Changes under Trump 2.0

[TastyBurrito]

President Donald Trump wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create an “external” revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government, according to his newly confirmed commerce secretary.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night.

Good god, we're going to be fucked. And when he kills income tax and tariffs don't work, watch him implement a national sales tax to make up for funding.

He'll say it'll be everyone paying the same, fair price, but people forget that millionaires and billionaires aren't buying essentials as often as lower class people. Then add to that (let's assume) a 23% federal sales tax will hit harder on those making less than making more.

Man, his supporters are fucking dumb. They voted for these shenanigans and we're all going to pay for it so that billionaires can live larger.

[h00man]

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President Donald Trump wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create an “external” revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government, according to his newly confirmed commerce secretary.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night.

[close]

Man, his supporters are fucking dumb. They voted for these shenanigans and we're all going to pay for it so that billionaires can live larger.

Hold up, you're telling me that this wasn't about the cost of groceries and gas getting lower??

[TastyBurrito]

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President Donald Trump wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create an “external” revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government, according to his newly confirmed commerce secretary.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night.

[close]

Man, his supporters are fucking dumb. They voted for these shenanigans and we're all going to pay for it so that billionaires can live larger.

[close]

Hold up, you're telling me that this wasn't about the cost of groceries and gas getting lower??

Gas and groceries are going lower. Not in price, just in priority for the GOP.

[Atiba Applebum]

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President Donald Trump wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create an “external” revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government, according to his newly confirmed commerce secretary.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night.

[close]

Man, his supporters are fucking dumb. They voted for these shenanigans and we're all going to pay for it so that billionaires can live larger.

[close]

Hold up, you're telling me that this wasn't about the cost of groceries and gas getting lower??

[close]

Gas and groceries are going lower. Not in price, just in priority for the GOP.

Hard for the price of eggs to go down when they fired all the people working on bird flu (and now have to scramble to re-hire them)



Will be interesting to see the reaction to DOGE checks giving back “government excess”

[h00man]

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President Donald Trump wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create an “external” revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government, according to his newly confirmed commerce secretary.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night.

[close]

Man, his supporters are fucking dumb. They voted for these shenanigans and we're all going to pay for it so that billionaires can live larger.

[close]

Hold up, you're telling me that this wasn't about the cost of groceries and gas getting lower??

[close]

Gas and groceries are going lower. Not in price, just in priority for the GOP.

[close]

Will be interesting to see the reaction to DOGE checks giving back “government excess”

It could just be a ruse for them to keep cutting federal jobs. This way, his supporters will always say "look, he's trying to give us money, keep slashing jobs", even if the checks never come.

[TastyBurrito]

Those DOGE checks are all talk.

Like when Musk said he was going to make a sub to rescue those kids in Thailand who were trapped in a cave, but instead just called the person who did rescue those kids a pedo.

Or when Musk said he'd build ventilators for hospitals during the peak of COVID and instead did jack shit.

Yea, I'm sure people will be seeing those checks.

[Atiba Applebum]

Those DOGE checks are all talk.

Like when Musk said he was going to make a sub to rescue those kids in Thailand who were trapped in a cave, but instead just called the person who did rescue those kids a pedo.

Or when Musk said he'd build ventilators for hospitals during the peak of COVID and instead did jack shit.

Yea, I'm sure people will be seeing those checks.

Don’t forget solving world hunger for 6 Billion!

[Too Frank To Fred]

As an immigrant and a dad of young woman who tried to end her life, this one cuts so fuckin' deep.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/20/headlines/11_year_old_texas_girl_dies_by_suicide_after_bullies_threaten_to_call_ice_on_her_parents

[TastyBurrito]

As an immigrant and a dad of young woman who tried to end her life, this one cuts so fuckin' deep.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/20/headlines/11_year_old_texas_girl_dies_by_suicide_after_bullies_threaten_to_call_ice_on_her_parents

Worst part is the school knew about the bullying and the girl needing to go to the school counselor multiple times a week because of it and they failed to do anything, including inform her parents of what's going on.

The administration of that school was as complicit in this girl's death as those bullies, but seeing it's Texas and the victim is of a migrant origin, they're just going to move on with their day.

[TheLurper]

lol,

We saved a tiny fraction of the annual spend, we are going to increase the debt/deficit by making sure billionaires pay less tax, we are going to cancel medicaid and eventually social security, but here is 5K to get you to look the other way.


All of this reminds me of when Arizona had all Republican control. They decided to sell the fucking capitol and rent it from a private company then had to buy it back. It just funneled tons of tax dollars into a private company's pocket.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/arizona-wants-buy-back-state-capitol-it-inexplicably-sold/

[TheLurper]

John Oliver stole our thread title 

[Painted Baby]

Those DOGE checks are all talk.

Like when Musk said he was going to make a sub to rescue those kids in Thailand who were trapped in a cave, but instead just called the person who did rescue those kids a pedo.

Or when Musk said he'd build ventilators for hospitals during the peak of COVID and instead did jack shit.

Yea, I'm sure people will be seeing those checks.

Or when he said he was going to build a high speed tube from LA to SF so they diverted public money that would have gone to a proper bullet train and then got a bunch of student interns to design it and it petered out so the whole thing just went away

Or when he said he could help ease LA and ultimately all cities traffic by building traffic tunnels but the engineers again were students and he wasn't too interested ultimately so he pocketed a bunch of money that would have gone to improving our woeful public transit and then that also just kinda went away.

[Atiba Applebum]

How bout fort knox?

My bet is that they say it’s empty, thus decimating perceived and real value of the paper dollar, paving the way for a national virtual or crypto currency.

My bet is Goldfinger accidentally aired on Fox News

[Rusty Shackleford]

the USPS is not donalds to give away. it absolutely needs to be changed; maybe hit the streets less frequently..and anyone who's ever delivered will tell you how top-heavy they are. way too many supervisors and PM generals.
but like all of his other cuts, this is not the right way to do it
my money is on bezos getting that contract and surprise surprise things get alot more expensive/complicated

[Atiba Applebum]

the USPS is not donalds to give away. it absolutely needs to be changed; maybe hit the streets less frequently..and anyone who's ever delivered will tell you how top-heavy they are. way too many supervisors and PM generals.
but like all of his other cuts, this is not the right way to do it
my money is on bezos getting that contract and surprise surprise things get alot more expensive/complicated

Again a move that seems targeted to hurt traditional red voters (old folks and people in rural areas). 

[TastyBurrito]

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the USPS is not donalds to give away. it absolutely needs to be changed; maybe hit the streets less frequently..and anyone who's ever delivered will tell you how top-heavy they are. way too many supervisors and PM generals.
but like all of his other cuts, this is not the right way to do it
my money is on bezos getting that contract and surprise surprise things get alot more expensive/complicated

[close]

Again a move that seems targeted to hurt traditional red voters (old folks and people in rural areas).

I'm not going to say targeting them, but they are for sure the fortunes of war.

He's targeting blue states -- CA and NY -- like removing funding for the high speed rail (one which Elon diverted to himself at some point and just targeted -- remember Hyperloop?)

But yea, privatizing mail is going to be something that will hopefully bite him in the butt. Especially when rural people can't get meds sent to them or their Amazon packages, etc.

But yea, let those voters have the day they voted for.

[Fire Air Walk with Me]

I mean he's already got all he needs from rural voters. He's in office. Now it's just privatize everything and profit.

[LUGR]

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Those DOGE checks are all talk.

Like when Musk said he was going to make a sub to rescue those kids in Thailand who were trapped in a cave, but instead just called the person who did rescue those kids a pedo.

Or when Musk said he'd build ventilators for hospitals during the peak of COVID and instead did jack shit.

Yea, I'm sure people will be seeing those checks.

[close]

Or when he said he was going to build a high speed tube from LA to SF so they diverted public money that would have gone to a proper bullet train and then got a bunch of student interns to design it and it petered out so the whole thing just went away

Or when he said he could help ease LA and ultimately all cities traffic by building traffic tunnels but the engineers again were students and he wasn't too interested ultimately so he pocketed a bunch of money that would have gone to improving our woeful public transit and then that also just kinda went away.

This guys takes on his projects are great.

[Rosstradahmus]

How bout fort knox?

My bet is that they say it’s empty, thus decimating perceived and real value of the paper dollar, paving the way for a national virtual or crypto currency.

The US gold reserves are in not way connected to the value of the dollar anymore. "Petrodollars", over 800 foreign military bases and treasury bonds are what's backing it. If the Saudis do away with the petrodollar policy which they have been talking about since before Trump's election then yes the US dollar will be worthless.

[Scab Picker]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-kristi-noem-200-million-dhs-ad-campaign-thanks-president-1235276324/

[augustmoon]

lol Musk now says we all need to respond to him by Monday night detailing what we “did in the last week” in response to Trump’s demand that he “get more aggressive”   Sent out on a Saturday after business hours so if you don’t work Monday and don’t respond to the email you will be considered “resigned”. 

This is being used as a pretense to mass fire workers.  At my job, this is going to lead to delay in patient care which will ultimately lead to dead veterans.

[TheLurper]

lol Musk now says we all need to respond to him by Monday night detailing what we “did in the last week” in response to Trump’s demand that he “get more aggressive”   Sent out on a Saturday after business hours so if you don’t work Monday and don’t respond to the email you will be considered “resigned”. 

This is being used as a pretense to mass fire workers.  At my job, this is going to lead to delay in patient care which will ultimately lead to dead veterans.

I'm sorry. This is ridiculous for you and awful for the vets.

They also fired a bunch of FDA workers who specifically worked on medical devices. There is a device that is going through FDA approval that may alleivate some versions of tinnitus, you know the most common veteran disability.
https://www.research.va.gov/topics/hearing.cfm

Republican politicians (and possibly a good portion of everyday republicans) never cared about the troops or vets. They just liked the image of the military and it is was good way to virtue signal nationalism.

[augustmoon]

That’s sucks about the medical device.  I just read that hearing loss (and I’m assuming tinnitus) is a contributing factor to early onset dementia and seems to affect vets disproportionally. 

In my area we can’t afford to lose a single worker.  It takes so long to hire anyone with so many hoops to jump through that any reduction in force will be untenable and will lead to bad patient outcomes.

[Atiba Applebum]

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lol Musk now says we all need to respond to him by Monday night detailing what we “did in the last week” in response to Trump’s demand that he “get more aggressive”   Sent out on a Saturday after business hours so if you don’t work Monday and don’t respond to the email you will be considered “resigned”. 

This is being used as a pretense to mass fire workers.  At my job, this is going to lead to delay in patient care which will ultimately lead to dead veterans.

[close]

I'm sorry. This is ridiculous for you and awful for the vets.

They also fired a bunch of FDA workers who specifically worked on medical devices. There is a device that is going through FDA approval that may alleivate some versions of tinnitus, you know the most common veteran disability.
https://www.research.va.gov/topics/hearing.cfm

Republican politicians (and possibly a good portion of everyday republicans) never cared about the troops or vets. They just liked the image of the military and it is was good way to virtue signal nationalism.

Saw that mass firings are also happening at the CIA.

[TheLurper]

I wonder if this will awaken Congress at all.

Military, CIA, and FBI are all government institutions that are overwhelmingly conservative. I wonder if there will be pushback or if it'll be like 9/11 first responders, swept under the rug and ignored unless a Jon Stewart like character shows up and forces Republicans to give a shit about the actual people in military and federal law enforcement.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/30/military-veterans-remain-a-republican-group-backing-trump-over-harris-by-wide-margin/

[augustmoon]

I wonder if this will awaken Congress at all.

Military, CIA, and FBI are all government institutions that are overwhelmingly conservative. I wonder if there will be pushback or if it'll be like 9/11 first responders, swept under the rug and ignored unless a Jon Stewart like character shows up and forces Republicans to give a shit about the actual people in military and federal law enforcement.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/30/military-veterans-remain-a-republican-group-backing-trump-over-harris-by-wide-margin/

I think there is realistically only one thing that will stop all of this and it’s not something I can say in writing on a public forum. 

[pugmaster]

[Too Frank To Fred]

Now more than ever, we need to support this type of journalism

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/upshot/doge-musk-trump-errors.html

DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes
The figures from Elon Musk’s team of outsiders represent billions in government cuts. They are also full of accounting errors, outdated data and other miscalculations.
Share full article



Elon Musk has been a central figure in the first month of the Trump administration.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
Aatish BhatiaEmily BadgerDavid A. FahrentholdJosh KatzMargot Sanger-KatzEthan Singer
By Aatish BhatiaEmily BadgerDavid A. FahrentholdJosh KatzMargot Sanger-Katz and Ethan Singer
The reporters reviewed hundreds of federal contracts, interviewed contracting experts and spoke to recipients of canceled contracts.
Published Feb. 21, 2025
Updated Feb. 22, 2025, 4:17 p.m. ET

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency say they have saved the federal government $55 billion through staff reductions, lease cancellations and a long list of terminated contracts published online this week as a “wall of receipts.”

President Trump has been celebrating the published savings, even musing about a proposal to mail checks to all Americans to reimburse them with a “DOGE dividend.”

But the math that could back up those checks is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes, according to a New York Times analysis of all the contracts listed. While the DOGE team has surely cut some number of billions of dollars, its slapdash accounting adds to a pattern of recklessness by the group, which has recently gained access to sensitive government payment systems.

Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained an error that inflated the totals by billions of dollars. In at least one instance, the group claimed an entire contract had been canceled when only part of the work had been halted. In others, contracts the group said it had closed were actually ended under the Biden administration.


The canceled contracts listed on the website make up a small part of the $55 billion total that the group estimated it had found so far. It was not possible to independently verify that number or other totals on the site with the evidence provided. A senior White House official described how the office made its calculations on individual contracts, but did not respond to numerous questions about other aspects of the group’s accounting. But it is clear that every dollar the website claims credit for is not necessarily a dollar the federal government would have spent — or one that can now be returned to the public.
Image

A screenshot of the DOGE site’s “wall of receipts” on Friday.
The mistakes touched a wide range of contracts — some worth hundreds of millions of dollars and others worth just a few thousand.

David Reid, an environmental scientist in Michigan, was surprised to learn his contract studying invasive species in the St. Lawrence Seaway was included on the list. “That contract wasn’t canceled by DOGE or anyone else,” he said. The contract expired on Dec. 31 and he decided to retire and not renew it, he said. “If they took credit for canceling the contract, they’re lying.”


The group claimed $25,000 in savings from his project.

Though the group’s public messaging has focused on the efficiency in its name, most of the canceled contracts appear to relate to other administration priorities, such as the shuttering of U.S.A.I.D. and the elimination of government programs on diversity, equity and inclusion. The cancellations listed come disproportionately from businesses run by women and people from minority groups.
Share of minority-owned businesses
Among contracts DOGE claims it canceled   
26%
Among all federal contracts   
12%
Source: DOGE, Federal Procurement Data System DOGE figures reflect 1,123 contracts listed on its website on Feb. 21 that could be linked to a federal contract. Federal contract figures are based on an analysis by Deltek.
The numerous mistakes, according to people familiar with the complex world of government contracting, suggest that Mr. Musk’s team of outsiders, charged by the president with cutting spending, don’t fully understand it.

The numbers have been cheered by Mr. Musk’s online followers, who are eager for the new administration to reduce wasteful spending funded by taxpayer dollars. But even contracting insiders who share that goal — and who believe that the government systems that track spending badly need repair — were increasingly skeptical of the effort this week.

Amber Hart, the co-founder of a research and advisory firm, the Pulse, that specializes in federal contracting, said it’s simply not possible to create a real-time accounting of contract savings with the data the team has used — as DOGE has promised on its website.

“There’s no way for them to make it possible unless they completely overhaul the way the data is reported — which would be awesome,” she said. “I would absolutely love for them to break that. They’re breaking the wrong things.”
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T

Why it’s hard to say how much is really being saved

The 1,125 contracts the initiative’s website listed as of Friday night make up about 20 percent of the project’s overall spending cuts, the website said, although The Times’s analysis could not reconcile those numbers. The website says the remaining dollars come from efforts like reducing the federal work force, but provides no data or specific estimates.

The dollar values posted for each contract derive from data in a central tracking system for government contracts with outside vendors.

Here’s an example of how Mr. Musk’s team made one such calculation, according to the White House official’s description of the process:
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION AND ACCESSIBILITY (DEIA) PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES

Contract #70RSAT23FR0000139 awarded by DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY to THE MILLENNIUM GROUP INTERNATIONAL, LLC
$7,500,000 Total Value
–$2,100,000 Obligated spending
$5,400,000 Savings
Take this contract for D.E.I. services for the Department of Homeland Security. DOGE says canceling it saved $5.4 million.
Take this contract for D.E.I. services for the Department of Homeland Security. DOGE says canceling it saved $5.4 million.
To arrive at this figure, it started with the contract’s total potential value: around $7.5 million.
To arrive at this figure, it started with the contract’s total potential value: around $7.5 million.
Then it subtracted the amount that appears to have already been spent.
Then it subtracted the amount that appears to have already been spent.
At first glance, this seems straightforward …
At first glance, this seems straightforward …
Figures are rounded.
DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes - The New York Times
But such savings estimates can be too high, several experts said, for a few reasons.

For one, the spending figure may undercount what the government has already spent, because the data in the federal contracting system can be several months out of date.

The numbers shown above also don’t account for additional termination costs the government will have to pay to close these contracts, making them a “meaningless metric,” said Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University Law School.


Contractors will have to wind down staff, close offices, terminate leases and offload equipment — a normally lengthy process that will now be rushed and potentially litigated. (The White House official did not address this issue but said that the estimate was conservative because it did not include any administrative savings from managing the canceled contracts.)

The group also claims unrealistic estimates from several special kinds of umbrella contracts. When the government expects many different offices may want ongoing orders of the same general product or service — say, I.T. — it creates an overall contracting mechanism with a set ceiling under which several pre-vetted vendors can compete for individual orders. Each of those individual orders represents money the government has committed to spend. But the ceiling on the whole umbrella doesn’t.

“It’s not real money,” said Kelly Saldana, who spent nearly two decades working at U.S.A.I.D., including as the director of its office of health systems. If one of these larger contracts has a ceiling of $100 million and there’s only one $10 million order under it, the remaining $90 million isn’t savings or money that could be spent elsewhere.

“Nobody ever does that math,” Ms. Saldana said, describing the kind of math Mr. Musk’s group appears to have done.

A report by CBS News this week found another type of error involving this kind of contract: The group had triple-counted the $655 million maximum value of one contract for U.S.A.I.D. with numerous sub-contracts. DOGE has removed two of the duplicate listings, but on the line item that remains it still overestimates savings by at least $270 million, the Times analysis found.


Our analysis also found several more apparent overcounting mistakes, including a contract for D.E.I. services at the Environmental Protection Agency that was listed three times.

In another case, DOGE claimed $232 million in savings on a contract providing information technology support to the Social Security Administration. But The Intercept reported that only a sliver of the contract was canceled — a program to let users mark their gender as “X” — bringing the actual savings closer to $560,000.

Other anomalies on the site this week were apparent even without much knowledge of the apparatus of government contracting.

Do you have a confidential news tip about canceled contracts? Submit it here: nytimes.com/tips



The Times reported Tuesday about an $8 million contract for technical support services at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that had been mistakenly entered into the database at a value of $8 billion, close to the size of the entire agency’s budget. This error alone made up nearly half of the combined value of all listed contract cuts.

The “wall of receipts” also lists hundreds of cases in which — even by the website’s own accounting — the changes saved taxpayers nothing. In one contract, the Securities and Exchange Commission had agreed to spend $10 million for a five-year subscription to the legal-research site Westlaw. But the savings are listed as $0. The S.E.C.’s contract expired in March 2024.

Far from ‘fully transparent’

The “wall of receipts” page acknowledges that it may contain some inaccuracies. “Over time, the website will improve and the updates will converge to real-time,” it says. It also promises to share data in a “digestible and fully transparent manner with clear assumptions.”

So far, the site has not been fully transparent about the data it includes or about the changes it makes.

Around the same time news organizations published articles on major inaccuracies, the “wall of receipts” website was updated to correct the errors without changing the “last updated” date.


The contract list itself also represents only a small share of the group’s claimed overall savings. The website says the effort has saved $55 billion in total, but has provided no details on its “wall of receipts” for the bulk of that money. The top-line number also did not change this week, even after the site fixed errors that inflated the savings of individual grants.

One place where the office has more regularly communicated with the public is on the social media platform X, owned by Mr. Musk. But it has repeated some of the same kinds of errors there. In one post about the $8 billion mistake, the group claimed it had “always used the correct $8M in its calculations,” despite its updates to its site.

On Wednesday, the DOGE account reposted a message on X from the Treasury Department, saying that the I.R.S. had “rescinded a previously planned $1.9B contract” and done so “in connection” to the group’s work — describing a canceled contract that wasn’t yet on the DOGE.gov “wall of receipts.”

The account added a screenshot showing a $1.9 billion purchasing agreement — another one of those umbrella contracts — with an unnamed vendor, now marked “terminate for convenience.”

A code in the screenshot identified the vendor as Centennial Technologies, a company in Northern Virginia. But that company said its agreement had actually been canceled in the fall, during the Biden administration.


“Nothing changed now,” Mani Allu, the company’s chief executive, said in an email. He said that the slow-moving contracts database had not been updated to show the cancellation until this month, making the change appear new.

[Plan9Customs]

lol Musk now says we all need to respond to him by Monday night detailing what we “did in the last week” in response to Trump’s demand that he “get more aggressive”   Sent out on a Saturday after business hours so if you don’t work Monday and don’t respond to the email you will be considered “resigned”. 

This is being used as a pretense to mass fire workers.  At my job, this is going to lead to delay in patient care which will ultimately lead to dead veterans.

So what you’re saying is this immigrant is taking away Americans jobs as well as killing them or causing them harm? Next thing you know he’ll be receiving welfare money.

Oh wait.

[Painted Baby]

The story about Musk's work reporting email got picked up and will probably surface on the cable news shows tomorrow. Reuters published a story about it a few hours ago so it's in the pipeline. Not sure what good it will do but I think it's good to lay all his dirty tricks bare.

AOC kept him out of the Department of Labor by knowing his moves and getting to that office first.