More And More Questions Arise About The Supposed Efficiency Goals Of Musk's DOGE

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Musk’s DOGE (“Department of Government Efficiency”) actually has all of it improper. This group of non-federal workers insists that authorities waste is strangling the US financial system, however the redistribution of funds isn’t truly making the US federal authorities extra environment friendly — it’s benefiting the About WEALTHY with their insatiable urge for food for accumulating bigger and bigger portfolios.

That finish recreation is at odds with the need of most US residents, as knowledge reveals that folks vote for policies that are egalitarian and economically redistributive. Egalitarian measures—which equalize rights, sources, and decision-making energy in society—cross at a charge of 65.63% throughout blue and purple states alike.

With Musk and DOGE on the helm — a minimum of briefly — the state of US politics for the following two years started to return into focus, and it doesn’t seem like a MAGA or Republican “golden age.”

Nate Cohn writes within the New York Instances that “Trump and the Republicans today could be especially vulnerable, as so much of his political strength is built on the economy.” With federal jobs frozen, medical analysis in jeopardy, wholesale knowledge theft, lack of shopper protections, and indiscriminate firings, outcries have come from disparate sectors, every of which is shocked by the audacity with which Musk and his gang of socially inept computer geeks have torn via the material of the US federal authorities.

“How do you spell corruption?” staff chanted on the Federal Plaza at a New York Metropolis picket earlier this yr. “E-L-O-N!”

Musk has frequently posted, reposted, and endorsed incorrect or inflammatory claims on X that Social Safety is fraudulent.

Florida has numerous faults on the subject of equitable laws for its residents. However, with so many senior residents residing and homesteading within the state, advocacy teams make a distinction in on a regular basis lives. We’ve bought a neighborhood arm of The Alliance for Retired Americans, they usually need you to know the reality — Elon Musk and Donald Trump have created some actually large whoppers about Social Safety. Test ’em out.

Lie 1: Social Safety is the “Largest Ponzi Scheme of all time.

Actuality: Social Safety is a social insurance coverage program. Employees and employers pay in, cash goes to the Social Safety Belief Fund, and is paid out when due. Social Safety has a Board of Trustees {and professional} actuaries who report yearly on the well being of the Belief Fund. It’s solvent and the advantages are assured (in contrast to the inventory market or a non-public fairness fund). In 89 years, Social Safety has by no means missed a cost.

Lie 2: “There’s a massive amount of fraud” in Social Safety

Actuality: A July 2024 report from Social Safety’s inspector basic confirmed that fraud just isn’t widespread, concluding that lower than 1% of funds that went out between 2015 and 2022 have been improper. Social Safety has a number of inside techniques which are always trying to discover and cut back fraud.

Lie 3: Social Safety makes up a “majority of federal spending”

Actuality: Social Safety by regulation doesn’t contribute to the deficit. It’s a separate program from basic federal spending. Funding is from staff and employers plus belief fund curiosity, and taxes from beneficiaries with excessive incomes.

Lie 4: “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109” and “Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they’re undoubtedly lifeless is a HUGE drawback”

Actuality: Fewer than 100,000 Individuals over the age of 100 obtain advantages—about the identical quantity of people that have reached that age based on the US Census. There are safeguards in place to make sure that deceased people don’t get advantages: funeral administrators notify SSA of deaths instantly, and the company additionally mechanically stops funds for people aged 115 or older.

Lie 5: Social Safety is utilized by Democrats “as a gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country.”

Actuality: That is conspiracy idea nonsense. Undocumented immigrants are usually not allowed to use for or acquire Social Safety advantages they usually can’t vote in elections. Some employers of undocumented immigrants do pay Social Safety payroll taxes for these staff. In 2022, these deductions added about $25 billion to the Social Safety Belief Fund.

Lie 6: Individuals pay in and the cash “goes out immediately.”

Actuality: There’s a Social Safety Belief Fund with practically $3 trillion to pay future advantages.

Lie 7: Future Social Safety obligations “far exceed” tax income.

Actuality: The present Social Safety Trustees Report states that there’s a 3.5% income shortfall over the following 75 years equal to 1.5% of GDP. This isn’t the Hen Little “far exceed” commonplace. The easy and honest answer is to extend revenues over time by making wealthy individuals like Elon Musk pay their justifiable share into the system.

Lie 8: Persons are residing “way longer than expected.”

Actuality: Sadly, there’s a rising inequality of life expectancy in the US. Whereas the richest Individuals reside longer, it’s not the case for many individuals who earn modest wages, have insufficient entry to well being care, or have high-risk jobs for instance. This state of affairs is a nationwide embarrassment. So no, Elon, persons are not residing “way longer.”

Who’s to Blame? Mr. Musk, Please Come to the Entrance of the Room

“The division of powers and the checks and balances have somehow fallen apart,” says Chris Dols, president of IFTPE Native 98 on the Military Corps of Engineers. “It is now up to us to follow through on our oath to the Constitution, to the government we serve, and the public we serve, to make sure that Elon Musk does not get away with this.”

Choose Tanya S. Chutkan of the US District Courtroom for the District of Columbia determined {that a} coalition of 14 Democratic state attorneys basic difficult Musk’s authority had demonstrated a transparent have to make clear the internal workings of his DOGE team. In consequence, DOGE has been ordered at hand over paperwork and reply questions on its function in directing mass firings and dismantling authorities packages.

That’s along with a ruling by Choose Christopher R. Cooper of the US District Courtroom for the District of Columbia, who wrote that DOGE had all of the signifiers of an company that will sometimes be topic to legal guidelines just like the Freedom of Info Act. Cooper ordered DOGE to provide information {that a} public ethics group had sued to acquire.

And don’t neglect DC District Courtroom Choose Beryl A. Howell’s choice to grant a brief restraining order halting implementation of a vindictive government order. Howell noticed the chief order as an example of President Trump utilizing taxpayer {dollars} in authorities sources to “pursue what is a wholly personal vendetta, advancing such political payback is not something which the government has a cognizable interest,” she wrote. “This may be amusing in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Queen of Hearts yells, ‘Off with their heads!’ at annoying subjects and announces a sentence before a verdict. But this cannot be the reality we are living under.”