What Elon and Vivek could abolish in the name of government efficiency by 250th anniversary of Declaration of Independence

LiveLife

LiveLife

Well-known member
Wow, did not anticipate this during my retirement years. I wonder how much will actually become reality?

Trump put Elon and Vivek in charge of "Department of Government Efficiency" with a deadline to coincide with 250th anniversary of Declaration of Independence - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/what...-name-of-government-efficiency-184344052.html

"Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026, the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence."​
  • Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have Trump's backing to cut government spending and "making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency."
  • For some time, both suggested they could aim to do much more than slim down Washington and poised to make a run at abolishing huge areas of that bureaucracy entirely
  • "99 Federal agencies is more than enough," Musk posted Tuesday night suggesting a massive culling of the hundreds of existing agencies, with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and the Education Department already in focus (There are 80 agencies that begin with the letter U alone)
  • Both directly discussed eliminating high-profile areas like the Education Department, the FBI, and the Internal Revenue Service.
  • Ramaswamy promised elimination of at least five larger agencies during his run for president last year. He also discussed cutting 90% of the staff at the Federal Reserve during that campaign.

A detailed list of cuts​

  • Ramaswamy during his 2023 presidential run pledged to fire 75% of federal employees and promised to abolish at least five well-known federal agencies — including the Department of Education, the FBI, the ATF, the IRS, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service
  • He promised giant cuts and wrote in a 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed that "I intend to make the 2024 presidential race in part a referendum on the proper role of our central bank." with Trump's claim to fire or demote Fed Chair Jerome Powell who responded that he won't be going anywhere
  • Musk has offered more scattered plans but has acknowledged that his effort would lead to "temporary hardship." ... He's been working closely with Trump since Trump's victory last week
  • Musk has pledged to cut $2 trillion out of the $6+ trillion annual budget without specifying exactly how ... With US discretionary budget at $1.7 trillion, programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security may be cut to accomplish his goals
  • Their disruptive effort is gaining some high-profile fans ... "I think Elon Musk represents wholesale change, and I think we actually need wholesale change ... Our financial situation is fixable. It is fixable in a way that is positive for the base that the president-elect has said that he wants to help ... But it is not fixable by small amounts of tinkering. It is about wholesale change." - Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan
  • It is also not immediately clear how the proposed department will operate and whether Congressional Republicans, who control spending by law, will have any interest in playing along with a massive government reorganization
  • Trump set a deadline ... "Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026," the president-elect announced Wednesday, calling it "the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence."
 
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LiveLife

LiveLife

Well-known member
Recommendations will be made for "cost savings" that can initially be done with executive action then lay the groundwork for legislation later. There's been talk of cutting the government for decades but politicians weren't able to do it because they were "politicians".

"We are not politicians. We are businessmen ... Our work is done by July 2026 ... Public is on our side ... There are many congressmen who are quietly on our side ... We are looking at next 250 years ... We expect massive reductions that are bloated ... If we don't downsize the government now, it will never happen ... Most of these federal bureaucrats don't even need to show up for work ... We need to move these offices out of Washington where they will be accountable to the people ... In addition to efficiency, we are looking at accountability"​

'HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY': Vivek Ramaswamy lays out vision for DOGE

Trump cabinet nominee Vivek Ramaswamy sits down with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the role of the new Department of Government Efficiency​

 
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theotherwaldo

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Also, most 'New' jobs fall into three categories: second or third jobs for folks that are just scraping by, jobs being filled by 'migrants' and folks going to work for branch of the government.
-That's our booming economy under Joe and Kamala... .
 
LiveLife

LiveLife

Well-known member
This is why we need to improve "government efficiency" ... Good grief.

Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row, with the nation’s largest government agency still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion - https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4992913-pentagon-fails-7th-audit-in-a-row-but-says-progress-made/


This from 2 years ago ...

CNBC - Why The Pentagon Keeps Failing Its Audit

With a budget of over three quarters of a trillion dollars, the Pentagon has found that passing a sweeping audit is a tricky proposition. Antiquated systems, huge budgets, and the sheer size of the Department of Defense have made passing the congressionally mandated audit a towering endeavor, but one that experts say is doable in time.​
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The Pentagon has failed another audit this year. But with $770 billion expected to be budgeted for 2022, the Department of Defense says it is working on keeping track of all this money.​
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“It took the Department of Homeland Security a decade to pass its audit, and it’s a fraction of the size of the Defense Department,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. “There is a bit out there that just because the department can’t pass the audit, it doesn’t know where it’s spending its money. And it does. But what it doesn’t do well is track it at an enterprise level.“​
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Since 1988 the budget has grown from over $634 billion in 2020 dollars to over $724 billion in 2020. But, the defense budget as a percentage of the total gross domestic product has actually dropped in the same period, from 5.7% to 3.5%, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis of Office of Management and Budget historical tables.​
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One example of an item found in the recent audit was a Navy warehouse that was not on the Navy’s property records and that housed aircraft parts worth $126 million, according to the Government Accountability Office.​
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“The financial system that you have in DOD right now is set up to control taxpayers’ dollars to guarantee that there is not going to be unauthorized use of it. So every dollar and cent is accounted for,” said Frederico Bartels, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “And there, you can see that by the ADEA violations being extremely low at DOD, there are still some but that’s part of doing business, it’s still lower than most federal agencies.“​
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Old systems for tracking funds, a slow bureaucracy, and the sheer size of the U.S. Defense apparatus have kept audits from passing since they began in late 2017.​
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The size of the budget is constantly a subject of debate, but for lawmakers to make informed decisions they need good data.​
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“This is the Pentagon,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. “They’re responsible for the security of the United States. If, in fact, their audit systems are outdated, if ... they can’t do an audit and give us a picture of what they’re spending, I kind of worry about what they’re doing on the really important stuff.“​

 
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theotherwaldo

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
As someone who was assigned the task of keeping track of changes in materials and equipment going into thirteen Navy frigates that were being built at the Todd Pacific Shipyard in San Pedro, California (among other tasks), I have a certain amount of the understanding of the problem.
When I was handed the task as a Drafter III, the records were more than three years behind.
Six months later, I had totally redesigned the task set and was three months ahead of expected construction.
The three month ship fitter strike helped, of course.
At that point, I became a Drafter II and was handed the task of creating a ground plan for installing a three berth ship lift system.
The shipyard went broke not long after that because Jimmy Carter basically shut down ship building and reneged on our contracts with the Shah of Iran, so I moved on... .
 
LiveLife

LiveLife

Well-known member
So our government efficiency (or lack thereof) follows law of entropy? :oops:

Things fall apart unless there's action taken to improve efficiency? :ROFLMAO:
 
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theotherwaldo

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Absolutely.
The distant emperor relies on bureaucrats to run departments that connect to industries that contract with businesses that serve the military or the public.
Each layer is an open invitation for graft, incompetence and kick-backs.
Constant oversight is necessary - and even that merely thins out the grifting... .
 
LiveLife

LiveLife

Well-known member
Elon and Vivek's Op/Ed in WSJ ... Make America Informed ...

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab - https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-an...rt-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020

By Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy
Nov. 20, 2024

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.​
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This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.​
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President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs ...​
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