Before getting to the announcement, let me first answer a repeated question. “Why is it so easy for DOGE to identify wasteful spending?” ..in simple form.
When the trillion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed, those “shovel ready jobs” in fiscal year 2009, that was the last year of a full federal budget. Every budget year thereafter has been a process of continuing resolutions and omnibus spending. Within the CR process they use “baseline budgeting,” which essentially accepts all prior spending as the starting point for the next spending allotment within the Continuing Resolution process.
That means, the $1 trillion ARRA was not only spent in 2009 (Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on behalf of Barack Obama), but it was also spent again in ever year thereafter. Without a formally followed federal budget process, every year there is an extra trillion dollars (that’s a thousand billion) injected into federal spending. That accounts for $16 trillion of the current debt. Make sense now?
Elon Musk and DOGE announce the following:
To be clear, what the DOGE team and U.S Treasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
– Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
– All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale but simply requiring that SOME attempts be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
– The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!
Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.
When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately. {link}
Within the budget process there are two different facets. Congress is charged by the Constitution with making decisions about how to spend public money. Those spending decisions are split into two parts: authorization and appropriations. In the recent political era, the “authorization” process has essentially been nulled; no one ever asks if the program (Ukraine, Israel, FBI, etc.) should be funded.
“Authorization” is done by Congress via legislation that “can establish, continue, or modify an agency, program, or activity for a fixed or indefinite period of time,” per the Congressional Research Service. In other words, authorization is Congress saying that money can be spent on a given item — not that it necessarily will be spent on that item.
“Appropriations” are done by Congress via legislation that authorizes agencies to make payments from the federal Treasury (i.e. it allows them to spend the money that had previously been authorized). Appropriations bills are ordinarily passed each year, but in recent years it has been common for Congress to fund the government “on autopilot” via continuing resolutions that simply allow agencies to continue spending the same amount of money they were spending under the previous funding bill.
The external recipients of the appropriation spending, the lobbyists, are the ones driving the continuation of the CR approach. The lobbyists pay congress via campaign donations. Those donations come from congressional appropriation. The CR process maintains the largesse.
Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not “reasonably necessary” to carry out its duties. The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact…
— Russ Vought (@russvought) February 9, 2025
The solution to almost every government situation is always the same: Follow the money.
When something happens, people ask, how could this happen? Follow the money. Who did this? Follow the money. Why did they do this? Follow the money. How did we decide to pay for this? Follow the money.
Meanwhile, we allow our congresscritters to submit laughable financial disclosures in which they admit to having some net worth between $0 and $100M, and we allow them to choose their own ethics monitors to ensure nobody strays too far. Then they declare that everyone is in compliance, but they’re only compliant with the rules THAT THEY SET. That is, coincidently, the same problem with Section 702.
As per your comment- Elon & Co. are saying: SHOW ME THE MONEY!
For years Rush Limbaugh railed against ‘baseline budgeting’. The only correct way to appropriate money is ‘zero-based budgeting’. Can the President force Congress to change? Probably not. We have to elect people to Congress who pledge to adhere to Zero-Based Budgeting.
Zero-based budgeting is a mistake. It generates a lot of paper for stuff that is going to approved regardless, taking time away from considering the things that really need to be reviewed.
No it’s not. It’s done in business everyday. It means you have to justify the needs for your requested department/agency budget. It should be SOP in government too.
That’s only if they are forced to produce a budget every year and the accompanying 12 appropriations bills. It takes a 2/3rds vote of Congress to correct the current budgeting process and go back to zero-based budgeting.
The Potus should automatically veto any appropriations bill that contains “hidden” pork (not allowed in appropriations bills) or actually do what it is stated to do. Should be easy to find if you run the bill through the proper algorithm. Hope Elon’s millenial coders are working on that if they haven’t written it already. And POTUS should just keep doing it until the (D)emons/RINOS/never Trumpers get the picture and send him a clean bill or bills. There is a strict timeline for producing a budget and Congress drags it out every year so they can just use a CR and omnibus bills. The CR is bad enough, but all the pork is hidden in the omnibus bills.
When SD said, “there are trillions at stake,” CK didn’t realize that meant an additional trillion dollars for spending on Democrat nonsense for 16 years.
The Democrats entire existence is, based on defrauding the working man, and the only people screaming for Elon to be stopped, are the benefit scroungers, the debauched, and the perverted wealthy. All of them with a sick and twisted agenda that allows them to live their sick and twisted lives.
Have you talked with any of your ordinary Democrat friend and neighbors lately? Sadly, all of mine are on the “Down with Elon!”, band wagon…
Watched a video of the 19 year old “kid” that Musk is using. Amazing. He’s a senior at Nebraska Univesity and he has figured out a way to read ancient scrolls that no one has been able to do for centuries.
I saw that too! Awesome!
This ‘kid’ virtually unrolled a burnt scroll. And figured out enough symbols to translate at least five passages. Hopefully more.
Elon doesn’t surround nimself with dummies. He only hires the best of the best.
Thieves…all of them…
From Wilson on forth…
A STARVING Government is a controlled Government…
ELIMINATE the stain of an “income tax”…
That is the reason we are here…
NO MERCY!
And property tax! No one should be paying rent to the government for what they have already purchased.
Yes, roads need fixing, police and fire need paying, and garbage collection, but that should be a community based tax that isn’t levied on property. Why does property tax increase each year when a road workers salary hasn’t increased, and the price of asphalt is the same!? Why do people pay gas tax, and vehicle registration if money for roads is already collect from the illegal property tax?
It’s because if the politicians let you vote on the tax for each program, most of their pet projects wouldn’t be funded by the taxpayers. See the Omnibus bill for more information. If you got to vote on each thing that USAID was funding, do you think we’d be paying for Iraqi Sesame Street or transgender operas?
Seems like it doesn’t matter if we vote something down, it eventually gets implemented anyway through some other thing or another. I’m in N.J. we are a lot like California. Over there they vote against almost every prop. yet the courts over ride the voters.
Not only that, but you can’t really cheat on property taxes! (I live in NY and if there was a way that I could cheat on that particular tax I would).
20 years ago my township approved a $300. dollar increase in my property taxes to build a new auditorium for our elementary school. They floated a bond to pay it off. One would think that it has been paid off by now, yet my taxes haven’t gone down one dollar! Once they get the money they NEVER give it up! What they did do when the bond was eventually paid off was give the teachers and the administrators a hefty raise.
My taxes here when I first built my house was around $4,800. dollars a year, it has gone up every single year since! It is now pushing $16,000! All I get from the township is my trash picked up, our roads don’t get plowed very good (that’s a county thing. About 75%0f my taxes go to the regional school district, my children are now early dories and late thirt’s in age and haven’t been in school for well over 20 years now. Follow the money.
The IRS still owes my wife and I $256. dollars from 4 years ago. The last we heard from the IRS was that they were understaffed due to cover. HA
Preach it!
what does each state do with their sales tax? Gas tax is supposed to pay for road and highway maintenance!
Federal income tax and probably state needs to go, it funds criminals. How did we come to a place of no oversight for our most important functions? Number one, IRS makes us keep every receipt, but government does not? That alone is criminal.
And we hear these criminals screaming “fraud” “insurrection”. Be calm, and take note, never allow another criminal to sit in our government. Dispatch every single one of them to prison or worse.
I’d have human wind chimes at every government building if it were me. Even democrats would cheer that because the sides would vanish immediately. Watch how many democrats jump sides, the “the wanna be’s” who try to choose the winning side. And there is no “win” for humanity here, crime is never a win. “Win” for republicans? Yes, what they do with it is what counts. If these criminals walk, then justice is not served, humanity has not been disciplined.
This we know, the Pandora’s box has been opened.
We talk of “Gaza” and generations of hate, what is our legacy in this? You think kids don’t see how corrupt our government is? They know, they voted for socialism because of the corruption. Obama the architect of this all to implement a Marxist communist agenda. These are evil entities.
Bot sure about state but wasn’t President intending to replace federal taxes with tariffs?
That’s what he was suggesting.
Has anyone seen info as to the process for next steps of the identified items from above Musk/DOGE announcement of findings? Listing:
… outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, left blank
… payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, left blank
… The DO-NOT-PAY* list of entities, must be implemented
For the items left blank, will payments be suspended until determined good or not?
The DNP* entities should have documents prepared immediately to instruct to discontinue payment.
I’d like to know that a process is in place (persons?) to ride herd on closing out the issues found.
“Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible”.
If, “payment categorization code,” means checks are being issued without being linked to an authorized appropriation then there is no legitimate “actual” to “budgeted Allocation” report.
That would mean a complete lack of fiscal management other then maybe at the top level.
Let a DOD contractor try that and see what happens.
If there isn’t a Legislature authorized project (code) that can be linked to the payment,
And there isn’t a tax EIN/SSN that can be linked to the recipient of the payment,
Then the payment shouldn’t be made, and the money remains in the Treasury. Full stop.
That’s how we start reeling in the fraud that exists today.
We haven’t even begun talking about the foolish Legislator-approved underwater dancing study stuff yet!
Mark Levin interviewed Pres. Trump on his show today. They talked about DOGE and what has been revealed so far. Mark asked which agency would have it’s hood lifted next and PDJT didn’t answer but did say if you think whaht has been exposed is bad, wait till you see what comes next. Reading between the lines tells me that they haven’t divulged all that they have already found.
Barack Hussein got US really where he wanted.
The approach to document “where money is spent” by the EXECUTIVE ENTITY committing the AUTHORIZED FUNDS , is a great first step …. there is one more bit of rationale that is necessary …. it needs to detail if the money was actually spent on the Budget Line Item as AUTHORIZED by CONGRESS or is this expenditure a REPROGRAMMING of the funds.
ALSO … and this vital … State and Municipal Governments as well as NGO’s have to be required to do the same thing when spending Federal Grant Money.
This is the great corruption do loop that CONGRESS and SUCCESSIVE EXECUTIVE BRANCH entities have executed since 2009, using: CR’s, Reconciliations, Omnibus Bills, Federal Debt Increases, et al.
It is executed in easily identified steps, that are actually divided up along “proper” Constitutional Lines for public consumption:
The Executive, with the “help” of Congress (and Lobbyists) develops a LIST of Budget Line items.
The Executive with the “help” of congress develops cost estimates (the budget) for each Line item.
Congress Authorizes the Budget Line items and Associated Costs in a Spending BILL and includes language discussing authority to divert money as needed.
The PRESIDENT Signs the BILL into LAW.
The Executive Branch Entities then receive their parts of the Budget Bill and implement the BILL … and … it it at this point where STATE LEVEL FEDERAL GRANTS are Bundled and shipped out to the STATE GOVERNMENTS … and NGO’s receive their funds directly from a Federal Executive entity.
It is at this point, where the money starts to NOT be allocated by the ACTUAL-DIRECT BUDGET ITEM managers and handlers for it’s originally authorized purpose, and is diverted or reprogrammed per rules and authority “set” by Congress and signed into LAW by the President…and even becomes unaccountable. Once money is diverted … the PROGRAM or PROJECT now has a major shortfall in its AUTHORIZED Budget … and the Line item Manager now goes back to CONGRESS and the Executive Branch Entities for MORE MONEY … during the next FAKE Spending Bill “crisis” between Congress and Office of the President .. which results in either a CR or new Omnibus Bill.
CR’s lock in budget lines and expense levels … but … the magic of the “periodic and narrowly defined” Omnibus Budget Bills creates new Budget lines, creates new spending levels for the NEW as well as OLD lines … so “future” CR’s can suddenly show an increase in spending when they occur.
Rinse and Repeat…since 2009.
This why so many Budget Line Items are NEVER CLOSED and always REFUNDED…Budget Bill after Budget Bill…since 2009.
Visible examples of impacts and evidence … Unfinished and deferred public works projects … Deferred MAINTENANCE and Yard periods for Navy Ships and Walter Reed Medical Center, et al.
This is why CONGRESS and DEEP STATE refuse to support the Regular order Budget Process that is prescribed by LAW and will fight DOGE to the bitter end,, especially when dealing with President Trump who would air it ALL in public.
Then add in the Lobbyists Firms, who do the actual work in WRITING the CR’s as well as narrowly defined Omnibus Bills … which actually help increase the size of the CR’s LEGALLY.
Ever notice how there has been an actual sequential cycle of narrow Omnibus Bills approved, then followed by a now legally increased CR … followed by a now “legitimized” Federal Debt Ceiling increase…this predictable cycle is the reason President Trump noted the periodic increase in the National Debt was joke.
President Trump has to give Speaker Mike Johnson a resounding NO WAY Answer to his request to bundle President Trump’s projects into a “single massive spending Bill” during the March 2025 Budget Reconciliation hearings..
This plays right into the cycle … creates new lines and budgets while leaving ALL the old in place.
Anything short of a total reconciliation as part of a deliberate Regular Order Budget Process needs to be refused.
The President can beat Congress at their own game by using the already approved BILLS, with the Bills’ approved reprogramming authority, to find enough funds to get started until 1 October 2025, when FY 2026 begins.
Disagree, at least as far as the National Defense Authorization Act is concerned. That pretty much sets the baseline for the FY. The appropriation act will tweak the numbers a little, but not that much. Also, don’t mix up the CR with the “Omnibus” or “Consolidated” Appropriations Act the gets passed. The CR is actually pretty disruptive and does create waste. So you see the current CR did pull in some Defense new spending (for new subs) from the FY25 appropriation bill.
Elon Musk is a computer wizard and an indefatigable workaholic and a great motivator of his team.
But he also has one other attribute which helps explain how he is finding all this waste.
He is the largest individual income-tax payer in US history. He paid $10 Billion in personal income tax last year. He has skin in the game. Much of that money being wasted is money he had to pay.
If Musk’s massive pay deal from Tesla goes through he may owe over$73 Billion in individual income taxes next year
https://www.ccn.com/news/technology/elon-musk-pay-deal-tax-bill/