From "Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system" (NYT).
This continues the story discussed earlier today in "What the DOGE team discovered."
February 1, 2025
"Mr. Musk, who has been given wide latitude by President Trump to find ways to slash government spending, has recently fixated..."
"... on Treasury’s payment processes, criticizing the department in a social media post on Saturday for not rejecting more payments as fraudulent or improper. It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."
From "Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system" (NYT).
From "Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system" (NYT).
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X’s own Community Notes has a better journalistic standards than these hacks.
“My experience with DOGE has been totally wild so far. I told you yesterday about the $600 million per year the Pentagon was spending on Sushi... Well, I just found another wild one! The Air Force was spending $1,280 per paper coffee cup! Like literally those ones you find at the office. $1280!!! We also found that $230k per month was being spent by the IRS on Starbucks Cinnamon Roast K Cups, but everyone was working from home!
Anyway, back to work! Have a great day!”
—— Elon Musk
"Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system" (NYT).
I tend to think DOGE has access to the "Reports" module of the system, not the payment issuing module.
Warrior/Gourmand?
"It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."
Give him time. Musk is still struggling with the shocking fact that total, witless, rubber-stamp incompetence is no impediment to a GS-15 salary and benefits package at the Treasury Department.
So they don't like Musk exposing them... why are we not shocked... cockroaches don't like the light being shined on them.
…meanwhile WH press corpse was trolling for a Menendez pardon yesterday. Certainly off topic in this thread. Certainly…
Yes, access does not necessarily mean direct control.
A fentanyl addicted hobo has better jounalistic standards than those hacks.
Imagine if D.O.G.E hired several thousand forensic accountants. I wouldn't surprise if we run a balanced budget if all the nonsense spending was cut immediately.
Exactly. All Musk and his team wanted was to see the who was being paid, how much they were being paid, and who was filing for the payments. The changes to who gets paid and for what will happen at the source level of authority, not at Treasury payment systems. And I pretty bet you that he went this route because the apparatchiks in the various departments told his team they didn't have any centralized records for who was receiving their departments' funds.
Remember the breathless commentary in 2020 when Mark Zuckerberg gave something like a half a billion $ to the Democrats and his people were granted read/write access to Wisconsin's official voter roles. Yes, they could change the status of voters without even having to go through officials, and they focused entirely on Democrat heavy precincts to "get out the vote." I am betting that all Musk has is the ability to pull reports.
I have read that Treasury Department payment approval officers are in the GS-15 salary band. The bottom edge of that band, with Washington, DC, locality pay, is $167,603 and the top edge is $195,200. That’s a fair piece of change for just rubber stamping vouchers.
Maybe the New York Times could focus on the ballooning structural deficit, and the things that are going to be required to bring it back into line with economic growth, you know, like either massive taxes on everybody, not just the rich, or massive inflation —History says that governments usually choose inflation as the least politically painful path to oblivion. Who would have thought that cutting spending might be a viable approach?
"It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."
1. Was it really necessary for the NYT to point out that Musk is "the world's wealthiest man" to the 3 NYT readers that may not have known that fact?
2. If it was necessary, then why not mention this fact immediately when Musk is first mentioned in the article? Why add this to the line about it being unknown whether or not the DOGE team has blocked any payments? What are they trying to imply?
3. What is the connection between the integrity of an audit and the personal wealth of the auditor?
"Rubber stamping vouchers," and voting reliably for the gravy train.
That Air Force paper coffee cup thing - I want more detail before I go 'That ain't right'. I could see it per pallet of disposable coffee cups. Case of good ones (500 count) goes for about $80. Pallet of 36 cases would be $2880. Military bulk buy - then down to $1,280.
Details matter.
They want to imply that he's getting everything cut out of the budget.
And you know, I'd be good with him getting, oh... 10% of the savings. You know - as an incentive.
It is also not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has rounded up and killed any Jews since gaining access to the system.
Jerry, who cares about the unit price? The point is, if you want to drink coffee, breing in a washable cup (or you could buy a small supply yourself for use by yoy and your office mates). I worked for the feds for over six years and we never used disposable cups.
The "team" is led by Donald Trump. Elon Musk is a member of that team. It is not Musk's team.
"Rubber stamping vouchers" ... I think you mean "laundering taxpayer dollars to Democrats."
From this source: https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-fraud-waste-billions-small-business-labor-fb1d9a9eb24857efbe4611344311ae78
“An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.”
That’s just from one program. I don’t know about you, but I consider a 10% fraud rate unacceptable. Coincidently or not, that’s also the reported fraud rate for Medicare and Medicaid each year. That’s a lot of money, but no one in government seems to think that reducing the fraud is important. They just keep demanding ever more money from taxpayers and more borrowing to keep doing what they’re doing. This makes me question as to whether they just don’t care, they’re too incompetent to fix it, and/or they’re personally profiting from the fraud themselves.
From this source: https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-fraud-waste-billions-small-business-labor-fb1d9a9eb24857efbe4611344311ae78
“An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.”
That’s just from one program. I don’t know about you, but I consider a 10% fraud rate unacceptable. Coincidently or not, that’s also the reported fraud rate for Medicare and Medicaid each year. That’s a lot of money, but no one in government seems to think that reducing the fraud is important. They just keep demanding ever more money from taxpayers and more borrowing to keep doing what they’re doing. This makes me question as to whether they just don’t care, they’re too incompetent to fix it, and/or they’re personally profiting from the fraud themselves.
Air Force flying passengers - you're not going to see ceramics, you'll see paper cups. Impromptu mass feedings? You're going to see paper products used. Hot day on the flight line? Water coolers will have paper cups. Out at the plant I worked at we had bottled water because the piping was so old - so paper cups.
Not taking Elon's "wild" claims at face value, but follow the money is, as always, the right approach. Even if actual savings are modest, greater transparency and accountability will be good.
I was a fed auditor, CPA, and later a chief of systems dept (manual and automated systems) for an agency with $500 million annual revenues (in 1972) before I left to get my law degree. I could steer him to multiple places and categories where he would be stunned at the waste. I even thought about volunteering to help Musk until I heard he was looking for unpaid volunteers to work 100 hours/week. At age 74, with some physical issues, I had to admit that was too much for me. Who is actually helping him now?
"It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."
"But we sure hope implying that he might have will convince people he has."
The employees should bring their own coffee mug from home, like normal employees… and if working in an office setting, a vendor is usually supplying coffee via vending machines. Coffee and cups.
Unless that makes no sense in this setting.
Jerry, I was a veteran Air Force weather man before college. I worked in flight ops and I can tell you that most everything you said is bs. Bring your own f'g bottle of water to work like everyone else in the US today. I was stationed at a remote radar station with ONLY bottled water in coolers - but we used washable cups. I also was stationed at an Army air field in Germany and I do not remember ever seeing a paper cup.
Bingo!
Corrupt leftists in power and their media buttsniffers - HATE transparency.
Ben Wikler's work, or before he took charge of Wisconsin Dem party??
"It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."
Are any of their readers taken in by this dishonest phrasing? If they had a scintilla of evidence that he had, they'd be screaming it from the rafters.
President Whitmore, "I don't understand. Where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?"
Julius Levinson, "You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?"
OT:
"Harwood is a known moron, but there is an interesting insight here. The left thinks it's fascism when their unelected permanent bureaucracy is placed under the control of the people's elected chief executive."
X
Fact.
carry on.
Does the NYT express any interest at what Musk et al. are finding?
In the 1980s Ronald Reagan wanted to increase military spending. The Democrats held hostile fraudulent public hearings and said the military was paying $600 for toilet seats and hammers. As I recall, contracting rules at the time required all contract cost overages to be evenly divided between every additional item. So, a light switch was set to the same value as a new building air conditioning unit.
Wait and see. Ensure that Elon hasn't misread something or mistaken 1 cup for 1 sea van full of cups (@Jerry). Similarly, Elon may not understand that Pentagon staff were all in the office in secure rooms during the DC COVID lockdowns. They had full parking lots and face masks, as secure rooms were never compatible with remote work. Back in the 1990s Bill Clinton mocked government spending on "stress in plants" not knowing that this is a hugely important issue for agriculture. Heat and water loss = stress.
The truly toxic federal staff are the SES. Their main career mission is to (1) maintain their program's budget, and (2) prevent any external oversight whatsoever. Oh, they also nod and say "yes, yes, yes" in meetings as the knife you in the back.
Several dozen may be enough...
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