ADDED: The Summers tweet links to a guest essay in the NYT: "Five Former Treasury Secretaries: Our Democracy Is Under Siege." Excerpt:Listen Larry, we need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it.
Too bad. Deal with it. https://t.co/7mrwqDxyIc
The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors.... These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants.... They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information.... We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy....
The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.... The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates, as administrations before it have done as well.... But it is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside.... Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default. And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.
Musk speaks of "fraud and waste." Is that fraud and waste at the level of the congressional authorization that Summers is talking about? The 5 former secretaries refer to Congress 6 times in this short column, but I thought the questions were about what those in the executive branch are doing with the money. Isn't it the executive's duty to protect us from fraud and waste?
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135 comments:
I don't 'sense' anything. I *believe* that Musk is motivated by self interest that largely coincides with mine, and I'm *morally certain* that Summers is not.
None of these leftists gave a crap about the waste and fraud under crook Joe.
Also silent on the illegal entrants, and the crime and drugs - paid for by Soros installed (thru Soros money) DAs across the nation.
Fraud is illegal. Go after it aggressively. "Waste" is very much in the eye of the beholder and generally highly political. "Abuse" is in the semantic gray area, and is often used to denigrate spending down funds before they expire at the end of a fiscal year.
"Arbitrary and Capricious"
LOL - HOA talk.
Let's see. Tough question. One of em wants to bring all the waste and corruption to light. The other rather not. Now which position is the moral one?
This is the latest version of "51 Former Intelligence Offers". Democrats trying to protect democrat corruption.
I'm good with what Musk is doing. It's way past time to get a feel of where the $6+ tril is going, and how much of it is actually necessary. (Yeah, I know it's all needed because otherwise the left-handed spotted sand flea's habitat will be cruelly destroyed by both global warming and beachfront developers...)
"... arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments ...". Meaning, control of government spending by the elected President.
Arguably both may be motivated by their perception of the public good, but only one of them can be correct. Summers thinks government enhances our well-being, Musk that government has gone far beyond that to promoting the well-being of those in government at the expense of the public. I am with Musk.
They really do think that they are better than we are.
Wow, five Dem SecTreas’s. Couldn’t even find a Bushie to join in. Maybe the R’s finally have party discipline. Maybe the Reagan/Bush alumni are sitting there thinking “wow, what if we’d had the technology to do that?!” I know Stockman must be using the DOGE results as a wank bank….
JSM
Of course, I really do think that I am better than they are. A low standard, but better than none.
Lawrence Summers is an interesting case. He seems to be intelligent and is often on the correct side of things. However, in his heart of hearts, he must realize that he has contributed to many of the serious problems the United States -- and, in fact, the West --faces. Think of his experience at Harvard. Summers rose to be President, pointed out some of the places where Harvard had lost its way, and was fired. Since then, Harvard has gotten much worse. However, do you think he would be honest enough to say that Harvard is now harming America? Similarly, as a former Treasury Secretary, is he self-aware enough to admit that he contributed to the fraud and waste that Musk is revealing? It appears not.
The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants.
Now pull the other one.
And BTW, the "guest essay" is paywalled. Heh.
The sky is falling. This time for sure. Democracy is dead! The most honest word from the Summers spew is "may". Under the Republicans are always guilty until proven innocent. Hard lefties regale us with what Trump or Musk "may" do, could abuse the law to, or I believe they are.
C'mon man! Give us some evidence of STFU. You TDS/MDS fevered dreams hold no sway except for the feeble minded.
Did we expect anything less from the Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and Director of NEC for President Obama? This guy damn well know where the bodies are buried and is just scared and pissed Elon is digging them up.
from the article "a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds." First, it assumes facts not in evidence, i.e.that these officials are no-partisan and that they have been strictly vetted. And it leaves out actual evidence that the civil servants can't be trusted (Musk found out that they just paid out every request submitted to them, not even requiring a memo line on the check as to what it was for). Summers and his co-signers are just trying to protect the bureaucracy. Exactly what's in for them is unclear but part of it is, I'm sure, to keep some of their own behavior from coming to light.
All the left is really asking for is to go back to the way we identified and ended waste fraud and abuse before Trump 47. In other words we would not.
Jupiter said...
They really do think that they are better than we are.
How Bureaucrats Think About Accountability
We already have arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments. That's what we want to end.
“Our Democracy”
Which is to say the democracy we’ve become accustomed to.
The person making the decisions is in power specifically because an overwhelming majority of voters placed him there.
I’m calling that democracy.
Thank goodness he achieved not only an electoral college win, but also a popular vote win.
Larry Summers is not a credible person and certainly cannot trade on his claim to be an economist after the major tongue bath he gave to Hillary!’s economic proposals of rent control and price fixing…
…I’m starting to get the impression lefties besmirching themselves is treated like radiation exposure, where the degreed and titled share the burden of discrediting themselves all just a bit so no one of them has to die a horrible political death for their sins…
Unlawful? Larry Summers is not a lawyer. He's an economist and has been wrong on economics many, many times. You can look it up.
This is the classic battle between Ayn Rand's protagonists and antagonists. Howard Rourk vs Ellsworth Toohey. Dagny Taggart vs. James Taggart. Howard Rourk, Dagny Taggart, and Elon Musk hold the moral high ground. It's them against pure evil, disguised as altruistic angels.
Yeah, Larry Summers was fired by Harvard because he told the truth about the number of women in STEM. He's been trying to regain his liberal bona fides ever since.
'The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates, as administrations before it have done as well.... But it is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside...."
LOL
They just keep lying about Article II powers and Trump's ability to delegate authority within the Executive branch.
They've got nothing but a lineup of Hawaiian judges that will keep on pretending that somehow, someway, Trump is not the President and keep hoping that the clear hatred Roberts has for Trump will manifest in more "...any President BUT Trump has the power to..." rulings.
When regime insiders say "our democracy" it's like when the Mafia used to call their organization "la Cosa Nostra" which means "this thing of ours," and when they say "ours" they mean "theirs" not "ours" in the general sense.
“They just want the money to go to their crowd, because it always has and they feel entitled to it.”
Five former Treasury Secretaries whose expenditures are about to be under high scrutiny are questioning that scrutiny. Quelle suprise.
And stop that false and misleading "democracy under siege" narrative. Trump was elected as the Chief Executive and he has the right - and maybe even the duty - to stop the reckless spending in agencies and departments under his control.
This BS didn't work before and it won't work now.
Do I sense that average mid or high level civil servant (no matter the Department or Bureau) is motivated by the public good? No. And you can now pull my other leg.
Hey a job is a job, and you've got regular hours and a nice pension when you hit the Rule of 85. Public good, shmublic good--and I going to win the office poll on the NCAA basketball tournament this year? And so it goes.
The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not....
How about we just start with cutting all spending not actually authorized by congress - I suspect they didn't duly enact a law requiring the purchase of Politico subscriptions, for example.
"Couldn’t even find a Bushie to join in."
Trump owns the party now. They say they are worried about Musk's money in the primaries, but what they are really scared about is the loyalty of rank and file Republicans to Trump, which is how it was supposed to work, according to all of the civics I ever learned in school.
The old Republican Party is on life support, it will never regain control of the party apparatus again.
Yipes.
Whenever a Democrat (e.g. Larry Summers) loudly complains regarding our democracy, he's talking about the erosion of the power and authority of the Democratic Party. Nothing else. Historically, going back to the days of Andrew Jacksons, Democrats have referred to themselves as "our democracy". That tissue of conceit reached a crescendo in the years leading up to the presidential election of 1860, when the Democrats loudly, and sometimes violently, condemned the abolition movement as a threat to "our democracy", particularly when a new party, the Republicans, expressed sympathy with abolition movement and opposed the expansion of slavery into the western Territories. After the Civil War, the Dems abandoned that insidious rhetoric as it reminded Northern voters of the history of the party as a supporter of the planters' alleged property rights, but kept using "our democracy" in the Jim Crow South into the early 1960s. They've returned to that inflammatory rhetorical nonsense because they believe, rightly it seems, their target audience is mostly ignorant of even recent history.
Trump suggests US may have less debt than thought because of fraud — Trump's comments about fraud in Treasuries were unclear ~ Fox Business
Why am I not reading about Trumps allegations that some T-Bonds have supposedly been “fraudulently issued”?
This guy beats the Simpsons every time.
I'd be interested in reading the bill in which Congress promised to fund a transgender opera in Colombia.
Re-posted by Musk in the last 30 mins. First four months FY2025 deficit -$838 Billion. First four months FY2024 -$532 Billion. Deficit increase of $306 Billion of the same period last year. The fraud ramped up at the end of the Biden term.
Musk and Doge are steering us away from bankruptcy and hitting the iceberg, while elites like Summers are busy looking down their noses at Jack Dawson and stealing lifeboat seats from poor women and children in the lower class.
The morality of this is so clear it is shocking and hard to believe. At least for liberals and now former liberals. MAGA has known for a while.
Is the Executive, via the Treasury Department, required to spend monies authorized by congress, even though doing so would require spending more money than the Treasury has? That is, is the Executive required to put the nation further into debt? Can he refuse to bankrupt the country? Can he require a balanced budget?
"nonpartisan career civil servants". Don't see that language in the Constitution anywhere.
"These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants...." So, who subjected the civil servants to the rigorous ethics rules? Answer: the political actors.
Once they wake up to the fact that the entire executive branch rests on the foundation of the duly elected president and operates by way of the Article II powers vested in him or her, we can move on to more sensical and hopefully constructive discussions.
More appeals to authority by figures who squandered any gravitas they once had. Yellen (I hope) marked the nadir of Treasury Secretaries as we barely survived her tenure, economically speaking. Summers can still speak sense once in a while, but I wouldn't expect any in this group effort. They conspicuously do not mention that Musk has demonstrated tremendous discipline when it came to SpaceX and the Boring Co., despite all the naysayers, and proved his vision not only workable but profitable.
Have these five figureheads done anything in the private sector to be proud of?
I'd be really interested in learning which Congressional Act authorized tranny comic books in South America. My guess is that there isn't one, so what Congress actually did is authorize spending on "good things" and left it up to the Administrations to determine what those good things are.
Before DOGE, "good things" meant payoffs to leftist NGOs, which money was then funneled to other nutjob leftists groups who can't receive the money directly because they're so involved directly in fucking up the politics of place leftists don't like. It no longer does. The grifters are mad the Democrat money laundering operation is being halted. Too fucking bad.
Audit, execute, legislate for a gray sky and viable Posterity.
That said, the iceberg is calving, the kleptocracy is melting, the climate is changing. Forward! And onward.
The NYT's Op-ed page is so Goddamn boring. We all know that they didn't give a fuck about any of this when Biden was in office.
Did Summers ever give a damn about everyone’s private info being reveled under FISA? And who know if these "Treasury Agents" can be trusted or they're "ethical". Just because you've at some job for a long time doesn't mean squat.
We have laws against leaking Treasury data and people's SS numbers. These laws operate whether you are career civil service or a political appointee. BTW, was Summers upset when an “Ethical civil servant” helped leak Trump's tax returns? I don't remember him being so.
How many billions has the Federal Government wasted bringing high speed internet to rural areas when Musk has already done it with Starlink?
How many EV chargers has the government installed compared to Musk. Of course the Biden Administration pulled EV subsidies from Musk, but not other cars, and so he was forced to stop installing chargers in order to remain competitive in the EV market, so Biden's war on Musk basically negatively affected the number of chargers installed.
The NYT's spent 4 years running cover for Joe Biden and his administration. They had ZERO concerns Biden was doing anything wrong or being unethical. They did ZERO investigations - if they thought it would hurt Biden.
Now, they're back to being "concerned" about Ethics and whether Trump is following the laws. LOL!
I thought the questions were about what those in the executive branch are doing with the money. Isn't it the executive's duty to protect us from fraud and waste?
Correct on both points. Those that cry "It's unconstitutional!" have a duty to show us exactly where in the Constitution any employee of the executive branch derives power that is not delegated by the Chief Executive.
@Gusty Winds (2:32 PM): Yes, yes, yes. Biden's spending went through the roof in the last days of his...regime... Federal staff hiring also went through the roof. Many of these positions were not needed, but meant for insurance over the next four years. Biden's raging and insane puppet masters miss him because they could blame everything on an old man with Parkinson's.
Larry Summers downfall at Harvard in 2006 marked the end of Clinton's white Democrats controlling the party (even if misguided), and the rise of Obama's symbolism-over-substance, back-room-controlled, DEI, Woke generation of autocratic anarchic revolutionary Democrats (see Noam Chomsky's decades of babble about anarcho-syndicalism).
Isn’t it interesting how lefties keep thinking that “our democracy” means doing things the way Democrats want them to be done? What if instead it meant “doing things the way the duly elected leadership of this country ran on doing them”?
I posted elsewhere about my son's belief that Musk was motivated to gain access to Treasury data so that he could see the details of his competitors' contracts and other business stuff. So, clearly he believes Musk is not acting in the public interest.
I don't know why Musk is doing this, but he's doing it openly and daily revealing what he finds - or at least that portion of what he finds that supports his - our - belief that too much of our taxes is being used frivolously if not fraudulently. This may be for reasons other than, or in addition to, the public good. But what's Summers' reason(s)? It's not self-evident that he's acting only out of a concern for the public good. At least, he, like Musk, strengthens his personal following (whatever it is) by critiquing DOGE. (Though I just read an interesting Substack piece at Liberal Patriot claiming, with polls, that Musk's approval rating has dropped significantly the more he's talked about what DOGE would do, so the "increased personal following" motivation may not in fact apply to Musk.)
Anyway. I will judge these guys by their fruits, and so far Musk has borne a lot more, and more tasty, fruit.
I'll assume that Trump has this much power for a moment. What is the point of having the House or the Senate? Why would we need Cabinet Secretaries? Are they all just elected or appointed to put on an elaborate show?
Take Musk's findings to Congress. Pass legislation, and then Trump can sign those bills into law. Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?
Enigma's elucidations at 1:53 are helpful. I recall before Trump took the oath, perhaps in early January, an article that quoted State Dept. leaders who said they were "shoveling money out the door as fast we can before Trump takes over." The most colorful quote was a dude who after saying it amounted to "billions in disbursements to NGOs" described his team as being "on the Titanic throwing gold bars overboard" just so Trump couldn't have them.
I tried using search engines over the weekend and none could find that rather distinctive phrase. Odd, isn't it!
Isn't it the executive's duty to protect us from fraud and waste?
Why yes, yes it is. Imagine that.
"Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?"
Democrat Presidents have had and have exercised this power. They've used it to throw money around (and keep some for themselves). Democrats are only objecting to it now that it's being exercised by Trump against their interests.
Use Yandex
https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/12/04/throwing-gold-bars-off-the-titanic-epa-staffer-admits-funneling-billions-to-climate-orgs-before-inauguration/
"Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?"
I want whoever is running USAID, now the Secretary of State, to be politically accountable, confirmed by the Senate. Samantha Power simply refused to provide data to Congress. That can never happen again.
Larry Sommers said...
The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors.... These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants.
Don't Worry About the Government
I see the states, across this big nation
I see the laws made in Washington, D.C.
I think of the ones I consider my favorites
I think of the people that are working for me
Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong
I'm a lucky guy to live in my building
They own the buildings to help them along
[When they're not "working" from home?]
It's over there, it's over there
My building has every convenience
It's gonna make life easy for me
It's gonna be easy to get things done
I will relax along with my loved ones
Loved ones, loved ones visit the building
Take the highway, park and come up and see me
I'll be working, working but if you come visit
I'll put down what I'm doing, my friends are important
I wouldn't worry 'bout
I wouldn't worry about me
Don't you worry 'bout me
Don't you worry 'bout me...
How about we just start with cutting all spending not actually authorized by congress - I suspect they didn't duly enact a law requiring the purchase of Politico subscriptions, for example.
LOL these creeps don't do specifics of course.
Remember when Summers blew a gasket when Trump's taxes were leaked? Me neither.
Fraud is illegal. Go after it aggressively.
No honest person could possibly disagree.
"Waste" is very much in the eye of the beholder and generally highly political. "Abuse" is in the semantic gray area, and is often used to denigrate spending down funds before they expire at the end of a fiscal year.
For the more subjective items, I don't see any harm in shining a light on them and having a discussion about it. Some people seem to not want to do that and would prefer to go back to business as usual- move along folks, nothing to see here.
I wonder what a Venn diagram of that group and the ones who benefit from "business as usual" would look like. Rather circular, I'd guess.
"The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors.... These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants.... They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data"
Non partisan? In DC? Which voted 95% for Harris?
Who elected those civil servants? Who checks what they're authorising? What rigorous ethics rules? Tell us.
Training and experience to handle private, personal data?
Tells you how remote they are from the real world. Do you not think people in the private sector, say from financial services, maybe with experience in setting up and running a payments business like, say, PayPal, might already know how to do this?
How much corruption is there there? What are they worried DOGE will find and stop?
"'The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates..."
Yes, and the Biden administration may have sought, or any administration could also seek (as they note.) So what is the remedy to that, gentlemen? So-called non-partisan civil servants rigorously trained in ethics? That's your solution?
Note how all their solutions lead back to "top men", never to the voting public.
"Our grift is under siege"
Sacrificing the rule of law to government efficiency is a good way to end up with neither.
The average American listens to Summers and his cohort and executes an eyeroll like a 14 year old in detention. Then they jump in the car with Uncle Elon to go see something awesome.
"Sacrificing the rule of law"
That's just an accusation thrown out there for effect. Does it follow the rule of law to release payments when required information, such as, for example, a valid SS number is not there?
What you are really saying is "leave our lawless slush fund alone, we liked it just fine when it was unaccountable to anyone, and when its leader told Congress to pound sand when asked for information, multiple times, BTW."
This reminds me of that study that was done years ago where they compared the arrests of turnstile jumpers in NYC to the welfare rolls of the tri-state area, and amazingly discovered that a large number of them were collecting benefits from all three states.
“ OldManRick said...
This is the latest version of "51 Former Intelligence Offers". Democrats trying to protect democrat corruption”
Exactly correct. It is also meant to begin what will be incessantly repeated by the democrat media.
Tell them to GFY, get the lawfare overthrown and get on with it.
I trust Elon musk certainly over ANY democrat. And pretty much every republican.
Elon put his 44billion where his mouth was to save free speech. Elon does not give a crap about using any of this data. Mainly because he doesn’t need to, he is kicking everyone’s ass in every business he has already.
Summers and the outraged elites remind me of the French aristocrats towards the end of the monarchy, useless functionaries supported by the state and turning to treason when the monarchy attempted reform:
"The courtiers held court offices that carried "rights" with them ... to be present first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening ... to organize balls and to dance at them. These offices were legion, yet their owners (for that is how they thought of themselves) viewed every detail of their useless functions as a distinction. Any attempt to simplify these in the slightest met with stony and loud indignation. All of it, of course, was enormously expensive since the noble domestics were paid huge salaries and given endless perquisites of office as well. In 1787, when the state was in dire financial straits, a few of the more useless of these offices were abolished, prompting one of the queen's courtiers to tell her, with heartfelt anger: 'How very dreadful to live in a country where you can have no certainty of still owning tomorrow what you had yesterday. It is quite as bad as in Turkey!'" [from Olivier Bernier's "Pleasure and Privilege"]
These disgruntled courtiers helped bring down the monarchy as they supported the revolution. Trump had better keep an eye on today's unemployed aristocrats; change "offices" to "NGOs" or "government departments" and there are certain ominous parallels.
Lilly, a dog said:
I'll assume that Trump has this much power for a moment. What is the point of having the House or the Senate?
That is he origin story for this tragedy. Democrats have held the House far more than Republicans over the last 150 years so they evolved a system where they wrote vague bills and left it up to the administrative state to fill in the details, create rules with the force of law. Republicans never made a serious attempt to reverse that so Congress voluntarily gave up a lot of their vested power of legislating to the Executive "permanent employees." It is well known those employees donate and vote 98%+ Democrat. They could be trusted.
Take Musk's findings to Congress. Pass legislation, and then Trump can sign those bills into law. Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?
Agree with all of that. Trump will get a court ruling either endorsing the plain writing in Article 2, which spells out the powers and responsibilities of the Chief Executive, or SCOTUS will interpret it to have less scope more like Nixon's "Impoundment" result. But only Congress' present and future behavior, writing and passing normal "regular order" budgets for example, and specifically delineating the scope of laws they pass in order to wrest control back where it belongs. The administrative state was not designed to be a fourth branch. They have acquired legislative and judicial powers by shear fiat and the weakness of those from whom they stole power.
And it has made them drunk with power to the point they think they can defy their boss, the actual Chief Executive.
I *believe* that Musk is motivated by self interest that largely coincides with mine, and I'm *morally certain* that Summers is not.
If Musk were motivated by self-interest, he'd be concentrating on rocket ships and all the other cool stuff his companies make.
His involvement in DOGE carries nothing but downsides for his financial situation, and may even cost him his personal liberty.
If the Democrat lice sneak back into power somehow, they and their Deep State cronies will turn the entire government into a monomaniacal monster aimed at putting Musk in prison and confiscating his fortune. You thought they were a pack of damnable Inspector Javert scoundrels with Trump? It will be far worse with Musk.
🎶It was a new day yesterday, it's an old day now...🎶
"Democrats have held the House far more than Republicans over the last 150 years so they evolved a system where they wrote vague bills and left it up to the administrative state to fill in the details, create rules with the force of law."
Didn't the Supreme Court strike this down when it overturned Chevron last summer? I suppose this is one of those "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it” situations. Now we have some chance of it being enforced.
@Mike (MJB Wolf): It is well known those employees donate and vote 98%+ Democrat. They could be trusted.
That's an exaggeration. Some agencies are not far off from 50/50 (e.g., historically the Department of Defense, but likely higher recently and in DC, also see anything related to law enforcement, finance, and banking).
The city of DC has voted 85% to 92% for Democrats as President for several decades, but many conservatives choose to live in Virginia. Before the 1990s, I heard that "Democrats live in Maryland and Republicans live in Virginia." This is partly true today, as the tax rates are lower in Virginia, the gun laws are easier in Virginia, etc. The DC region has made Old South Virginia purple/blue.
Use Yandex
This is good advice for any controversial topic that does not touch on Putin or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yandex is a solid search engine that works much like Google circa 2005 and censors nothing I care about.
Of course it's in Putin's pocket, but he is not a serious threat to me and my country, or if he is, it's a minuscule fraction of the menace posed by the Deep State scum and the Democrat Party.
Lilly, a dog said...
Take Musk's findings to Congress. Pass legislation, and then Trump can sign those bills into law.
Let's hope that's what's next on the agenda.
Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?
Well, they've always kind of had it and they would have had an easier time because the media would have backed them. But good grifters don't point out that there's a grift going on. Anyway unless Trump royally screws up it may be a while before we see another Democrat President. They still haven't got a clue as to why Kamala lost.
I don't give a damn how many people who looked the other way demand we continue to look the other way. Unless Larry Summers wants to explain why North Carolina residents couldn't get FEMA funds, but NYC could get $59 million to house illegal residents; Summers is part of the problem.
I found these numbers on the TaxFoundation.org website. For 2024, the average federal income tax paid by each tax return was about $14,280. This is total revenue collected in federal income tax divided by the number of tax returns, including those who paid little to no taxes. So, it takes the average taxes paid by 70,028 taxpayers to raise a billion dollars in revenue. So, every time they find a billion dollars of fraud, waste, or abuse, they’re talking about the federal income taxes paid by just over 70,000 Americans. Do you think those 70,000 Americans would be happy to know they had to live with less so graft, fraud, waste, and abuse could continue as normal? Would they be happy knowing their taxes paid the salary and benefits of just one average government employee for maybe 3 weeks?
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/
I just Googled the phrase about gold bars and here it is. https://x.com/Educate_Resist/status/1864316830589804659
Nearly 37 trillion dollars in debt and the left is bitching about drag shows in Peru losing their funding.
Fuck them.
James K, I left out the details of disbursement. Yes Chevron stopped the egregious "force of law" edicts but Congress' other habit of passing CR instead of actual annual budgets, meant departments like State or EPA just continued with the same size budget, plussed up every year, but had total discretion in how to allocate it. That's why it was not necessarily illegal for them to "throw gold bars off the Titanic" because there were no normal budgetary constraints.
Enigma I am shocked, shocked to find myself accused of exaggeration. It was merely hyperbole!
“No wonder we are in the midst of a Democrat legal hissy-fit with some union bosses (who better?) having found the usual complaisant judge, resembling a third-level Mafioso, to do their bidding, putting a hold on the investigation or part of it. It won’t last for a simple reason. The cat is finally out of the proverbial bag and the American people have already seen what has been going on—enough of us anyway.
The Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot here, seemingly having lost their ability to read public opinion. Anger can do that to you. Also they are fighting those nasty little things, facts and truth.”
—— Roger Simon
Mayne Machine
@MayneMachine
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It's wild to see people who robbed us blind, trying to justify being upset at us for catching them.
Old and Slow thank you. You're the 2nd successful finder of the elusive quote. Jaq also posted a link at 2:54. Much appreciated!
mezzrow: "The average American listens to Summers and his cohort and executes an eyeroll like a 14 year old in detention. Then they jump in the car with Uncle Elon to go see something awesome."
Sounds like Red Barchetta: "My uncle preserved for me an old machine for fifty-odd years. To keep it as new has been his dearest dream."
Yet another reason for Rush (the band) to get the KC Honors. Musk could drive on stage in a red Tesla at the climax of the song.
JSM
Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?
Good grief. Did you just wake up from a 20-year nap?
Not fair to drunken sailors. they stop when they run out of money. The government either seizes more from the people or creates more out of thin air.
Summers is definitely not looking out for ordinary working- and middle-class families on the issues of trade and immigration. No doubt he supports a safety net for those at the very bottom of the income distribution, but that is about it.
MJB Wolf and Enigma ref %age of Dems in the civil service:
True dat wrt lots of R's in government. However, a lot of government employees, regardless of their party or political philosophy, become big-state liberals at the micro level of their programs. If you're a brothel madam, you will eventually stop promoting abstinence; if you're an orchestra conductor, you will eventually start liking classical music; etc. And the system promotes you for "change," which usually means "coming up with a new program and getting it funded." So even a card-carrying libertarian may behave like a Soviet factory commissar at work.
Then there is the phenomenon of burrowing. Political appointees get professional civil service jobs as their party's admin starts finishing up. Both parties could do this, but the R appointees don't have much interest in it, especially if they were appointed from the outside (see supra ref brothel madams and orchestra conductors). The burrowers have both the natural tendency to big government, and some sense of loyalty to the out-of-power D's. They will take phone calls from D lobbyists and journalists, and maybe do discretionary stuff at the request of D politicians, if they think they can get away with it.
JSM
LLR-democratical Rich: "Sacrificing the rule of law to government efficiency is a good way to end up with neither."
LOL
OMG! If the President exercises his powers under Article II of the Constitution it will be the end of the Constitution....and the Republic!
Trump already violated all democratic norms by getting more votes in the general election!
When will the madness stop?!
Hassayamper - Musk personally left Cali 4 years ago, and has been relocating his various company HQs since then, specifically because the government there has made running those cool businesses far too difficult. As I see it, he's pursuing what he perceives as his best interests.
@JSM at 4:10 PM regarding the tendency of those who touch the government Ring Of Power to be corrupted by it.
Please stay away from government like the term-limit Republicans of the 1990s who came to DC, talked about being noble and going home, and then went home. With nothing. They didn't gain seniority, they didn't gain committee positions, and they didn't even learn the ropes. Please do not run for Congress or waste the time, hopes, and dreams of your isolationistic head-in-the-sand friends back home.
The power-hungry, aggressive Democrats and state-loving Republicans (i.e., Mitch McConnell and John McCain's clan) stayed in DC and then set up Trump with 1,000 "friendly" Republican stumbling blocks. They also set him in places to have an unhappy end with the Mar-a-Lago raid and the anti-assassination "security" buffoons they gave him.
It is POSSIBLE to hold one's ideals in the face of rampant evil and corruption. It is POSSIBLE to remain an island of sanity or check on the creeping rot. It is POSSIBLE that being "mostly good" is better than being "mostly bad." Politics is indeed like sausage making, but that's how the US has operated since Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed were the corrupt government bogeymen 150 years ago.
It is also possible for Mad Maxine Waters and AOC to hang around like creepy witches for decades and be ready to pounce with hercrazy ideas when the time is ripe (i.e., they DID pounce with nutty stuff during TDS-mania of 2017 to 2023; we will be paying that debt off for several decades to come).
JSM: You are making the perfect the enemy of the good. This is utopian.
a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants
Nonpartisan? Convince me.
@Jim at
I did not sleep through the last 20 years, but I'll make two more statements that will probably upset you.
1) 2nd grade was easy.
2) Paint chips are NOT delicious.
Enigma: I may not be writing well today. I am describing what often happens, not saying it's a good thing.
Yes, it is necessary for people with Muskite tendencies to hold their noses and run those brothels. And when there is an admin sympathetic to making Stockman-like deep cuts, they can spring into action to assist.
And there are such people. They just have to be identified and put in positions where they can do something. By weird coincidence, I was just emailing back and forth with a fellow retired GS-15 about how there are so many clerical people wandering around federal offices, even after years of supposedly labor-saving automation. But we could never do anything about it. You need someone at the top who can just say "an app can do that. Goodbye!" and stick with it through all the EO actions and congressional crap.
I think we are on the same page, or at least the same hymnal (hopefully not the one with all the Proulx crap....).
JSM
I don't think Larry Summers is evil or as jaded as many other Machine Democrats, but how was he awarded a platform in the Wall Street Journal to pontificate his grievances? And how did the editors allow this essay to proceed without at least addressing the horrible optics of illegal immigrants being put up in a luxury hotel, gratis, while citizens in North Carolina struggle in sub-freezing temperatures in unheated tents, in a disaster zone - both administered by FEMA? Let us recall, the 'E is for Emergency' Somebody tell me what emergency is being addressed at the Roosevelt hotel, while FEMA officials are absent in North Carolina and putting on the poor-mouth, pockets-turned-out, outta-money charade for the Appalachians? Is there some reason ICE couldn't have been contacted?
Ukraine is spending our "aid"? But of course!
https://www.theblaze.com/news/tucker-carlson-ukraine-military-aid
“If Musk were motivated by self-interest, he'd be concentrating on rocket ships and all the other cool stuff his companies make.”
Musk wants to go to Mars.
If so, he needs
1. A government favorable to him - accomplished
2. A lot of money - on the way to being accomplished
Since I want Elon to succeed in his Mars mission - full speed ahead.
Do you want the next Democrat President to have this kind of power?
Pipeline XL comes to mind, but more recently, Biden’s DHS tried to sell border wall material that was procured under direction of Congress. That is, not only did the last President decide not to use the funds as directed by law passed by Congress, but decided to simply sell any material related. This would be like Trump not freezing Infrastructure Act items, but then selling whatever was already obtained by that act.
Q said:
"Whenever a Democrat (e.g. Larry Summers) loudly complains regarding our democracy, he's talking about the erosion of the power and authority of the Democratic Party. Nothing else."
That. "Our democracy" is just code for democrats are being exposed. and whaaa.
When I hear "Our Democracy," I clutch my wallet tighter.
And "non-partisan career civil servants" are a group so small as to be nigh on nonexistent. You're about as likely to find a unicorn or Bigfoot as a "non-partisan career civil servant."
"This is good advice for any controversial topic that does not touch on Putin or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "
That's right, because if you use Yandex, you might come across articles that you are not supposed to read and learn stuff you are not supposed to know. I use Yandex sometimes to get stories from the Western press that are deliberately disfavored by USAID manipulated Western search engines. I don't really bother with either Russian sources or the oddball blogs it comes up with. But it often does find things that the neocons would rather you didn't see in our own press.
Do those five hacks express even a tiny bit of concern over the massive fraud (including the diversion of funds for partisan political purposes) uncovered thus far?
Larry Summers' contempt for his fellow man has never been flaunted more shamelessly. Any American who is not insulted by his ridiculous assertions about the noble creatures of the civil service deserves his contempt.
He sounds like a Vatican bishop defending the honor of the pedophile priests.
The federal government has been prohibited from additional borrowing at least since the weekend before Trump was inaugurated, by a 2023 Congressional Act that re-instated the debt ceiling January 1, 2025. Per last year's spending (which has been allowed per a continuing resolution (the only Congressional action on this FY's budget and appropriation), the federal income is about $2 Trillion less than the $6.75 Trillion authorized. Trump and DOGE have to find $2 Trillion in cuts to prevent the government from defaulting on its current payments to debt holders, contractors and social security recipients. Courts stopping the President from even finding out who is receiving payments, much less instituting retirement and layoffs of federal employees and payments to NGOs, are simply going to accelerate the arrival of that default.
As she left office, Janet Yellen announced that the federal government was taking emergency measures to forestall defaulting on the debt as of Jan 21st - the Biden admin had spent wildly after the election. In this situation, picking and choosing what to fund is the unavoidable duty of the Executive.
Do not trust any of these people. They're not honest. A large proportion of monies spent are authorized at the Executive's discretion anyway. Again, the arguments they are making are knowingly misleading.
It's not that I love Donald Trump, but I sure do hate career DC types like this telling the citizens of the US not to bother our pretty little heads about these deep matters. We tried that. It hasn't worked out. The checkbook needs to be under at least dual supervision.
Since the judge's order, I am getting a lot more pro-Ukrainian crap, most of it outright false, in my YouTube feed. It was gone for a while.
Oh, and anti-Trump content too.
Rubin and Geithner are both tax cheats.
Yellen and Lew both caused the 2008 recession.
The only concern these people should have is when they are scheduled for the guillotine.
Kakistocracy said...
"Sacrificing the rule of law to government efficiency is a good way to end up with neither."
USAID what, Paid Troll?
In terms of Musk, I think he has two main motivations. First he knows that we are fiscally unstable, and he doesn't want that to convert into a Socialist-type of situation. Second he needs government spending to sustain both Tesla and SpaceX, and within a few years, we won't have that money. Thus I think his personal interests align more with mine, and also I know that he doesn't get the say on how the money IS spent. Congress and the President get that say.
But it is long past time for us to go on an austerity program in government. We're not covering urgent basic needs in situations such as NC, we are spending a lot of unnecessary money on bogus asylum claimants, and it is clear that we have a lot of wasteful spending in these DC internal power clusters, some of it really just feeding back to political interests.
Under current law Social Security payments get cut by 20-25% by 2033. The trust fund is nearly exhausted. We have hard choices to make, and the earlier we act the better our choices are going to be.
This reminds me of the Equity Funding scandal that started my 1st career as an internal auditor in data processing (still using punch cards back then) for a large west coast bank.
At that time, all auditors (internal, regulatory, and CPAs) were not allowed to look into the data files and programs to produced the debits and credits of the accounting systems because all of the above was too complicated, privacy protected, and security protected.
But behind the computer room glass windows, Equity Funding was selling insurance policies on the reinsurance market and using to funds to pay the insurance premiums of the policies sold while underwriting new policies to be sold later. Taken together, it was a fraudulent Ponzi scheme facilitated by data processing and keeping the wool pulled over the auditors' eyes. Solyndra and other schemes were not much different.
It is absolutely necessary to allow trusted individuals access to the accounting records in order to review the propriety and legality of all accounting systems -- especially disbursement systems. I have no doubt that DOGE can assemble a team -- greater than two -- of such individuals.
So, Treasury Secretaries Summers, Rubin, Geithner, Lew and Yellen, STFU and let the auditors have access to data and the processes.
No
Aggie said...
"I don't think Larry Summers is evil or as jaded as many other Machine Democrats, but how was he awarded a platform in the Wall Street Journal"???
The Wall Street Journal has completely shifted into The Deepstate Journal.
it used to be, that their "news" was left, and their ed pages were right..
IF you counted Chamber of Commerce stuff as right..
But since Trump resumed power, The Deepstate Journal is COMPLETELY anti-Trump..
I'm paid up on my subscription until Aug 2025.. but i'm sure NOT renewing
Summers slips in a massive unsupported assertion:
"The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants."
How are we to know they are nonpartisan? Prove it, Larry.
“Our democracy” is code for ’this thing of ours’.
Somebody tell me what emergency is being addressed at the Roosevelt hotel, while FEMA officials are absent in North Carolina and putting on the poor-mouth, pockets-turned-out, outta-money charade for the Appalachians
The emergency is the dwindling electoral prospects for the Democrat Party. Its base voters are devoted to prolonging their childless adolescence by decades, marked by "Sex in the City" promiscuity and ensuing sterility due to venereal disease and multiple abortions. Also, childless bath-house buggery. And childless feminist gen-Z-boss-in-a-mini careerism. And childless climate-panic Club of Rome anti-natalism. And childless cracker-box studio-apartment dwelling in the colossal urban centers they love so much, with scarcely enough spare room for a cat's litter-box.
If current trends continue for another couple of generations, there will be a solid majority of voters who are either Mormon, trad-Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, Amish, "Quiverfull" evangelical, or conservative Muslim. Everybody else, but most especially left-wing Democrats, will be along for the ride but decidedly no longer in the driver's seat.
The tidal wave of illegal immigration that has been not just tolerated, not just encouraged, but actively and lavishly subsidized over the last four years by the Biden Administration is the desperate last gap of a dying political party trying to import an entirely new class of loyal voters to replace those who will never be born.
No idea what’s legal or not here but when here 1000 page bills passed by Congress, I suspect that a bunch of that funding will unfortunately have legislation to back it up. I’m hoping the President, as the executive has some control over the disbursements but if there is an obscure rider buried deep in one of those omnibus monstrosities for Indonesian Journalist to learn how to avoid “binary gender” language, then I fear that money may have some legitimacy to it.
"How are we to know they are nonpartisan?"
One way to tell would be when they start coming out publicly as being in favor of audits to catch fraud and supporting the public's right to know what their tax dollars are being spent on.
How many have we heard from, so far?
victoria: "No"
victoria will not stand for anyone getting in the way of sex trafficking 350,000 plus children across our borders.
Victoria wants that pipeline turned back on, with no audits, and with taxpayer dollars.
The way it was under her hero, Joey biden, noted sexualizer of his very own adolescent daughter.
victoria called joe biden a hero...even after she knew....
So understand fully where that chick is coming from when she comments here.
If what Musk is doing at DOGE was wrong, it would only take one. - not five.
Remember when Joe Biden ignored the law authorizing and ordering the building of a border wall, and tried to sell off the material to prevent Trump from doing it?
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.
This cult of “independent” agencies “above” politics is ridiculous, undemocratic and counter to our right to not be subject to theft by taxation. This is not democracy, but bureaucracy, and I don’t just mean a tangled, byzantine mess of agencies, but actual rule by unelected, unaccountable, unseen officials, out of the control of the duly elected government, AKA “our democracy”
So Congress authorized the payments? Well, I think we should ask some Congressmen. "Did you authorize a Peruvian transgender comic book?" "Did you authorize FEMA to pay for rooms for illegal aliens at high-end hotels while American citizens are shivering in tents." First ask some Republicans who will deny authorizing it and then some Dems like Maxine Waters, AOC. Basically, Congress authorized a sum of money to be spent within guidelines.The DOGE has found Project X; did you know about Project X, did you knowing authorize Project X? Do we need an agency that can comb through the Budget and find the waste and fraud in Projects X.Y, Z et al since your office cannot. Is it good that there is now AI-driven software that can comb through the real spending and report back?
Another argument out there is over "medical" decisions such as over children gender-transitioning. Health decisions of any kind have a medical component but they also have social components. For example, in gender transitioning there is the question of who makes the decisions: parent and doctor? or child and doctor? Both parents? And who decides on what the school teaches children about gender transition? Who decides if these decisions made at the school can be hidden from parents? Who decides whether these operations are healthy and one possibility in life or whether they are irreversible mutilations? Who decides whether insurance will pay? In short, "medical decisions" are health decisions and as such have a social component. Sometimes the social component represents a radical possibility, untested ever before in any society. It seems quite legitimate to discuss such a social component as, for example, allowing a child to make a transgender decision as is the case in California.
Transgender (e.g. homosexual) is a spectrum disorder, a state or process of divergence from normal. The clinic evidence demonstrated that therapeutic treatment of the unstable conditions is nonviable in the majority and there is no scientific process to predict the outcome. It's a dream shared by Levine and Mengele et al.
"So understand fully where that chick is coming from when she comments here."
She's not a chick, Victoria's real appearance is like the one revealed to be a hideous hag in GOT , repulsive in both spirit and body.
When she dies, not even Hell will want her.
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