Re: Gutting USAID

On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 06:04:52 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

On Feb 3, 2025 at 9:35:52 PM PST, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

>

The press is running for the fainting couch over Trump setting DOGE loose on
USAID with plans to gut the entire organization.

>

I don't care. Elon Musk isn't fucking president of the United States;
Trump needs to reign this guy in.

>

He can't actually do anything. He can only make recommendations to Trump, who
can accept or reject them. If any cuts are made, they'll be made legally by
authorized government officials.

>
Elon Musk demamded all sorts of classified information from USAID to
perform an "audit". He was denied it because it's, uh, espionage. The
two senior officials who refused to share classified materials were put
on suspension, and in revenge, Musk told Trump to shut the whole thing
down. Why is Trump complying with Musk's orders?

It's even worse from what I'm hearing with what he's done with the
Treasury Department's central payments database. He's got access to
all sorts of information that it doesn't seem he should have access
to.

Here's a small taste of what USAID has been doing with your tax money:

>

I'm sure every single government agency, including Library of Congress,
has absurd spending on pointless projects.

>

All of which need to be ruthlessly slashed.

>
Let Trump do the real work of audits for compliance and effectiveness,
naming the actual grants approved speciously, then getting rid of the
specific employees who approved these monies. Don't get rid of the
decent employees who may very well oppose this nonsense.

It's not even like he would have to do the work. Just tell his people
to do the actual review and then get rid of that which he doesn't
think should have been approved. The only issue is that he couldn't do
the quick action since the reviews would take some time.

Trump has no intention of doing the right thing in the right way because
executing the law in a way that would truly reform governmemt is real
work that Trump will never do.
>

Have you looked at out debt lately?

>
This would be the mational debt that Trump added trillions to during his
previous admimistratiom? Trump doesn't give a shit.

Trump made it clear in his Presidential campaign that he clearly
intends to add more to the national debt. Mainly by giving more tax
breaks to the corporations and his fellow billionaires.