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DOGE from NG
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 DOGE from NGDOGE CAN FIND THE $2 TRILLION IN SPENDING CUTS MUSK WANTS, BUT THE SAVINGS COULD TAKE A WHILE (1) [Only by cutting social security.] Department of Defense (DOD): The Pentagon's chronic audit failing Two days after the previously cited post, DOGE flagged that the Department of Defense had failed its 7th straight audit last month, noting that the DOD once again cannot fully account for its budget – which was $824 billion. [What percent is waste? 10%, possibly? Cutting soldier pay and veteran benefits would help. But even 10% is less than a hundred billion. So $1.9 trillion to go, all from smaller government services…] Congress: $516B Authorized for expired programs "In FY2024, U.S. Congress provided $516 billion to programs whose authorizations previously expired under federal law," the DOGE X account posted on Nov. 16. "Nearly $320 billion of that $516 billion expired more a decade ago." [Be good to know what expired programs they are talking about. But conceding this, we’re now $420 billion. That’s a good dent.] Federal workforce: Ending government employees' working from home option DOGE and its co-leads have vowed repeatedly to end telework for federal employees, and flagged the Biden administration's last-minute deal extending 42,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) employees work-from-home privileges for another five years – after President-elect Trump leaves office. [This increases expenses, not reduces them. Government must pay for lights and other utilities for onsite employees, typically water bills, toilet paper, coffee, heat, office furniture, and so on—expenses home employees more than offset by reducing travel expenses. The impact would be small, I estimate only -$1 billion.] Expediting government projects In an X post on Dec. 5, DOGE pointed to a slew of federal projects that were delayed for years due to red tape. Musk and Ramaswamy say deregulation is a key part of DOGE's purpose, which is in line with Trump's agenda. [This increases expenses while adding risk to public safety. Regulations serve an important purpose Elon ignores. This would likely incur additional litigation cost.] Modernizing and finding cost-effective government IT systems "The Federal government spends 80% of its annual $100 billion IT budget on maintaining outdated systems," DOGE posted on X. "Not only are older systems more expensive to maintain, but they are also more vulnerable to hackers." [Not entirely true. Many older systems are LESS vulnerable to outside attack. Microsoft has only barely begun to realize success in protecting their horribly compromised systems, and software updates are expensive. Federal losses to hacks are dwarfed by corporate losses where corporations spend more on constant software updates and licensing. -$50 billion.] Musk and Ramaswamy both wrote posts saying updating tech is a priority, with Ramaswamy saying, it is on DOGE's "to-do list." National Institutes of Health (NIH): Returning money to taxpayers In response to a DOGE post that in 2023 NIH spent $759 million on workforce diversity and outreach, over $611,000 on "Evaluating Microaggressions among Latinx Individuals with Obesity," and $87,944 on the "Role of the estrous cycle and nucleus accumbens signaling on incubation of oxycodone craving in female rats," Ramaswamy wrote, "Return this $$ to the taxpayers." [Less than $1 billion, already spent. The $90,000 rat study potentially reveals information for combatting the opioid crisis costing US billions each year in lost productivity.] EXPERT SAYS MEDICAID, MEDICARE REFORM IS CRITICAL AND CAN SAVE $2.1 TRILLION Federal agencies: Fraud losses In response to a report that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion each year due to fraud, Musk replied on X, "Drop the @DOGE hammer." [While there is fraud, which should be fully prosecuted, their estimate is WAY off the mark. They will actually slash benefits, denying claims like they were medical insurance CEOs.] Foreign aid: Investment transparency "Here’s an easy one for @DOGE!" longtime budget-cutting evangelist, former presidential candidate, and retired Congressman Dr. Ron Paul wrote on X. "ELIMINATE foreign aid! It’s taking money from the poor and middle class in the US and giving it to the rich in poor countries - with a cut to the facilitators in between! Americans don’t want their government to borrow more money to spend on foreign aid. Besides, it is the immoral transfer of wealth and is un… [Bull manure. Most US foreign aid goes to Israel and Saudi Arabia in the form of military equipment paid to US defense contractors. $70 billion altogether. Still not even reaching one trillion in spending cuts.] www.foxbusiness.com. |
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Medicaid & Medicare Estimates that Medicare fraud costs the United States around $60 billion annually National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) Estimates that Medicare fraud costs the United States over $100 billion annually So the actual figure is between $100 and $160 billion, not $233 to half a trillion. We agree this fraud should be found, and the guilty punished. A crackdown would cost a workforce of a thousand insurance investigators at $100,000 each in salary and office overhead, about $100 million a year. Money well spent recovering $100 billion. Why let the cheats go free? That tends to be the Republican way. Suppose we measure success at 10% of a hundred billion each year. That is ten billion, split 1000 ways. So each investigator is tasked with ferreting out a million dollars a year of fraud. I don’t know how many cases that works out to, but $10,000 is a hundred cases, or one case every 2.4 days. So we could expect investigators to find either 100 cases per year, or aggregate cases totaling $1 million per year (even ten $100,000 cases easily pays for the effort). Performance reviews we discharge case workers not meeting these goals once over three years. Successful prosecutions will substantially cut fraud. Why can’t we do something like this? The proposed IRS cuts will encourage a lot more cheating, reducing federal revenues as much as any of the proposed cuts likely odds of success, offsetting any expected gain. So deficits will continue, and if history is any guide deficits will soar as Trump’s cronies engage in all the graft and corruption they accomplished his last term. |
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Shiva 11:39 So one wonders why Congress kept providing the funding. Even during the Trump administration, if some of that is over a decade expired. Perhaps there's more to it than a one-line dot point. <Ending government employees' working from home option> Your counter-point has merit. In reality, this isn't about saving money, but exercising obvious control. Petty gods have to make themselves as noisome as they can, to be sure they have imposed their power over EVERYTHING. <DOGE pointed to a slew of federal projects that were delayed for years due to red tape.> This argument about 'red tape' has always scared me. I've spent a lot of time on building sites, and the people who ignore 'red tape' are the ones that cost money, time and lives. The most expensive part of any project is the stuff-up, and 'red tape' like checklists, safety procedures, inspection of reinforcement by an engineer before concrete is poured, etc saves money and time over the total project duration by eliminating the need to partly-demolish and rebuild, and sometimes lives if collapse occurs. That 'red tape' was put in there for a reason! The people who object to it are usually the ones who don't know that reason. <"The Federal government spends 80% of its annual $100 billion IT budget on maintaining outdated systems," DOGE posted on X.> Yep. And I spend 100% of my house maintenance budget on a house that is 30 years old. It's cheaper than NOT maintaining it, and unlike Musk, I don't stand to make a billion dollars profit every time the population upgrades to a house built THIS year. If ever there was a transparent case of 'conflict of interest', this is it. <NIH spent $759 million on workforce diversity and outreach, over $611,000 on "Evaluating Microaggressions among Latinx Individuals with Obesity," and $87,944 on the "Role of the estrous cycle and nucleus accumbens signaling on incubation of oxycodone craving in female rats," Ramaswamy wrote, "Return this $$ to the taxpayers."> Sounds like a waste of money to anyone who doesn't know what it all means. But think for a moment; over $611,000 studying aggression is a drop in the bucket. If it comes up with findings that help reduce assaults and property damage by one part in a thousand, then it has more than paid for itself. Certainly more effective than spending a hundred times as much feeding and housing prisoners for longer as a 'deterrent'. And the oxysodone craving is way above my understanding of biology, but I wonder if the objection is based on the 'oestrus cycle' and 'craving in female rats'. The Trump camp seems to be contemptuous of anything that looks like research into female health. What results might actually come from this is beyond their grasp but that doesn't matter to them, because it sounds like a woke feminist idea. "Obviously that $88,000 would be better spent by returning one tenth of one quarter of one cent to each American citizen. Much more useful than medical research that helps only women." <EXPERT SAYS MEDICAID, MEDICARE REFORM IS CRITICAL AND CAN SAVE $2.1 TRILLION Federal agencies: Fraud losses In response to a report that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion each year due to fraud, Musk replied on X, "Drop the @DOGE hammer."> Everyone likes to use the word 'reform'. But it means no more than 'change', without any hint of what change. On might want 'tax reform' by abolishing income tax and relying on wealth tax; another might want to abolish capital gains tax and rely on income tax; another might want to abolish income tax AND capital gains tax, to rely on sales tax (or GST or VAT, whatever you want to call it). So yes, 'reform' is needed, but what reform? INHO, the best way of minimising fraud is to get private profit out of the system. If the government provided the services covered by government funding, then what scope would there be for fraud? (except perhaps petty pilfering of medicines of claiming excess overtime, which is an administrative issue totally apart from health funding). So how about it, DOGE? Are you going to propose government provision of services funded by the government? Or are you (more likely) to propose cuts to government funding instead? <"ELIMINATE foreign aid! It’s taking money from the poor and middle class in the US and giving it to the rich in poor countries -> I'm torn here. It's true that much foreign aid gets siphoned off. Even when it's not siphoned off in obvious ways, there are other ways to tilt the game. I recall one project (I think in the Philippines) where the roads were so bad it took farmers a lot of valuable time to get their produce to market. An aid agency moved in, and instead of paying the (exorbitant) cost for the government to build the road, they supplied the expertise and used local labour. Nice new road! The next year the rents charged by the landlord more than doubled, draining any benefit gained. If foreign aid is to be of any benefit to the bottom layers in a society, then the first step is to re-structure the society itself. If a government is not prepared to make those structural changes, then don't invade or enforce; just offer the aid to someone else. The other situation that Shiva refers to is NOT sending money 'to the rich in poor countries'; it is sending it to the rich in America by providing it not in cash but in goods or services that must be purchased from America. That's not 'foreign aid' in my mind; it's puppetry. So the answer is to be SELECTIVE about the target and PRUDENT about the means. Select the target that will use the aid for the common good, and monitor that use carefully. <Besides, it is the immoral transfer of wealth and is un…> I wince when anyone from the extreme Right brings up 'morality'. They see no 'immorality' in voting for a convicted felon, or a serial adulterer, or a compulsive liar. They have no problem about the morality of allowing assault rifles to be bought openly by people who have not been assessed as fit and proper for that responsibility. And they have no problem with letting children starve because their parents are not able (or willing) to feed them. The children deserve no better for such reckless choice of parents! But to give food to the starving is an 'immoral transfer of wealth'! WHAT IS NOT MENTIONED... Cracking down on medicaid fraud? Fine! I've explained how to do it most effectively. Meanwhile, did I see any mention of cracking down on tax fraud/evasion? Oops; we can't do that! "DJT has been found guilty of 34 counts of fraud, so it must be OK to cheat. That's one law we'll have to change. All my friends do it, and I must admit that I'm careful to make sure that all of my companies that make a profit are able to claim offsetting deductions for 'services' provided by other companies in registered tax havens. No, we certainly won't destroy the US economy by closing those loopholes!" If DOGE really wanted to go after the big-ticket items, tax evasion would be top of the list. But it isn't. Next item would be tax fraud, but IRS is being stripped of that part of its workforce. This isn't about economics or even efficiency; it's about politics and special interests. |
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Frivolous Studies I had to shake my head in disbelief. The studies have nothing to do with protecting crops. Drosophila is the TYPE organism for genetics. We have learned a tremendous amount about ourselves and the role DNA plays in development via studies of pure strains of melanogaster. THAT is where the money goes, not pest control. Sometimes (lately almost all the time) I feel deeply embarrassed for my species. |
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Shiva 00:19 |
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Bob 02:41 |
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Shiva 06:35 Sarah Palin has a degree? Now you know why the most prominent American companies import their experts rather than relying on home-grown graduates. It seems to me that America can produce a small number of very sharp minds, and a paddock-full of pre-programmed functionaries. |
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The reality is we have one of the worst. |
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Sarah Palin She attended NIC, a small north Idaho college not far from where I live. I taught an astronomy class there once. I do not believe she ever graduated—she changed schools two or three times. Wiki: Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho to Charles R. "Chuck" Heath, a science teacher and track and field coach, and Sarah "Sally" (née Sheeran), a school secretary. Sandpoint is north of NIC, but the family moved to Alaska when she was younger. The Wiki article contains no information on her post high school education, but I remember reading about it. So you would think her science teacher father might have had a bigger influence on her. Wiki: Palin played flute in a band when she was in junior high, then she attended Wasilla High School where she was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,[14] During her senior year, she was co-captain and point guard of the basketball team that won the 1982 Alaska state championship, earning the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her competitive streak. Wasilla is Alaska. NIC is more like a two year college. Should could have gotten an Associate of Arts there, but not a BA (the typical liberal arts bachelor’s). |
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Degree A different Wiki article: After graduating from high school in 1982, Palin enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.[30] Shortly after arriving in Hawaii, Palin transferred to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu for a semester in the fall of 1982. She returned to the mainland, enrolling at North Idaho College, a community college in Coeur d'Alene, for the spring and fall semesters of 1983.[31] She transferred and enrolled at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, for an academic year starting in August 1984. Beginning in the fall of 1985, she attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska. Palin returned to the University of Idaho in January 1986 and received her bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism in May 1987. So she DID end up with a degree, and after graduating worked as a sportscaster for a time. |
