DOGE discovers 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

Embedded and hidden corruption discovered by the DOGE team continues from yesterday's video of their staff meeting.

At the "U.S. Institute of Peace" they found a contract (for unknown services) with an ex-Taliban for $130k, and found loaded firearms as well. 

 

Their chief accountant had deleted over a terabyte of accounting records, financial data which the team was able to recover. Since hiding or destroying records is illegal, this coverup was referred to the DOJ and FBI.

The agency had received $55 million/year from congress. Any unspent funds were swept into a private bank account having no congressional oversight, which funded events and private jets.

Asked whether DOGE would be ongoing, Elon answered: "If we drop the ball, fraud and waste will come roaring back." But by ending contracts and fraudulent practices now, it will be harder to get it going again in the future.

DOGE discovers

DOGE leader Elon Musk gets some staff together once a week at 10 p.m. They each answer the question, "what did you get done this week?" A media guy got to sit in on one of these meetings and discovered more absurdities that our taxes have been paying for:

• Investigation found that a $4 billion covid fund was used to rent stadiums for parties, with no explanation. Correction: now any drawdown must be identified as to purpose and receipts must be uploaded.
• Alpaca farming in Peru
• Marketing of peas in Guatamala
• GAO also found that only 10-15% of the money for these causes was actually getting to the stated destination. 
• So it's possible that "no one got a sex change in Guatemala" (a worthless expense discovered months ago)
• Grants may go to a cause that sounds good theoretically, like "save the baby pandas," but no evidence is forthcoming that any panda was actually saved. 

DOGE backlash 1

Americans were strongly in favor of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year, of course. We don't want to pay for fraud, waste and abuse of this country's financial resources. It's been going on for decades and it's tough to rein in.

Now surveys seem to indicate more people disapprove. What happened? In addition to single "keying" events of random Teslas, there have been fire-bombings and protests (photo) of Tesla facilities. It's a way to sour public opinion and reduce Tesla's value, thereby inflicting pain on Elon Musk.

These events weren't spontaneous outbursts of outraged citizens. A few may have been inspired just by press reports ramping up fear, but there's also sophisticated organization. 

The nationwide protests were all posted and scheduled by Action Network. They originally identified The Disruption Project as the host or co-sponsor, which was founded by an experienced left-wing activist.

from City Journal

DOGE news

Here's some items from the list of DOGE savings that I took right off their website:

• "The @USGSA IT team just saved $1M per year by converting 14,000 magnetic tapes (70 yr old technology for information storage) to permanent modern digital records."

• "VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications. That contract has not been renewed and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week."

•  "$265K for Queens College in New York to research “why BIPOC teens” read Japanese comic books"

• "Since January 20th, @USGSA has been working to right size the federal real estate portfolio, which is liable for more than $20+ billion in deferred maintenance. So far, the team has sold 13 buildings and listed an additional 68 (8.3M square feet)."

The problem with government buildings has been known for a long time, and it's not disputed. Last week at a subcommittee hearing, the chairwoman said "Here in DC, GAO found in 2023 that the vast majority of federal agency headquarters buildings were less than 25% occupied—some much less."

It's not a partisan issue, and everybody should be able to support cleaning up our expensive and under-used properties.

DOGE and Social Security

Antonio Gracias has been working on the DOGE team, recently looking into Social Security. He comes onstage with Elon to explain to an audience something surprising:

 

"New non-citizen social security numbers" dramatically grew during the last four years under the previous administration, from 270,000 in 2021 to over two million in 2024. That's an explosion, not just growth. About 1.3 million of them are already on Medicaid. Some actually voted in our recent election.

Antonio takes the time to honor the "very good people" working in Social Security who showed him what was going on, at their own risk. 

He says he's "pro legal immigration," and this chart is "not political. This is about the future of America."

Wiki on DOGE

If you wanted to find out what DOGE is, would you go to Wikipedia? Many would, because they think it is neutral and honest in reporting factual information in a non-partisan way. I wish that were the case. 

It has nothing good to say about this heroic effort to trim the federal budget. On the contrary, the reader only learns that DOGE is controversial, it inspires lawsuits, its claims to the discovery of fraud are false, its leader is ambiguous, it cuts good programs, it's a partisan political tool, etc., etc.

In short, Wikipedia's article is a hit job on DOGE and on Elon Musk. It reads like a partisan political tool itself. 

Wikipedia is the product of Katherine Maher's priorities. "Consensus" and "getting things done" come before truth on her priority list. Vital information is missing from the article. There's no effort to acknowledge the legitimate views of the people who support it.

Transparent DOGE

New tasks are accomplished every day at the Department of Government Efficiency, and they're published every day. You can go to the website and check on their progress--every day.

We who respect the responsible management of money are happy about this. We've known in a general way that the federal government was handling that management irresponsibly to some degree, but we discovered that it's much worse than we feared.

Take Social Security for example. Continuing work at DOGE reveals that the 3.7 million checks going out every month to people over the age of 120 (reported in this post) was just the beginning. 

Yesterday the website said that so far a total of 9.9 million people listed as over the age of 120 were receiving checks. Correction has been made, so those people are now listed as deceased, and the checks will stop. Whether that should be called "waste" or "fraud" doesn't matter. All of us should be happy it stopped.

It was unjust. The only people who are unhappy about the stopping of those checks are the cheaters who were cashing them.

DOGE staff

Six young men, quirky computer wizards, may have started this endeavor to make our government more financially sound, but DOGE staff is now professional. Their credentials from the private sector are impressive. Seven of them were interviewed with leader Elon Musk regarding their mission and their methods. 

They are working to take a trillion dollars out of the government's spending this year by eliminating fraud and abuse. Here's an example of fraud: over $300 million in loans was given to people under the age of eleven by the Small Business Administration, and another $300 million to people over the age of 120. 

The loans would have been questioned if the computer systems "talked to each other," that is, if the SBA system had been able to access the ages of those loan applicants in the social security system. It's clear to these DOGE staff what needs to be done: link up the computer systems.

One of these professionals was running his five businesses in Houston when he left to come help. Another is a CEO. Another is a co-founder of Airbnb. They're implementing, in Elon's words, "elementary financial controls." 

Scared of DOGE

Should Americans be scared of what DOGE is doing? There has been an effort to terrify Americans who legitimately depend on the government for entitlements. 

You may have heard some of these things (usually said or implied by politicians), but these fears have simple answers:

 1. "Unelected officials are running the Department of Government Efficiency!" Yes, although the president was elected by the people of the United States, the staff of DOGE were not elected by the people. 

But that should not alarm you. The federal government already had nearly two million unelected people working for it. 

2. "Maybe Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, will steal my social security checks!" He won't do that because he already is the richest person in the world, and he has several companies that are profitable. If he wanted more money, he could spend his time helping his companies.

3. "Entitlements like social security and medicaid will be cut!" The president has said more than once that they will not be cut. 

from Stream

Exposed 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

The drive for justice is a reason for our new Department of Government Efficiency. When you and I fund the federal government with our tax dollars, we suppose that it's well-managed. But apparently the federal government is spending our money wildly, making payments that we would not approve--if only we knew about them. We want it stopped. Doge is investigating.

Some expenses are inefficient. The IRS manages about the same number of daily transactions as a bank. Banks budget about $20 million/year for operation and maintenance. The IRS budget for operation is $3.7 billion/year. That's seventeen times more than what a bank spends for about the same amount of work. 

Some payments are fraud. Social Security checks were going out to 3.7 million people who were listed as . . 120+ years old. Somebody was cashing all those checks.

Some payments are waste. $3 million for transparency and accountability in the cotton industry of Uzbekistan.

 from Doge

Sleep pods

No doubt, you've heard about DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency). It officially started operating under the new U.S. administration on Inauguration Day with a mandate to make the federal government more efficient.

Its leader, entrepreneur Elon Musk, is working from the time he wakes up until the time he sleeps, he says. His young staff (age 19-25) may be sleeping at the office, as Musk does.

Founder (photo) and owner of Eight Sleep is apparently a big fan of the concept. He shipped "bed pods" to the office: "I hope this will supercharge @elonmusk and the incredible team to shape the future of America. Let's go."