>These are my and our fucking tax dollars. I want every single fucking cent audited, I don't really care how big or small a portion this is of the whole budget.
if you want government debt to shrink, you need to treat it like optimization: focus on the big problems first and don't sweat the small fry.
If you simply want a better auditing process... Well, whatever Musk is doing sure isn't it. Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]". His "reports" on audits sure aren't trying to take into account "every cent".
>Trump and Musk's bigly sledgehammer will achieve this, screw the details because I don't care anymore.
Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way. Tarriffs and war mongering isn't how we save costs. Arguing about "wow the libs waste so much money" isn't how you audit anything. The last thing you want to do when you need more taxes is cutting capital tax from the richest corporations who can lose 90% of their income and still be worth more than some small countries.
Follow the money. None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.
>focus on the big problems first and don't sweat the small fry.
The biggest line items which are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are off the table as promised during the campaign, for better or worse.
Everything else is fair game, though. That includes everything from the Pentagon (note: never passed an audit) to "foreign aid" and science grants and everything in-between.
>Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]".
He has revealed that literal millions and billions of our tax dollars (or loans, to make it even worse) are being wasted on questionable ventures at best. I want him and DOGE to dig even deeper so the House is forced to write a clean budget devoid of all this fucking garbage. American taxpayers deserve better.
>Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way.
I agree, which is why it's great that Musk and DOGE are looking into the details of where the sincere fuck our money is going. All these whiners are crying that we shouldn't look at the details, it's all fine! No, fuck them. I want all this out in public view, in bite size chunks consumable by the common man paying for all this, to be scrutinized; anything worth having should be able to withstand any and all scrutiny.
>None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.
I agree again; these steps are made for all of us from the rich to the poor and the progressives to the conservatives. Everyone benefits from a leaner and cleaner budget and a smaller and more efficient government.
> He has revealed that literal millions and billions of our tax dollars (or loans, to make it even worse) are being wasted on questionable ventures at best. I want him and DOGE to dig even deeper so the House is forced to write a clean budget devoid of all this fucking garbage. American taxpayers deserve better.
You are aware that this is the guy who made the secret service stay at his hotels/golf club to scam tax dollars into his own pockets? Why should I trust him to actually care about tax dollars?
>>Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way.
> I agree, which is why it's great that Musk and DOGE are looking into the details of where the sincere fuck our money is going. All these whiners are crying that we shouldn't look at the details, it's all fine! No, fuck them. I want all this out in public view, in bite size chunks consumable by the common man paying for all this, to be scrutinized; anything worth having should be able to withstand any and all scrutiny.
So will Musk look into the government contracts that he is benefiting from (both Tesla and Space X received significant government funds)? You think he'll be impartial?
>He has revealed that literal millions and billions of our tax dollars (or loans, to make it even worse) are being wasted on questionable ventures at best.
I would like a source please. With actual figures, not just "Trust me I'm elon Musk". All I saw were him complaining about charges that are microscopic for preparing that corporate tax break. he's penny pinching while Trump wants to basically give up to 3% of the budget spending to billionaires. A similar percentage of the entire Department of Education btw.
>Everyone benefits from a leaner and cleaner budget and a smaller and more efficient government.
my lifetime alone (let alone the ages of reagan) have shown that trickle down evonomics does not work. None of that "efficiency" is coming to you and me (well, maybe you. I don't know your income level. I'm well compensated but not close to an elite. Not even by HN standards).
Sure. Off the top of my head from a previous conversation about aid(?) to Mozambique[1], that's $83.5 million.
That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.
>charges that are microscopic
Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small? Emphasis on relative. I really want to avoid attacking someone on that because it sounds so disingenuous, but it's increasingly hard to do so.
Tax dollars are a sacred resource, provided by the sweat (and possibly blood) of American taxpayers. As a taxpayer myself, I will not tolerate seeing my and our taxes spent so flippantly.
>None of that "efficiency" is coming to you and me
An efficient government means filing our tax returns wouldn't be anywhere as obnoxious as they are today, or any number of government paperwork we would or could need to do in our lives. Fewer expenses from an efficient government would also mean less justification for government revenue including high taxes and tariffs.
An efficient government (and I do not mean that in a "No True Scotsman" fashion) will be beneficial to everyone everywhere.
>I don't know your income level.
I'm squarely in the lower to middle part of the middle class, with our family business (which I work for) that is classified as a small business (it's an official legal term, for those who aren't aware) which make up the core of American businesses.
> Sure. Off the top of my head from a previous conversation about aid(?) to Mozambique[1], that's $83.5 million.
> That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.
You are aware that this sort of aid is part of the US foreign policy to get support for initiatives? Do you really thing the US would be in the position that it is today if it wasn't for the money they spend overseas? I mean do you think the US would have won the cold war if it wasn't for the Marshall plan?
> Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small? Emphasis on relative. I really want to avoid attacking someone on that because it sounds so disingenuous, but it's increasingly hard to do so.
> Tax dollars are a sacred resource, provided by the sweat (and possibly blood) of American taxpayers. As a taxpayer myself, I will not tolerate seeing my and our taxes spent so flippantly.
So why are you not shouting about Trump having the secret service pay $2 million to stay at his golf clubs? Is that not spending taxes flippantly?
>That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.
Amortized cost per year is 16.6m dollars a year. The CDC gets 10b in funding per year, so they would be spending around .2% of their budget every year on such a grant.
Again, microscopic. I don't think enough people understand the scope of how much money the government has, and even how much of that allocation to other departments is when they budget items.
2) this is a publicly visible grant on a website simply querying USAspending.gov. This was not some hidden agenda Musk was needed for in order to find. This sounds more like something a niche youtuber can make a career on than whatever is happening with DOGE.
>Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small?
Yes. Because We the People don't set the budget. We vote represenatives (we vote on 3/535 of them each) who appropriate a budget. And even those 535 individuals can't always agree in time.
If we're being frank, and this is a bipartisan issue, if you let Americans vote on spending, it'd be no different than giving a kid 100 dollars for groceries. Lots of candy, maybe a few pieces of jerky, and no vegetables. Someone else with better knowledge needs to understand what is good for us vs. what feels good to have. Congress putting 60%+ into Healthcare and various social aid shows we haven't at least gone off the deep end... yet.
Regardless of how I feel on how congress allocates funds, I sure as hell do not trust a billionaire who only knows how to slash limbs off his company to make number go up to make a better budget. Keep in mind he he's been given billions in grants from the Feds compared to this 82m dollar allocation as well. He has extreme conflicts of interest that would make Carter's peanut farm look like a toddler's temper tantrum.
>An efficient government means filing our tax returns wouldn't be anywhere as obnoxious as they are today
They were trying to simplify tax filing for years. Blame Turbotax/H&R Block for that one. I think all of us are in agreement there except those who make their salary off confusion.
So, another thing making strides without hasty invasive "auditing". It's a large ship, it has to steer slowly and deliberately. Lest we get stuck in a canal and everyone suffers.
if you want government debt to shrink, you need to treat it like optimization: focus on the big problems first and don't sweat the small fry.
If you simply want a better auditing process... Well, whatever Musk is doing sure isn't it. Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]". His "reports" on audits sure aren't trying to take into account "every cent".
>Trump and Musk's bigly sledgehammer will achieve this, screw the details because I don't care anymore.
Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way. Tarriffs and war mongering isn't how we save costs. Arguing about "wow the libs waste so much money" isn't how you audit anything. The last thing you want to do when you need more taxes is cutting capital tax from the richest corporations who can lose 90% of their income and still be worth more than some small countries.
Follow the money. None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.