salaries, entitlements (the bosses son doesn't do much but has fat salary). Should DOGE go in and cut them also?
>1. The people voted for smaller government, and if the executive doesn’t have the power to reduce the size of its own bureaucracy, then there is no check on ever-expanding government. The executive must have full authority to examine all data produced by itself.
The people should educate themselves then. The way to reduce the budget is to elect different congresspeople. We did this in the 90s. It sure is funny how insistent all these people are that we can't just do what we've done before. Are they children who didn't live through the deficit hawk era?
2. "Their claim is impossible, but if they did it, that would be great"
4. "However, it’s worrying that a system of age-based payouts has such uncertainty in its data."
SS payouts ARE NOT based on age, but "eligibility", which age is an input to. The government purposely keeps very gentle records on it's citizens because once we saw a country keep really good records on it's people and then Bad Things happened, and also stuff about the mark of the beast. More importantly, the government takes a light touch to data integrity because the data doesn't matter. If you say you are eligible for benefits, the data says no, you can verify your eligibility a lot of ways and the data does not get updated, because we aren't supposed to be a surveillance state like that. If you want to update your records with the government, you can contact the Social Security admin and do it that way. One of the things Social Security pays out for is Ex Spouses, and that includes Abusive Ex Spouses. Your Abusive Ex I'm sure would love if the SS admin had accurate records about where they can find you. This is a legitimate concern that people working in government have had to address regularly.
5. Define significant. "Everyone thinks X" is a stupid heuristic when ONLY 47% of the country can even name the three branches of government. I don't care what Tim or Sasha think of medicare fraud, I care what GAO or an AG say about medicare fraud.
6. “if nothing breaks, you’re not cutting enough” is obviously true. Nope. Sometimes you just cannot recognize the breaks right away. The stricken vessel can keep going for quite some time before fully sinking. Cutting until shit breaks means you have to figure out what else is broken but not obviously so
And all this nonsense is shattered anyway when the basic premise of "Reducing the debt" is horseshit, which you can see from the tax plan being pushed.
I am shocked, and overjoyed, that this post has not been downvoted; well said.
The government itself self-reports $149B in "improper payments"
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/doge-musk-government-was...
So it was not uncovered by doge? and it is also not simply fraud? „Every year, agency reports posted online document billions in improper payments, which include fraud but also underpayments, duplicate payments, payments to ineligible recipients or for ineligible goods or services.“ (from the article you linked)
They will twist the narrative and not provide any evidence. I appreciate your request but please don’t be naive. Have you heard of trolling?
I’m happy with a description of a higher standard than, say, a Reddit discussion.
There is widespread fraud in the government. It needs to be addressed. There is widespread inefficiency too.
I think the people in DOGE have the skills and access to address it.
I have no evidence that they are doing so, and some evidence of widespread loyalty tests which, while not identical, remind me of how Stalin came to power.
However, absence if evidence is not evidence of absence, and some evidence is not the same as proof.
I have dozens of explanations which fit the facts, and I don't have any way to determine which, if any, is correct.
> There is widespread fraud in the government.... There is widespread inefficiency too... I think the people in DOGE have the skills and access to address it.
Given that just getting the names of the people involved in this process incurred Musk's wrath and accusations of criminal behaviour... how can you have any justified belief in people having 'skills' to address 'fraud' and 'inefficiency'?
We'd need some common definition of 'fraud' in the first place. Many of the things that have been labelled 'corruption' seem to just be 'things Musk doesn't like'; I suspect 'fraud' would be similar.
"Inefficiencies" - we have the Chesterton's Fence idea to illustrate that what might be 'inefficient' is intentional with an overall positive purpose. Again, define 'inefficiency'. The rate at which firings have been happening may certainly be 'efficient' from an operational standpoint, but having to scramble to rehire key people who shouldn't have been fired in the first place is 'inefficient' at best.
> I have dozens of explanations which fit the facts, and I don't have any way to determine which, if any, is correct.
I'm not sure we have enough verifiable 'facts' that can support many conclusions at all, and I think that 'fact' itself is evidence of intentionality in keeping the public in the dark about what's going on and why.
I'm sure the 5 people investigating Musk's companies for wasteful spending were all fired because they were fraudulent.
WSJ reports today that the gao Itself reported 140 billion in improper payments. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/doge-musk-government-was...
This is based on their statistics so I imagine the next step is to find the actual waste and fraud and stop it or get the money back.
If they were actually trying to eliminate waste, they’d be working in tandem with these departments instead of just trashing them.
More broadly: People who care about improving things move carefully and deliberately and involve all stakeholders. They are open and transparent and they listen. Trump and Musk are exhibiting horrible leadership skills because they do not care about improving things. Trump wants to hurt his perceived enemies and feel like he’s a big smart boss man. Musk wants to be the first trillionaire. That’s the start and end of it.
It did cross my mind ( like ministry of truth in 1984). But I suspect it's just a coincidence. Overall I think, in my judgement DM/EM have been transparent, at least significantly more than their detractors.
sure - the extreme left voices have definitely become louder, because this kind of emotive argumentation is wildly successful.
But they are following the path blazed elsewhere. The primary source of griping and emotion have been owned by right wing media. It’s their whole shtick.
The statement itself, is because tons of research comes for universities, which the conservative news and opinion machine are dedicated to denigrate and demolish.
So you see reality have a left wing bias, because conservative information providers have to reduce support and credibility of science.
See creationism for an example of how far this has been taken.
Sure. But right now what do care more about - the nitty gritty details of
1) The way software and projects at DOGE are going
2) “leftist claims that men can become women and vice-versa.”
This is a fundamentally a distracting question. It may give you mental relief (Yahh the other team is dumb, Reality is dumb)
Great! Take the breather.
But then talk about 1.
I get that things are polarized. I get that there is an INTENT behind it. But you’ve got all 3 branches of government. You have the ability to actually make this work.
Why THIS approach. What are the accountability checks and balances?
Are they just creating a new talking point to bounce down the years???
Did people get the required clearances? If not, why were the clearances there? IF yes, How are they making sure this is not going to be FUBARED.
How is responsibility going to be allocated? Are we going to have this over our heads for all generations to come? A new political ball to punt blame?
How do we get accountability for what - even to you - must look like the wrong way to do things.
I actually believe the executive branch should actually control the executive branch.