Elon Musk has no GD need to access IRS data. No Politico does!!

[TigerPrice03]

There is obviously a fundamental difference of opinion here and in the country. There are those who view government as a positive good. On the other side there are those who see all governments as inherently evil.

There is no question as to which side the founders of the American form of government stood. They viewed any government as a necessary evil that had to limited in every way.

As always happens in history the people within government have moved it towards bigger and more tyrannical.

I absolutely fall on the side of viewing all government as inherently evil. It needs to be gutted and reduced in size by 75% or more. I applaud Trump and Musk for doing that. As for the people leading these agencies being experts, that is laughable. Would I be doing things exactly like Trump? Probably not, but he is the first president since probably Reagan who has honestly tried to go after government abuse and waste.

 

[Rahskie]

BS, Elon says shit to get you all riled up, he does NOT prove stuff. But again, none of this matters when he robs us blind with his windfall tax cut. None of it...

dpic73, those tax cuts mean something to Americans. Me included. They made a difference in my paycheck. Not a lot, but it was enough to help my savings. We have a president who is trying to find fraud/waste to at least offset the cost of his policies. Do you not think there is fraud and waste with a 2.1M government workforce. We have all heard about pork FOREVER and this appears to be a real effort to trim the fat. Name me the last president who did anything like this.

I want my daughter to go to Clemson. I live in GA. You may or may not know that will cost me ~$60K a year to send her to Clemson. That means I need save ~$250K.....a QUARTER OF A MILLION to send her to college. She is 11. Do the math.....I have to save $578 a month for 18 years to make that happen, so an extra $200-$300 a month in my paycheck makes a difference. It astounds me that anyone in their right mind would argue the ATTEMPT to cut waste/fraud/bloat/pork in the government to try and help pay for policies......including tax cuts.

All I hear from you is that Elon/Trump are stealing from Americans, when all I see is an effort to give back to Americans. I don't understand your rationale at all.

Let me ask you an honest question.....did you not get any more money in your paycheck from the tax cuts...ANY? I know I did.

 

[dpic73]

dpic73, those tax cuts mean something to Americans. Me included. They made a difference in my paycheck. Not a lot, but it was enough to help my savings. We have a president who is trying to find fraud/waste to at least offset the cost of his policies. Do you not think there is fraud and waste with a 2.1M government workforce. We have all heard about pork FOREVER and this appears to be a real effort to trim the fat. Name me the last president who did anything like this.

I want my daughter to go to Clemson. I live in GA. You may or may not know that will cost me ~$60K a year to send her to Clemson. That means I need save ~$250K.....a QUARTER OF A MILLION to send her to college. She is 11. Do the math.....I have to save $578 a month for 18 years to make that happen, so an extra $200-$300 a month in my paycheck makes a difference. It astounds me that anyone in their right mind would argue the ATTEMPT to cut waste/fraud/bloat/pork in the government to try and help pay for policies......including tax cuts.

All I hear from you is that Elon/Trump are stealing from Americans, when all I see is an effort to give back to Americans. I don't understand your rationale at all.

Let me ask you an honest question.....did you not get any more money in your paycheck from the tax cuts...ANY? I know I did.

I don't have time to get into a long discussion but Trump's first tax cuts added 2 trllion to the deficit and everyone is alarmed at the overall debt that now requires an interest payment that exceeds the cost of our defense budget. Our economy has been roaring for a while now and he's going to add 4.5 trillion more to the deficit unnecessarily?

You do realize that's money you owe back right? How will it be paid down now that we're drastically reducing our revenue? The cuts Elon is making are negligibIe because even if you fired every single govt. employee, that would only free up 271 billion. I can feel and understand your pain but it will be a lot worse if the country goes bankrupt, that I can tell you.

 

[fatpiggy]

There is obviously a fundamental difference of opinion here and in the country. There are those who view government as a positive good. On the other side there are those who see all governments as inherently evil.

There is no question as to which side the founders of the American form of government stood. They viewed any government as a necessary evil that had to limited in every way.

As always happens in history the people within government have moved it towards bigger and more tyrannical.

I absolutely fall on the side of viewing all government as inherently evil. It needs to be gutted and reduced in size by 75% or more. I applaud Trump and Musk for doing that. As for the people leading these agencies being experts, that is laughable. Would I be doing things exactly like Trump? Probably not, but he is the first president since probably Reagan who has honestly tried to go after government abuse and waste.

I disagree with your premise in the first sentence.

I don't view governemnet itself as evil. Governements are necessary to organize society.

However, our government got out of control. The checks and balances broke. People, once handed power, abused it.

I think the true disagreement is over the scope of the government and how much of a role it plays in society. Some want limited government, one that will provide a framework in which to oerate and enforce those rules. Others want a much more involved government that ensures certain outcomes happen.

 

[dpic73]

Respectfully, if there were oversight people who allowed the database of social security recipients to include millions of entries for people over the age of 120 ...... they deserve to be fired. They were wasting taxpayer money. Same goes for all the other willful incompetence being discovered.

After all his other lies, why do you believe him so easily? We already told you about the Cobol system that backdates some files to 1875.
Plus, why can't that corrupt, loudmouth asshole ask someone who knows? Maybe even the person he fired??? This is not a video game.

 

[TigerPrice03]

I disagree with your premise in the first sentence.

I don't view governemnet itself as evil. Governements are necessary to organize society.

However, our government got out of control. The checks and balances broke. People, once handed power, abused it.

I think the true disagreement is over the scope of the government and how much of a role it plays in society. Some want limited government, one that will provide a framework in which to oerate and enforce those rules. Others want a much more involved government that ensures certain outcomes happen.

History tells us that government if left unchecked will oppress, abuse, steal, murder, and consolidate power. That has been proven out throughout history to a degree that you could almost call it a law of nature. To me that means that it is inherently evil. It may be a necessary evil, but still evil.

 

[Rahskie]

I don't have time to get into a long discussion but Trump's first tax cuts added 2 trllion to the deficit and everyone is alarmed at the overall debt that now requires an interest payment that exceeds the cost of our defense budget. Our economy has been roaring for a while now and he's going to add 4.5 trillion more to the deficit unnecessarily?

You do realize that's money you owe back right? How will it be paid down now that we're drastically reducing our revenue? The cuts Elon is making are negligibIe because even if you fired every single govt. employee, that would only free up 271 billion. I can feel and understand your pain but it will be a lot worse if the country goes bankrupt, that I can tell you.

I need to make a correction. My math was wrong, I need to save $1157 a month for 18 years straight to send my daughter to Clemson.....

So, Trump should do what Biden did (and other presidents including Trump)....which is to just do deficit spending without finding any ways to pay for it? How did Biden pay for his deficits? He added a coupla Trillion to the deficit that we have to pay, but I hear no complaints about that in your message above. What was Biden's plan for Americans to pay back the deficit spending he incurred? Was Biden not a part of the problem as well? Did he try to cut government spending? Seems like he spent a shitload of money on DEI and Climate stuff. He won so that was his prerogative, but here we sit 4 years later with a SHIT TON of money added to the deficit.

To me, again, you have to start somewhere. Cutting government bloat and pork is WAAAAAAAY overdue for the US government. I was surprise to learn yesterday that Clinton cut 337K government workers. I suspect the size of the government workforce was smaller then that it is now so he cut a pretty hefty percentage of the workforce. Guess what, he also balanced the budget. I see Trump trying to do something similar and all he gets is hate. Why don't you let this play out for 6 months and see where we stand then.

 

[fatpiggy]

After all his other lies, why do you believe him so easily? We already told you about the Cobol system that backdates some files to 1875.
Plus, why can't that corrupt, loudmouth asshole ask someone who knows? Maybe even the person he fired??? This is not a video game.

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There is no explanation needed. Either there are entries for people over the age of 120 or there are not. COBOL this COBOL that, you are fired. That is incompetence. If there is one person over the age of 150, that is incompetence. We can't accept incompetence as normal.

America needs this enema desperately. We were a corrupt, fat, government.

Like Kevin Oleary says here, they aren't cutting enough. We won, now is our chance. We must cut too much and then hire back if necessary. We must make sweeping changes just like the voters asked us to do.

 

[dpic73]

I need to make a correction. My math was wrong, I need to save $1157 a month for 18 years straight to send my daughter to Clemson.....

So, Trump should do what Biden did (and other presidents including Trump)....which is to just do deficit spending without finding any ways to pay for it? How did Biden pay for his deficits? He added a coupla Trillion to the deficit that we have to pay, but I hear no complaints about that in your message above. What was Biden's plan for Americans to pay back the deficit spending he incurred? Was Biden not a part of the problem as well? Did he try to cut government spending? Seems like he spent a shitload of money on DEI and Climate stuff. He won so that was his prerogative, but here we sit 4 years later with a SHIT TON of money added to the deficit.

To me, again, you have to start somewhere. Cutting government bloat and pork is WAAAAAAAY overdue for the US government. I was surprise to learn yesterday that Clinton cut 337K government workers. I suspect the size of the government workforce was smaller then that it is now so he cut a pretty hefty percentage of the workforce. Guess what, he also balanced the budget. I see Trump trying to do something similar and all he gets is hate. Why don't you let this play out for 6 months and see where we stand then.

• Biden also added to the debt but a lot of it was for great reasons like getting the vaccine within arms length of every American almost overnight. How do you put a number on saved lives? Also, the Inflation Reduction Act is already responsible for hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs in mostly red states, which will swell into the millions by the end of the decade
• He was going to pay for his deficits by not renewing the Trump tax cuts and the revenue that would come from the new jobs created from the IRA, the Chips Act and the Infrastructure bill and the roaring economy
• "Climate stuff" is enriching red state citizens as we speak
• Clinton didn't take a chainsaw to the workforce - he was careful, deliberate and responsible. These loonies in there now are just slashing and burning without having a clue what they're doing. They didn't even know they had paused cancer research and stupidly fired people in charge of our nuclear stockpile. These were people to Clinton, they are just numbers to Elon
• Just because Biden did something doesn't mean Trump should make it twice as bad. He's not being responsible at all. And not only is he adding to the debt and reducing revenue, he's also going to tax our own citizens with a slew of tariffs which will slow down the economy. Dude is going to bankrupt us and for what? .

 

[ANEW]

The major "cuts" in the DoD previously was the result of BRAC (Base Realignment and closure) where 350ish (per AI) installations were closed over 5 rounds from 1988 through 2005. GAO estimate puts the savings at $12B annually. BUT that came with associated negative impacts on local communities and the requirement for the USG to undergo toxic substance remediation efforts. Any cuts then and now, cut in both directions.