DOGE is dispatching agents across U.S. government

[Hammerhead02]

Don't rely on me, read the Trustees report for yourself:

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2024/tr2024.pdf

Under the Trustees’ intermediate assumptions, Social Security’s total cost is projected to be higher than its total income in 2024 and all later years. Total cost began to be higher than total income in 2021. Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010. ... Considered separately, the reserves of the OASI Trust Fund are projected to become depleted during 2033 under the intermediate assumptions.
...
The OASI Trust Fund reserves are projected to become depleted in 2033, at which time OASI income would be sufficient to pay 79 percent of OASI scheduled benefits.

79% is an increase from the 2023 report, that one projected the 77% of benefits I mentioned earlier.

The unserious people are the ones who won't deal with the reality of the situation. It was always a Ponzi, even if millions didn't understand it was.

Unserious.

 

[seminole97]

Unserious.

In what respect is the annual Social Security trustees report 'unserious'?
I get that you don't like the news, but that doesn't in any way touch on the integrity of their review.

 

[redghost1974]

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sending representatives to agencies across the federal government, four people familiar with the matter said, to begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives’ enormous ambitions to tame Washington’s sprawling bureaucracy.

In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.

At the same time, Musk and Ramaswamy have significantly stepped up hiring for their new entity, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building company, in downtown Washington, two of the people said. DOGE aims to have a staff of close to 100 people in place by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.


While much about DOGE remains unclear — including who is paying the salaries of these staffers or exactly how DOGE representatives work with the formal transition team — the agency outreach reflects intensifying efforts by Musk and Ramaswamy to propose what they say will be “drastic” cuts to federal spending and regulations. Even as the scale of their project grows, Musk and Ramaswamy are encountering a slew of obstacles, including reluctance among congressional Republicans to approve deep budget cuts and a skeptical career civil service.
Two government employees said remarks Musk and Ramaswamy have made about the civil service have made them wary of the entire DOGE effort. Longtime civil servants — some who have built their careers learning the intricacies of the federal bureaucracy — are an awkward fit with Silicon Valley’s fast-moving and disruptive culture. Many in Washington regard the tech entrepreneurs as arrogant or naive about the complexity of reining in government.
The U.S. presidential transition process traditionally involves teams from the incoming administration working with existing agency staff and officials on the transfer of power, including regular briefings. This year’s changeover is far smoother than it was four years ago, when the process was complicated by Trump’s refusal to recognize the results of the election. But the uncertain status of DOGE relative to the rest of the Trump transition team has raised new questions about who precisely is speaking for the incoming administration.


In a potential nod to the myriad challenges facing DOGE, Musk has begun tempering certain promises in his bid to achieve sweeping reform by reinventing the federal bureaucracy, eliminating entire agencies, shrinking the federal workforce and slashing historic sums from the federal budget. In an interview Wednesday night at CES, the tech trade show in Las Vegas, he said DOGE may fall short of his initial aim to cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion. I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” he said. “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion].”
The idea of a commission to cut waste and regulation, long discussed among conservatives, was taken up by Musk and Trump during last year’s presidential election. Musk put $277 million toward electing Trump and other Republicans in 2024, and Trump has made the billionaire one of his most powerful advisers. After the election, Trump named Musk and Ramaswamy as DOGE’s co-leaders, assigned to identify government waste that the White House Office of Management and Budget would try to cut.


For a project named as a joking reference to a meme-based cryptocurrency, DOGE has taken numerous steps since the election to build a very real Washington operation. Over the past several weeks, DOGE has been deluged by applications that have poured in through direct messages on X, Musk’s social media site, where the group put out a public call for “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”

That led to swarms of applicants who sought to bring their experience and credentials to the attention of Musk or Ramaswamy. In a blog post, Vinay Hiremath, co-founder of the tech company Loom, described four “intense and intoxicating” weeks of DOGE-related work after he became involved.
Although he ultimately decided not to relocate to Washington for a job with DOGE, Hiremath said he had been added to multiple groups on the encrypted messaging app Signal, where DOGE is conducting much of its initial work. Hiremath did not respond to requests for comment.


The crowdsourced callouts were followed by postings for more specific roles: Just after Christmas, DOGE said it was looking for IT, HR and financial staffers for full-time, salaried positions. This week, it put out a request for software engineers and information security engineers for full-time roles, advising applicants to send over “a few bullet points demonstrating exceptional ability” along with their cellphone numbers. On X, some users have listed their IQ scores in replies to Musk and DOGE and said they included them in their applications.
Key leadership roles have also fallen into place. Steve Davis, the Boring Company president who oversaw steep cost-cutting at Twitter (now X) after Musk bought it, is helping to oversee the entire effort, and deputies have been recruited to focus on narrower aspects of its agenda, such as legislation and regulation, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Emil Michael, a former Uber executive, is one of the people overseeing the effort to cut regulations, according to one person familiar with the matter, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect matters not yet made public. Trump has announced the appointment of Katie Miller, former press secretary and communications director for former vice president Mike Pence, to DOGE. Trump also said in December that Bill McGinley, the former White House Cabinet secretary whom he’d previously named as White House counsel, would serve instead as DOGE counsel.


It remains unclear exactly how DOGE will drive change. The White House budget request applies to spending in fiscal 2026, which doesn’t begin until Oct. 1. Spending for the rest of the current fiscal year is being hashed out on Capitol Hill by congressional Republicans who already have voted overwhelmingly to boost spending for the Defense Department — an agency DOGE has vowed to target.
Numerous party officials, meanwhile, are quietly wary of approving big spending cuts at the same time they are working to extend the expiring provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax legislation, which would reduce revenue by trillions of dollars. And it’s not clear how much weight Musk’s star power will carry on Capitol Hill, where federal spending is often prized for its benefits to hometown constituents. The limits of Musk’s influence were revealed in late December when Congress revised a stopgap spending bill he criticized but passed separate legislation to implement many of the specific provisions he lambasted.
As Musk’s emissaries begin to make contact with federal officials, critical questions remain unresolved about the group’s authority and responsibilities. The two federal employees expressed confusion about what DOGE is assigned to do — including whether it has Trump’s full backing.


“Every administration has to establish a relationship with its career people, because it’s the career people who keep the government going,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “I think this is an important foray, but given what they have stated, it will be difficult for some career individuals to be cooperative with the DOGE people, who are not elected and are more advisers than political appointees.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/10/musk-ramaswamy-doge-federal-agencies/

How about they start with the money going directly to Musk for SpaceX, satellites, and EV contracts/subsidies.

 

[Hammerhead02]

In what respect is the annual Social Security trustees report 'unserious'?
I get that you don't like the news, but that doesn't in any way touch on the integrity of their review.

Bye.

 

[Huey Grey]

Republicans are inept. There's no other way around it. It's like watching a chimp digging around in it's butthole trying to find gold.

 

[MitchLL]

Two wealthy pricks who have no leash.

Yep, this is gonna be a cluster$%&@.

 

[alaskanseminole]

In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.

 

[seminole97]

Bye.

lulz
I got banned from Democraticunderground.com because I posted a link to the trustees report once.
Reality is too upsetting for some people.

 

[Hammerhead02]

lulz
I got banned from Democraticunderground.com because I posted a link to the trustees report once.
Reality is too upsetting for some people.

Cool story, bro.

 

[seminole97]

Cool story, bro.

Why do you consider the trustees' report 'unserious', bro?

 

[Hock-I]

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sending representatives to agencies across the federal government, four people familiar with the matter said, to begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives’ enormous ambitions to tame Washington’s sprawling bureaucracy.

In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.

At the same time, Musk and Ramaswamy have significantly stepped up hiring for their new entity, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building company, in downtown Washington, two of the people said. DOGE aims to have a staff of close to 100 people in place by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.


While much about DOGE remains unclear — including who is paying the salaries of these staffers or exactly how DOGE representatives work with the formal transition team — the agency outreach reflects intensifying efforts by Musk and Ramaswamy to propose what they say will be “drastic” cuts to federal spending and regulations. Even as the scale of their project grows, Musk and Ramaswamy are encountering a slew of obstacles, including reluctance among congressional Republicans to approve deep budget cuts and a skeptical career civil service.
Two government employees said remarks Musk and Ramaswamy have made about the civil service have made them wary of the entire DOGE effort. Longtime civil servants — some who have built their careers learning the intricacies of the federal bureaucracy — are an awkward fit with Silicon Valley’s fast-moving and disruptive culture. Many in Washington regard the tech entrepreneurs as arrogant or naive about the complexity of reining in government.
The U.S. presidential transition process traditionally involves teams from the incoming administration working with existing agency staff and officials on the transfer of power, including regular briefings. This year’s changeover is far smoother than it was four years ago, when the process was complicated by Trump’s refusal to recognize the results of the election. But the uncertain status of DOGE relative to the rest of the Trump transition team has raised new questions about who precisely is speaking for the incoming administration.


In a potential nod to the myriad challenges facing DOGE, Musk has begun tempering certain promises in his bid to achieve sweeping reform by reinventing the federal bureaucracy, eliminating entire agencies, shrinking the federal workforce and slashing historic sums from the federal budget. In an interview Wednesday night at CES, the tech trade show in Las Vegas, he said DOGE may fall short of his initial aim to cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion. I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” he said. “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion].”
The idea of a commission to cut waste and regulation, long discussed among conservatives, was taken up by Musk and Trump during last year’s presidential election. Musk put $277 million toward electing Trump and other Republicans in 2024, and Trump has made the billionaire one of his most powerful advisers. After the election, Trump named Musk and Ramaswamy as DOGE’s co-leaders, assigned to identify government waste that the White House Office of Management and Budget would try to cut.


For a project named as a joking reference to a meme-based cryptocurrency, DOGE has taken numerous steps since the election to build a very real Washington operation. Over the past several weeks, DOGE has been deluged by applications that have poured in through direct messages on X, Musk’s social media site, where the group put out a public call for “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”

That led to swarms of applicants who sought to bring their experience and credentials to the attention of Musk or Ramaswamy. In a blog post, Vinay Hiremath, co-founder of the tech company Loom, described four “intense and intoxicating” weeks of DOGE-related work after he became involved.
Although he ultimately decided not to relocate to Washington for a job with DOGE, Hiremath said he had been added to multiple groups on the encrypted messaging app Signal, where DOGE is conducting much of its initial work. Hiremath did not respond to requests for comment.


The crowdsourced callouts were followed by postings for more specific roles: Just after Christmas, DOGE said it was looking for IT, HR and financial staffers for full-time, salaried positions. This week, it put out a request for software engineers and information security engineers for full-time roles, advising applicants to send over “a few bullet points demonstrating exceptional ability” along with their cellphone numbers. On X, some users have listed their IQ scores in replies to Musk and DOGE and said they included them in their applications.
Key leadership roles have also fallen into place. Steve Davis, the Boring Company president who oversaw steep cost-cutting at Twitter (now X) after Musk bought it, is helping to oversee the entire effort, and deputies have been recruited to focus on narrower aspects of its agenda, such as legislation and regulation, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Emil Michael, a former Uber executive, is one of the people overseeing the effort to cut regulations, according to one person familiar with the matter, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect matters not yet made public. Trump has announced the appointment of Katie Miller, former press secretary and communications director for former vice president Mike Pence, to DOGE. Trump also said in December that Bill McGinley, the former White House Cabinet secretary whom he’d previously named as White House counsel, would serve instead as DOGE counsel.


It remains unclear exactly how DOGE will drive change. The White House budget request applies to spending in fiscal 2026, which doesn’t begin until Oct. 1. Spending for the rest of the current fiscal year is being hashed out on Capitol Hill by congressional Republicans who already have voted overwhelmingly to boost spending for the Defense Department — an agency DOGE has vowed to target.
Numerous party officials, meanwhile, are quietly wary of approving big spending cuts at the same time they are working to extend the expiring provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax legislation, which would reduce revenue by trillions of dollars. And it’s not clear how much weight Musk’s star power will carry on Capitol Hill, where federal spending is often prized for its benefits to hometown constituents. The limits of Musk’s influence were revealed in late December when Congress revised a stopgap spending bill he criticized but passed separate legislation to implement many of the specific provisions he lambasted.
As Musk’s emissaries begin to make contact with federal officials, critical questions remain unresolved about the group’s authority and responsibilities. The two federal employees expressed confusion about what DOGE is assigned to do — including whether it has Trump’s full backing.


“Every administration has to establish a relationship with its career people, because it’s the career people who keep the government going,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “I think this is an important foray, but given what they have stated, it will be difficult for some career individuals to be cooperative with the DOGE people, who are not elected and are more advisers than political appointees.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/10/musk-ramaswamy-doge-federal-agencies/

Somebody should try to kill them too.

 

[LBoogie28]

The troll game is a 5 (at best), but it keeps getting responses… 😂

 

[uihawk82]

I'd expect a combination of means testing and higher taxes. With no changes it still meets 77% of promised payouts, so it doesn't go away, just becomes an even worse 'investment' for everyone sucked into it.



Not so sure about the 'full employment' situation, when 1/3rd of men aren't working.

Well the top bolded text is the first propaganda lie that the REpubs say is that the "SS system will be broke by 2033", listen to them, that is a lie. I also have heard and read that if nothing is done then recipients will get close to 80% of their promised benefit. They lie and they are scare mongers just to get elected. It is the worst kind of asshole move just so they can have a paycheck. And #2 it just shows how little the Soc Sec fix has to be to cover that missing gap of 23%. There are 2,500 billionaires in this country now and you dont think they can afford to pay some more into the social security system, then shame on you. And we should count some of their stock gains as income to be taxed for Soc Sec. as they wont even miss that money.

And secondly if those men want to disappear from the labor market and not make money then why are they bitching and yelling at inflation they say Biden caused, which he didnt of course. I dont feel any empathy toward a man who is physically and mentally fit but WONT work. There are jobs out there, lots of unfilled jobs.

 

[seminole97]

Well the top bolded text is the first propaganda lie that the REpubs say is that the "SS system will be broke by 2033", listen to them, that is a lie.

But it is true.

broke
adjective
1. having completely run out of money.

bankrupt
adjective
1. (of a person or organization) declared in law unable to pay outstanding debts.

After the trust fund is exhausted in 2033 or 2034 they will have run out of money to meet their obligations.
In the 'real world' that means they're broke, or bankrupt.

It is bankrupt if it can't pay its promised debts, and it can't. It has run its course like an other Ponzi. Any private entity would be shut down at that point, and whatever assets remained liquidated to pay creditors what was left.

But this is a Ponzi to which people are compelled under threat of arrest and jail with continuing their 'contributions', even though they won't get back as much as they pay in.

If Madoff had the law behind him to force continuing contributions, and people had no legal recourse to withdraw what they had 'contributed', I guess you wouldn't consider him to have been bankrupted either, but you'd be wrong in any fiscal sense.

I also have heard and read that if nothing is done then recipients will get close to 80% of their promised benefit.

Yes, that's in the trustees report that I linked earlier. 2023 estimate was 77%, 2024 estimate was 79%.
Their projections include an assumption of higher birthrate, so we'll see how that goes.

They lie and they are scare mongers just to get elected. It is the worst kind of asshole move just so they can have a paycheck. And #2 it just shows how little the Soc Sec fix has to be to cover that missing gap of 23%. There are 2,500 billionaires in this country now and you dont think they can afford to pay some more into the social security system, then shame on you.

First, it's a 75 TRILLION dollar gap. I'm not sure in what world that's 'little'. Maybe Zimbabwe back when they were printing to buy Mugabe political support?

"We can guarantee cash payments from here on out, what we cannot guarantee is the purchasing power of that cash."
-Alan Greenspan during remarks on Social Security, Feb 16, 2005

Second, those billionaires' wealth is predominantly composed of assets, not some McScrooge vault of gold coins.
Ownership of a factory isn't a liquid asset that you can take from someone, and then use to buy groceries or pay property taxes.

And we should count some of their stock gains as income to be taxed for Soc Sec. as they wont even miss that money

Those gains are already taxed when realized.
If someone else says they think your car is worth a billion dollars, should you pay tax on that perceived value right now, or taxes on what you get when you decide to actually sell it?
If you don't have the money to pay the tax on the perceived billion dollar valuation, should you be compelled to sell the car to pay the tax, since it has so much perceived value?
Trying to force people to divest from good investments is just dumb policy.

And secondly if those men want to disappear from the labor market and not make money then why are they bitching and yelling at inflation they say Biden caused, which he didnt of course. I dont feel any empathy toward a man who is physically and mentally fit but WONT work. There are jobs out there, lots of unfilled jobs.

Biden put his signature on trillions of dollars of new debt, which is inflationary in our monetary system.
He's tried to normalize spending 50% higher as a share of GDP than we had during the late 90s when Clinton was president (I'm taking this from the budget forecasts showing federal spending at 24% of GDP for the next decade).
That has to be cut back to something sustainable.