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The reports of DOGE's demise may have been premature. Things apparently move at lightning speed now, so the easiest thing is a timeline of what happened this morning to resurrect DOGE before the weekend.
Elon posts a poll asking if the fired DOGE employee should be rehired: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887867644814020902
JD Vance quotes the poll, giving his support to the fired employee: https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633
In the press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister, Trump is asked about his opinion. He says 'I don't know...I'm with the Vice President': https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1887950091937530324
Elon says 'he will be brought back': https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423
It's like for the first time in my lifetime people said 'no, we don't do that anymore.' And our leaders now share values sufficiently enough that they didn't ignore the sentiment or just listen and commiserate, they actually...obeyed. Pretty much instantly.
I had made a comment earlier today after Elon posted the poll about how the ideal scenario would be to quickly hire him back before the Super Bowl/whatever new developments break on Monday. Beyond that, I don't want to write too much about my own personal opinion because it's fairly scattered as I'm more than a little giddy from surprise at the moment. But, I am interested in your thoughts as this seems positively seismic.
I've predicted that the DOGE would be highly effective. So far it's exceeded my already high expectations.
Every day, there is the steady drip, drip, drip of taxpayer money being saved. People might scoff at the value of cutting small programs that "only" cost $20 million. But if the average taxpayer pays $500k in taxes over their lifetime, that's 40 people working for their entire lives to give the government that statue of Fauci or whatever else they are doing. Wasting money destroys societal trust.
Not that every fraud and waste is small potatoes. Just today the NIH cut the "tax" that schools like Harvard and Yale are allowed to charge to run their government research. Previously, for example, Harvard grants on average charged 69% above the cost of doing research for institutional overhead. (I think we can all imagine where that ends up). NIH just capped that tax at 15%. This will save $4 billion per year. That's $53 for every one of the 75 million Americans who paid federal income tax last year.
Savings like this are happening every day. So far DOGE has saved $69 billion according to U.S. Debt clock.
But of course they haven't gotten to the biggest sectors of the government yet. They will, and I predict the fraud and waste will be shocking. How much social security is going to dead people, to disability fraudsters, to illegal immigrants, etc...? My guess is a lot. The fraud and waste at USAID was just sitting there for anyone to see, but no one did. Why should other segments of the government be any different?
It's going to get crazy.
yeah but many of these people who are fired/quit are going to find other wasteful jobs , and also the severance $ by your same argument adds up to billions of dollars over a lifetime compounded compared to putting the $ in an index fund or something. DOGE will not put a dent in the national debt, but it does not need to. it's an effective rhetorical tool. Trump's successor in 2028 can cite all the cuts under DOGE as progress even if the national debt is still much higher.
I think you're wrong here. I predict DOGE will put a significant dent in the deficit. The fired workers will find other work, dip into savings, rely on their rich relatives, and just consume less. Some may even do something useful with their lives like become a nurse or manage a Panda Express.
But, who knows, maybe this will be the time that betting against Elon works out for the doubters.
I wonder about this. Espically because this is a scenario where Elons fate is not even completely in his hands. What happens if DOGE goes as well as it could but it turns out that the GOP figure out in 2028 that MAGA really was just a Trump personality cult and the Dems sweep back into power anyway? Do you think he flees the country? I can't see a world where they don't imprison/Deposses him at least or just kill him.
Dysfunctional infighting between the Texas state government and the federal government that winds up at the supreme court letting Elon off is what happens. Texas may not be a land of enlightened technocrats but it understands perfectly well that sticking up for oligarchs is the best way to get access to their money.
It all depends on how things shake out.The political situation in 2028 is so difficult to predict I do not even bother with the actual prediction just what I think will happen given one of the possible outcomes. I think in the worst case scenario for the conservatives/GOP (IE Trump really is the load bearing figure in the whole movement and it just implodes with him diminished and unable to run again) its very possible the courts are just packed and Texas can't do anything at all. I don't thinks that's likely as I don't think legal action is going to be what happens to Musk but I just don't know.
In practice, democrats getting the kind of majorities that in theory could pack the courts requires getting tons of moderates who would shy away from court packing elected. Now democrats can appoint super partisan judges, but it takes time for the churn to get them the kinds of majorities which allow unbridled lawfare against parties with powerful protectors.
I agree with you 100% I don't think the lawfare angle is likely against someone as powerful and wealthy as Musk. I don't think it would pan out and if it did it would have years and could be undone. I think for a lot of reasons if the Dems come back into power in a big way the "plane crash" , "heart attack" and "car accident" angles are far more likely.
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