DOGE People Are Idiots. Heres Why

[Wrestleknownothing]

59 minutes ago, jross said:

lost opportunity is waste

You are complaining about a decision that was made 89 years ago. Not even remotely the kind of thing the Dept of Gov Efficiency is said to be targeting.

[jross]

They should be!

Flipping social security to S&P500 and using increased funds to pay down debt would reduce waste on the interest payments.  

[Husker_Du]

5 hours ago, red viking said:

I've only heard about cutting waste, gov workers and dept of education. Haven't heard any remarks about meaningful cuts except maybe medicaid (but not medicare). 

jfc. wake up.

 

[Offthemat]

3 hours ago, red viking said:

Yes you should but I'm not electable because I tell it like it is. 

You might have a better chance in San Francisco if you haven’t already missed your opportunity. 

[jross]

• $400B Slash to Defense budget, with $250B granted with detailed expense report, leaving $150B cut objective 
• $200B: Reduce Fraud
• $150B: MAHA to increase health through diet and exercise, thus cutting medicare and medicaid expense
• $10B++: flipping social security to S&P500 and using access funds to pay down debt, reducing interest payments
• $20B: Fossil Fuel Subsidies
• $100B: Corporate Subsidies
• $80B: Cut department of education
• ~$120B+ potentially through cuts to Energy, Housing, Commerce, Interior ( I voted for Ron Paul before! )
• Review additional subsidies... over a $1 trillion to review bringing back to the state level
• Some sort of hair cut across the board (with exception).  Like 20% hair cut to achieve objectives.  Something based on results to increase or decrease the allocations for the current and future years.  Show me where the money went, show me what it accomplished, fully auditable... 

There is a reason this will take manpower to go through the risks and mitigations...

[Wrestleknownothing]

14 minutes ago, jross said:

They should be!

Flipping social security to S&P500 and using increased funds to pay down debt would reduce waste on the interest payments.  

No it wouldn't. The bonds aren't created because Social Security has a demand for them. The bonds are created because the government needs to borrow money. SS is a captive lender. Invest SS in equities instead and the government will just need to auction more public securities.

And how exactly would an "increased funds" be diverted? It would be against every law and every principal of retirement investing.

[jross]

Once they collect the 12.4% tax on net earnings per worker, how they choose to utilize those funds is entirely at their discretion.  The government makes the laws that go against the principals of liberty.   Might as well be more efficient with it.

[Lipdrag]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The bonds are created because the government needs to borrow money.

I think we found the problem.

[RockLobster]

6 hours ago, jross said:

• $400B Slash to Defense budget, with $250B granted with detailed expense report, leaving $150B cut objective 
• $200B: Reduce Fraud
• $150B: MAHA to increase health through diet and exercise, thus cutting medicare and medicaid expense
• $10B++: flipping social security to S&P500 and using access funds to pay down debt, reducing interest payments
• $20B: Fossil Fuel Subsidies
• $100B: Corporate Subsidies
• $80B: Cut department of education
• ~$120B+ potentially through cuts to Energy, Housing, Commerce, Interior ( I voted for Ron Paul before! )
• Review additional subsidies... over a $1 trillion to review bringing back to the state level
• Some sort of hair cut across the board (with exception).  Like 20% hair cut to achieve objectives.  Something based on results to increase or decrease the allocations for the current and future years.  Show me where the money went, show me what it accomplished, fully auditable... 

There is a reason this will take manpower to go through the risks and mitigations...

... I didn't see the part about cutting costs in the "space" budget.

I expect we'll see a seriously significant cut in our space budget if the point is to cut spending.

Cutting the space budget isn't just obvious, it's beyond obvious.

Right?

Private companies are leading the way, so why pump money into these private companies? If they make a profit without subsidies, great. If not, it isn't the taxpayers' problem. They are on their own.

NASA will continue to exist. Sink or swim, the private companies should no longer be sponsored by taxpayers.

Edited November 17 by RockLobster

[jross]

4 hours ago, RockLobster said:

... I didn't see the part about cutting costs in the "space" budget.

I expect we'll see a seriously significant cut in our space budget if the point is to cut spending.

Cutting the space budget isn't just obvious, it's beyond obvious.

Right?

Private companies are leading the way, so why pump money into these private companies? If they make a profit without subsidies, great. If not, it isn't the taxpayers' problem. They are on their own.

NASA will continue to exist. Sink or swim, the private companies should no longer be sponsored by taxpayers.

yes - https://www.space.com/14380-republican-debate-florida-president-space-program.html

[Gus]

On 11/16/2024 at 7:39 PM, jross said:

Once they collect the 12.4% tax on net earnings per worker, how they choose to utilize those funds is entirely at their discretion.  The government makes the laws that go against the principals of liberty.   Might as well be more efficient with it.

Or better yet, abolish SS and let the private citizen have control of hir or her own money. 

[mspart]

On 11/16/2024 at 8:35 AM, red viking said:

You idiots need to look at the actual federal budget. The ONLY way to cut any significant costs is to go after the big ticket items. For example, social security, Medicare and military. Cutting government workers and Dept of Education barely makes a dent. 

Can't believe how many idiots there are in this country. 

Here are the departmental budgets for 2025.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200386/budget-of-the-us-government-for-fiscal-year-2012-by-agencies/

 

Looks like there are ample areas for DOGE activity.   Anytime a department handles billions of dollars, there are way to cut that budget.  You could just say 10% cut across the board, but that does not eliminate waste, but it would cut the budget.  

[mspart]

The deficit is 28% of total expenditures.   If we cut 28% across the board, we would have a balanced budget.   That's a lot.  But it needs to be done.   Yes, taxes could increase.   But more effective is controlling ones spending.  

We essentially have a 25% tax on total GDP which is untenable. 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

 

As you can see we have averaged about 15-20% federal outlay in comparison to the GDP since about 1950.   Currently we are above 1980-1990 levels.  You can see the effects of the 2008 recession and the 2020 covid spending.  

mspart

[Le duke]

The military has done that since before WW2. It actually costs less to replace the equipment left behind than to transport it back. Also this keeps the various defense contractors happy because whichever congressional districts have big manufacturing for defense contractors basically will make sure the money keeps flowing no matter what. 
You'll also never eliminate all fraud and waste with the Pentagon. There are a ton of things that us mere mortals don't know about that get funding that's basically a black hole. 

It also benefits red states more than it does blue states.




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[red viking]

38 minutes ago, mspart said:

Here are the departmental budgets for 2025.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200386/budget-of-the-us-government-for-fiscal-year-2012-by-agencies/

 

Looks like there are ample areas for DOGE activity.   Anytime a department handles billions of dollars, there are way to cut that budget.  You could just say 10% cut across the board, but that does not eliminate waste, but it would cut the budget.  

Yah but most of that money goes to actual non-government people (e.g. social security and Medicare payments); not government employees. So that graph isn't very meaningful at all. 

[Danny Deck]

https://thedispatch.com/article/how-to-truly-fix-the-federal-debt/

 

[PortaJohn]

@red viking maybe you'd get more consensus if you didn't start off by calling people idiots.  I agree with your overall assessment but why be a jerk about it.  

To everyone else if we really want to make a dent it is fact we either have to f' over the baby boomers or start slashing the industrial military complex.  

[red viking]

1 minute ago, PortaJohn said:

@red viking maybe you'd get more consensus if you didn't start off by calling people idiots.  I agree with your overall assessment but why be a jerk about it.  

To everyone else if we really want to make a dent it is fact we either have to f' over the baby boomers or start slashing the industrial military complex.  

Appreciate it when people tell it like it is. 

[jross]

I don't understand.

The current SS model will run out of funds.

Without changing anything to progressive taxes and payouts, pooling the collective revenues into an indexed fund investment has historically returned better than not.  And when the market regresses for shorts times as it does, the government can take on debt as it always has.  The difference is that when the market more than pays what's needed, those excess funds could be used pay down the debt.

[red viking]

1 hour ago, jross said:

I don't understand.

The current SS model will run out of funds.

Without changing anything to progressive taxes and payouts, pooling the collective revenues into an indexed fund investment has historically returned better than not.  And when the market regresses for shorts times as it does, the government can take on debt as it always has.  The difference is that when the market more than pays what's needed, those excess funds could be used pay down the debt.

A problem is that the govt needs entities to buy its debt (bonds). If SS fund stops investing in bonds, then the bond return rate goes up by quite a bit and that makes our debt WAY more expensive. So this strategy may help with the SS fund, but make our overall debt problem worse. 

BTW, Trump's plan to not tax SS payouts will make the SS fund insolvent much sooner since a big portion of those taxes on SS payouts actually fund future SS payouts. 

Very glad that we're actually talking about attacking the big ticket items here. BTW, I recently realized that salaries & benefits for federal workers is about 5% of the federal budget. It's a complete joke that Elon is zeroing in on this.  

Edited Wednesday at 04:48 PM by red viking