I mean, if you’re arguing from the position that Trump is showing signs of radically fixing the economy already, my entire point is basically moot. If he ushers in a Golden Age of prosperity, my gripes about the political efficacy of his messaging at the corners of his base probably won’t much matter.
DOGE
- Thread starter acesfull86
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I mean, if you’re arguing from the position that Trump is showing signs of radically fixing the economy already, my entire point is basically moot. If he ushers in a Golden Age of prosperity, my gripes about the political efficacy of his messaging at the corners of his base probably won’t much matter.
We agree that it isn't 'working' right now - Lets see what happens when waste/fraud are removed. THings I'm reading indicate it could be in upwards of 1T for medicade alone.
But I'm overall not in favor of touching these benefits because I believe Americans deserve to not live in destitute despite not being successful.
From the left, I don’t think the answer to those questions starts with taking more of it away. The great irony of the government employee DOGE email debacle is that I absolutely ****ing agree that there are too many government employees and in many departments the expectations and workloads are too low, and the services being provided to the American public as a result is subpar in many cases. I also don’t think the way we do food assistance in particular is generally effective and that a system where someone can buy hundreds of dollars in junk food each month is not hitting the mark.
But for me, the answer can’t start with feeding fewer hungry Americans. If it takes longer to lower the tax burden on the middle class or root out every last vestige of fraud and waste in the government, I’ll happily pay those same taxes if it means we address the problem without intentionally feeding fewer people that need it as a result of the cuts. That isn’t an unwillingness to accept them looking at and addressing wasteful contracts, processes and even employees, and certainly not to stop actual theft/fraud from those ineligible for benefits/payments. I just want the North Star of that mission to be reducing overhead and ineffective systems so they can try to feed as many Americans as possible and doing so in a way that doesn’t prioritize quickness over maintaining services while we figure it out.
GoT
High School Draftee
GoT
High School Draftee
the dividends MUST flow!
GoT
High School Draftee
But we're supposed to take the words these same people in their 5 sentence email....
Totes legit.
In reality, Musk sent this message over the weekend and gave such little notice on completion knowing full well most would not complete it, just so he can push the narrative that most government employees are lazy, entitled, or otherwise unqualified.
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The Government already conducts annual ratings and reviews. And believe it or not, there are plenty of employees who get poor reviews. Seems like a much simpler task to just start there.
As for your 2nd point, well I am so glad your decades of experience in the government sector can tell us what that amount is.
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That irony might be richer if it were progressive pundits being caught up in this and not just regular workers whose primary sin against the American taxpayer is having poor direction.
I know who I can trust and it hasn't steered me wrong thus far in areas that I don't have first hand expertise in - We could always go back to previous arguments when you laughed at my points.
chop2chip
Well-known member
The amount of animosity I see towards average Joe who works accounting in a random fed bureaucracy and not towards the millionaires in Congress who pass the “waste, fraud and abuse” and are poised to pass even more “waste, fraud, and abuse” despite R controlling both houses of legislature is quite cringeworthy.
sturg33
I
I cant stand them both.
But yes, they are there to do the job that congress authorized
Who doesn't hate Congress?
I think you’re missing the point. Yes, I’d wager that people as a whole do typically hate the institution of Congress. But they don’t have a filter for jobs in the federal government marked as wasteful/unwasteful, they just have jobs. Those jobs are then applied for and offered to normal Americans who otherwise would be in the private labor force. While you’ll always have some go-getters out there looking to seize the day and either make the government a fractional amount more productive or get fed up and leave for the private sector, that doesn’t mean the people being allowed to do a handful of hours of work per week are the villains here. If someone is in one of those jobs and getting away with it, you can think their job is wasteful and want it to be eliminated without also calling everyone affected a lazy little bitch. But many of the same people who authorized that staffing through legislation are the ones going for the throat of these regular workers and clutching their pearls about government waste. And I get that anybody in a wasteful role is being funded by my tax dollars, but that doesn’t make the situation any more their individual fault.