No, thats not the only way, literally Clinton and Obama did it better and it was less harmful. You are literal trash.
So should I be more concerned about the alleged billions of dollars in supposed waste (there is waste but disagreement on what is waste) or the trillions of dollars in tax cuts that the super wealthy just received and the complete lack of oversight on the people making these decisions? Also does the fact that budget spending is again increasing while the supposed concern has been on cutting waste? Wasn't spending under the prior Trump administration also very high? Also - how are we going to deal with a 5% decrease in the population after deportations when it comes to tax revenue coming into the government? It isn't offset by a decrease in government spending, as many of those deported were paying into a social security and Medicare and never would get the services. Also - does it concern you that there are massive costs associated with "getting rid of everything to see what you cannot live without" when you are talking about a nation of 300 million people, with the largest generation being in their 60's-70's? Can you see how someone looking from the outside could conclude that this looks like a shell game to benefit the wealthiest Americans?
We have no USAID Disaster Response Teams or international search and rescue teams available to send to Myanmar. FEMA just cancelled a regular meeting of experts that develop earthquake design standards here in the US.
I use ZBB at our business - in fact we treat it as the lens you look at throughout the year, not just at the beginning of the year. The key point here is that you are budgeting (i.e planning). We don't go into our business and say, let's fire all the salespeople and then see how many we really need. We look at the revenue (to be more accurate, profits) they bring in vs the cost, etc. Similarly, it is easy for people to grasp why we don't close all our military bases and then see what we need when a war happens. The craziest part to me is that we have so much more data/processing power at our hands these days that it is much easier to make an earnest effort than it is to just posture. In fact, now that I think about it, I would have just told DOGE to come with a list of recommendations in 120 days (so they can vet things) and then put it up for a vote. And agree that you'd do it every 120 days (filibuster aside, you could roll those cuts into the reconciliation bill). You'd probably get more meaningful results than whatever incrementally you saved (or wasted) by moving at the sledgehammer route (i.e what is a few extra months on the lease). DOGE cuts are marginally better than a person campaigning on spending cut....they know that it is all a farce since spending cuts don't get voted through and DOGE cuts are likely to get reversed b/c they won't get voted on.
I will echo that this is all theater. The cuts to the IRS will cost the government $500 billion. Doge will not come close to making that up. Lowering taxes to the wealthy will cost even more. They are actually increasing the debt and deficit. So their goal is obviously not what they say it is.
stupidity is keep on parroting the false narrative. Government spending is approved by the Congress, the Federal Reserve Bank has nothing to do with it. conversely, while the Federal Reserve Bank has responsibility for the control of money supply in circulation, the Congress has nothing to do with it
It was a good interview. Wasn't perfect, but good enough to get people thinking. They've tempered their message a lot from when they started AI Summary There's still plenty of room for skepticism but this was a long time coming. The "alternate approaches" the AI gave could've been done at any point in history, and was in a piecemeal/incremental basis, which caused even more fragmentation of the system. Everyone would've loved Obama for doing this, instead he let budget sequestration happen under his watch than making any painful and individual political cuts. He also let lobbyist groups take control of healthcare, finance, and car industries, so maybe he wasn't the person to put hopes of change into. People who never participated in governmental politics or studied civics haven't fully understood how each agency takes a real life of their own. It needs money to grow and most of all, it will do anything and everything to survive. A drop in funding better mean an all around percentage drop or it'll be fought tooth an nail. Government systems don't reward change nor efficiency. It only punishes failures that are noticed or things that draw outrage/focused scrutiny. There are many good and capable people who keep the lights on, but there are also those who coast and do the bare minimum. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/doge-upheaval-arrives-in-cities-far-from-washington-e18cd093 In this article, they're mostly sympathetic of the IRS layoffs DOGE impacted but they ran with this guy first. Anyone else see what is wrong with this? Oklahoma City lies 1,300 miles from Washington, where the Trump administration is roiling the federal workforce through mass layoffs and return-to-office orders. But the effects are rippling through the Oklahoma capital, too, in ways that are both disruptive and surprising. The Oklahoma City metro area alone has roughly 30,000 federal workers who help inspect meat, staff prisons, fix military planes and train air-traffic controllers. They are among 80% of the U.S. government’s 2.3 million nonpostal and nonuniformed employees who live beyond the Beltway, including many who are concentrated in certain regions by military bases and collections of federal offices. Chris Dowling lost his accounting job at the Internal Revenue Service in Oklahoma City as the Trump administration cut more than 7,000 IRS workers nationwide, as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts. Landing the job last year helped the 32-year-old invest in property where he hoped to raise 40 cattle. Now he is contemplating how he will handle a $36,000 land payment due later this year. “It was far and away the best balance of a fulfilling career that was challenging as hell, but was also going to be stable and could swing a family in middle America,” said Dowling, who has an 11-month-old child.
there are going to be impacts throughout the economy, and across the country, that will take some time to work their way through the system. If the Doge guy in the interview is to be believed, federal employees who have been fired have received generous packages to help them weather the storm. I've been laid off 4 times, twice while my wife was pregnant, and none of these was particularly fun. we have friends and and family who have been directly effected. One worked for an NGO that received 90% of its funding from USAID. As the cuts were happening, they used Signal to communicate with one another so they couldn't be tracked. the irony. Another friend said he and his wife took their jobs with the expectation they were lifetime jobs, i.e., they couldn't be fired, except in exceptional circumstances. Almost like they thought they had tenure. I have another, very liberal friend, who has been in the arts his entire career. He's now in his 70s, and lives in a beautiful house on six acres in a toney exurban area. He complains about the housing market that makes it too expensive to house servers and kitchen help for his favorite local restaurants, which consequently have had to close. generally, I'm unsympathetic towards folks who have never worked in the private sector, and have expectations that would be unrealistic for the rest of us. sure, it sucks for the moment, but my taxes should not be paying for your Falls Church manse.
I dunno, that IRS guy who wanted to sideline as a country rancher sounded pretty hardworking, esp with that 11 month old baby helping with the field labor.
Speaking of impacts... ‘I started praying’: Abrupt move above CLT airport startles American Airlines passengers CharlotteObserver.com By Chase Jordan Updated March 28, 2025 7:02 PM Passengers on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Charlotte had a scary landing experience Friday afternoon, according to a journalist and other passengers aboard the plane. The plane had to do an emergency pull-up from landing because another plane was on the runway, tweeted Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a New York Times reporter and CNN on-air contributor. Instead of going down, the plane shot up without an explanation, but clearly something was wrong, Garcia-Navarro told The Charlotte Observer. “We sort of took a very steep ascent,” she said. “I started praying because I was scared.” A few minutes later, the pilot came on and said there was a plane on the runway where the flight was supposed to land, Garcia-Navarro added. “We ended up circling a couple of times,” she said. “It was pretty bumpy.” “American 938, go around, aircraft still on the runway,” Air Traffic Control told pilots on board around 1:19 p.m. Friday, Observer news partner WSOC reported. A previous arrival was still on the runaway, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson told The Charlotte Observer. The pilots on the flight from California were told to perform a go-around, a safe routine maneuver. It discontinues the landing approach and returns the aircraft to an altitude and configuration to safely make another approach. Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article303020719.html#storylink=cpy
SMDH. Can't wait for the moments Musk says "you know years are made up of months" and "mistakes will be made" and "I never promised that". My best WAG is that an organization with solid experience modernizing enterprise computer systems would be damn lucky to finish this SSA codebase rewrite in 24 months. I suspect that this will be a large effort that will fail ... except to enrich Musk. Cost plus all the way, baby. DOGE To Rewrite SSA Codebase In 'Months'
evidence of the willful ignorance of commodore, basso and invisible; they are confused and all mixed-up. again, for the education of these 3 stooges. Gov spending is approved by Congress, the Federal Reserve has nothing to do with it. the Federal Reserve has responsibility for monitoring the amount of $ in circulation, the money supply, Congress has nothing to do with it, This is the charter for the Fed . there is no mentioning of Govt spending stupidity is conintuing parroting the same false narrative, as demonstrated by these 3 stooges,
