I know we're on to new outrages like tariffs and Ukraine, but this is a great read on DOGE/beauracracy...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
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The BEAD money is just to build out the infrastructure. It's just money in the pockets of the telcos/cable companies regardless of anyone deciding to use it and paying monthly fees.
The BEAD money doesn't include money to pay the monthly bill for whoever on the route decides to pay for a connection.
You're not comparing the same things.
Are you too ignorant to realize that, or are you being this misleading on purpose?
Given your history...
I know that.
It's why I INCLUDED the $50/month costs for the fiber buildout, per each of the 8.5M homes.
That monthly cost is HALF what Starlink costs, and is WHY Starlink is 2x more expensive over 10 years
My status as an Independent rests on two tenets:
-A small government that efficiently provides as basic set of core services (we are well beyond this today)
-Government bureaucracy costs US companies and hinders innovation and puts us at a disadvantage in global market
So I may support the outcomes in some ways but the methods are unacceptable
-A small government that efficiently provides as basic set of core services (we are well beyond this today)
-Government bureaucracy costs US companies and hinders innovation and puts us at a disadvantage in global market
So I may support the outcomes in some ways but the methods are unacceptable
Not at all.
I used the prices LISTED by the other poster responding to you.
$50 for gigabit fiber is typical (and you can get even cheaper). Starlink charges 2x as much.
It's Math, Idiot.
I can't help you if you won't believe liberals who are frustrated with how impossible it is to get things done in our current regulatory environment. That believe in the power of the government to do good, and are frustrated that it's being handicapped.
You might have some kind of brain worms...I literally posted an article that talks about how Doge sucks and its approach isn't right. That's the article.
I feel sorry for you that you can't think in any shades at all, or have any theory of mind for anyone else, and are never interested in anything but partisan shit-throwing.
For anyone who is kind of in this same boat, i.e. "Government should be more effective and efficient (whether you think it should do more or less), but this is the shittiest possible approach" camp, this is a fantastic read.
Talks about why most of how Musk is handling this is crappy, and squandering an opportunity.
It's pretty clear that Musk's focus on nothing but cutting cost and headcount is faulty if not counterproductive. For example:
- DOGE has indeed tried to cut federal headcount extremely aggressively (one estimate suggests it’s cut 20,000 federal employees so far, although that may not be right). They’ve gone about this by, as we expected, firing probationary employees and those hired under certain special authorities. Unlike tenured federal employees, probationary employees cannot appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) unless they claim discrimination or whistleblower retaliation. Note that probationary doesn’t just mean “in your first year on the job,” but also those who have been recently promoted.
- In many cases, the probationary employees are exactly who I would not like DOGE to fire, from an efficiency standpoint: they’re the younger, less entrenched, more technologically savvy people. Take the Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency within the Department of Commerce. BIS is mandated to enforce American export controls on “dual-use technologies,” like uranium enrichment technologies and high-end semiconductor chips. From a team of about 500, DOGE canned about 15 people. At least a handful of them were (in my view) some of the people best positioned to improve our ability to keep Chinese hands off the most powerful AI technologies. A similar dynamic has played out across the federal government.
- Firing probationary employees is what you do if your problem definition is, “there are too many employees of the federal government and there should be fewer.” It’s not what you would do if you defined the problem as, “we can’t fire bad employees,” or, “good federal employees are constrained by too much process.”
I work in the regulatory space. Shit gets done every single day. But some people hate any reg that doesn’t allow the to do what they want when they want - like Elmo. But that doesn’t make them right. You should be suspicious of anyone who bitches about regs - they’re usually trying to do something the rest of us won’t like.
But yeah, I can’t form a thought and you have it all figured out.
NO, HE IS NOT.
If he WERE, he'd be going after the BIGGEST expenditures. MOST of which are government CONTRACTS.
He's eliminated almost ZERO spend from the largest segments of the federal budget.
His DOGE teenagers are literally looking for any thing that contains the words "DEI" or "woke" and eliminating it.
Because there are no Republicans right now.
RATs and RINOs need to form a coalition with moderate democrats.
How is that not the govt that got us to the record debt we have now?
What policy the federal government has been doing for the last 30 years didn’t have the votes of the RINOS and the moderate democrats?
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I AM comparing the same things.
Once the infrastructure is built out, 8.5M customers will pay HALF for higher speed internet service than Starlink.
And that infrastructure will be expandable in perpetuity.
Over 10 yrs, it will save "flyover country" $50B+
"It's just money in the pockets of the telcos/cable companies regardless of anyone deciding to use it and paying monthly fees."
This is what the fricking internet is, too, idiot. The US government created the backbone of it, and the economic benefits have had practically infinite ROI.
Rep Tim Burchett says he’s willing to lose his job to tell us the REAL REASON government officials are opposing Elon Musk and DOGE
“They’re gonna push back because you’ve got Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. If they follow that paper trail, it's going to come back to them. You've got their wife and or girlfriend that works for some agency, quasi-agency or some business. This towns as crooked as a dogs leg”
“I’ll get primaried for saying that but that’s the truth and we all know it”
“Somebody’s gonna straight it out, it looks like it’s gonna be Elon Musk”
hawkeyetraveler
HB Heisman
The aim of streamlining our government is absolutely critical. But how they are doing this is insane. They are weeding out those that have been recently promoted (i.e. the good workers) and those newly hired (i.e. the younger cheaper workers). So far the approach seems to be fire, ready aim.For anyone who is kind of in this same boat, i.e. "Government should be more effective and efficient (whether you think it should do more or less), but this is the shittiest possible approach" camp, this is a fantastic read.
Talks about why most of how Musk is handling this is crappy, and squandering an opportunity.
It's pretty clear that Musk's focus on nothing but cutting cost and headcount is faulty if not counterproductive. For example:
- DOGE has indeed tried to cut federal headcount extremely aggressively (one estimate suggests it’s cut 20,000 federal employees so far, although that may not be right). They’ve gone about this by, as we expected, firing probationary employees and those hired under certain special authorities. Unlike tenured federal employees, probationary employees cannot appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) unless they claim discrimination or whistleblower retaliation. Note that probationary doesn’t just mean “in your first year on the job,” but also those who have been recently promoted.
- In many cases, the probationary employees are exactly who I would not like DOGE to fire, from an efficiency standpoint: they’re the younger, less entrenched, more technologically savvy people. Take the Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency within the Department of Commerce. BIS is mandated to enforce American export controls on “dual-use technologies,” like uranium enrichment technologies and high-end semiconductor chips. From a team of about 500, DOGE canned about 15 people. At least a handful of them were (in my view) some of the people best positioned to improve our ability to keep Chinese hands off the most powerful AI technologies. A similar dynamic has played out across the federal government.
- Firing probationary employees is what you do if your problem definition is, “there are too many employees of the federal government and there should be fewer.” It’s not what you would do if you defined the problem as, “we can’t fire bad employees,” or, “good federal employees are constrained by too much process.”
Instead they should be looking at services the government provides that are just not mission critical and eliminate those services in their entirety. By doing these across the board / peanut butter cuts what will happen is a reduced level of service everywhere. It is far better to make deliberate/hard choices about what matters and what does not, IN CONSULTATION and with DIRECTION FROM Congress. The R’s hold all the branches and Congress is the legal body empowered to decide what we spend money on. They could easily get this done the right way if they wanted. Instead they pseudo-hired a megalomaniac who apparently shits on the constitution for breakfast.
This is critical work and because they are f*cking up the implementation they will (1) not find the savings they are claiming and (2) they will piss off Americans so much it will be hard to achieve the necessary cuts down the road.
Just do it right, it isn’t even that hard…there are many people who have done large scale cost cutting successfully. The way Musk is doing it is literally the opposite of the proven playbook.
Elon Musk is straightening NONE of it out.
His teenagers are doing AI searches for "woke" terms and cutting personnel and grants based on "words".
And in a large portion of the cases, those DEI/"woke" things have nothing to do with DEI or woke.
Doing it right requires actual analysis and work.
Musk is cutting things that directly benefit his companies, and follow the Project2025 Playbook that the people who give him money want done. Not what the voters want done.
Oh hell, just wait until MUSKY gets bored after getting all the govt contracts he wants, Fat Filthy Don has the big one, and the country will get back to normal. Those with patience wins,
Agreed. Especially this:
This is critical work and because they are f*cking up the implementation they will (1) not find the savings they are claiming and (2) they will piss off Americans so much it will be hard to achieve the necessary cuts down the road.
It's going to take a lot to piss off most Americans because shrinking the federal government is surprisingly bipartisan and the reaction from regular people has been pretty tame so far, but you will be able to add pissed off Americans + disillusioned Americans that feel let down that the opportunity was squandered, and it's going to be most people. It will probably set back any attempt to do anything similar for another generation.
And in the super partisan environment, this shitty way its being done is going to radicalize have the country against the idea of doing anything to improve things. Whether someone thinks its a failure or an outrage, anyone who suggests trying to get a handle on this issue will be tarred as being the next Elon.
Such a waste of an opportunity.
Thought I read they’re fewer government workers than 30 years ago. Not saying that it doesn’t need trimmed or efficiencies found. But to claim that it’s the largest it’s ever been or out of control beast seems incorrect.
The departments we should truly be looking at are DOD. Social Security and Medicare. Go where the money is.
The departments we should truly be looking at are DOD. Social Security and Medicare. Go where the money is.
Federal employment, as a percent of the total US workforce, has declined since the 1960s.
I believe the actual number of fed employees has been fairly stable, despite the overall US population continuing to increase.
While localities where the federal govt is one of the larger employers may see a significant economic impact, overall, the impact to employment as a whole will be miniscule. What will matter is the loss of key services those federal employees performed, which will be felt over the course of future months.
A lot more of it is contracted out, not directly provided by government employees.
This is done mainly for flexibility purposes. Much easier to halt a contract than downsize the civil service.
So I’d expect if you measure government workers to include those directly employed and those contracted by the government to provide services it’s a larger headcount than 30 years ago.
But DOGE isn't evaluating "contractors".
It's finding "woke" language and eliminating anyone associated with it, irrespective of whether the "woke" language relates at all to "wokeness".
Unfortunately a lot of projects the private sector won’t do without government investment. Of course this has been abused by congressman looking to keep their jobs or businesses going for the best tax credits. Those billion dollar stadiums on the tax payer dime is a great grift.
I’m not even opposed to the idea in principle of the government contracting out for services people want the government to pay for, I just wanted to point out that can create a misleading picture of ‘government employment’ by making a headcount of those who get their payroll from the government versus from a government contractor.
Rep. Burchette was saying this is why the gravy train gets bipartisan support.
I’m with you. I understand the argument that the restaurant and hotel are ‘free riders’ on the customers the stadium brings, but I’d let the billionaires fund their own stadiums. I wouldn’t tax the public at large for them. I prefer to restrict the government to essential activities.
Studies I believe have shown no great long term economic impact from new arenas. Mainly because the community gets shaken down every 15 to 20 years for a new one and updates.
John Oliver had a joke on it. You’d be better off dropping a few billion from a helicopter and get the same economic impact.
Sorry ever since Citizen United Scam we the people have been pretty marginalized !
Hey, at least we got rid of any mention of the woke Enola Gay!
Pentagon to remove 'Enola Gay' WWII aircraft photos for violating DEI rules
An anonymous source said the purge could delete 100,000 images in total, when considering social media pages are also being culled for DEI content.
www.nbcwashington.com
Hey, at least we got rid of any mention of the woke Enola Gay!
Pentagon to remove 'Enola Gay' WWII aircraft photos for violating DEI rules
An anonymous source said the purge could delete 100,000 images in total, when considering social media pages are also being culled for DEI content.www.nbcwashington.com
Enola Gay = Too Woke
there's an entire railroad built just for trans people to move across the continent!
someone alert elon!
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