By Lambert Strehter of Corrente.
“Stupid? Shit, no, he was smart as hell.” The Finn stubbed his cigarette out in a cracked ceramic Campari ashtray. “Just a total fuck-up, was all.” –William Gibson, Count Zero
Readers will be familiar with friend-of-the-blog Nathan Tankus and non-mainstream economist extraordinaire Stephanie Kelton from the MMT wars. If you’re not, you should be (Tankus’s blog; Kelton’s). Both have now entered the fray over DOGE (Elon’s Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything “Department of Government Efficiency” (quotes in the executive order that gave it horrid birth, since it’s not really a department).
Both Tankus and Kelton have advanced the story in way that our mainstream press seems unable to do; I will look at Tankus first, then Kelton. I will then undertake the thankless task of ascertaining DOGE’s current status; it’s now a “temporary organization,” a piece of organizational jujitsu, which renders most, but not all, of the current lawsuits against DOGE moot. I will then present a brief fact set drawn from the current more-heat-than-light DOGE dogpiles — the Lutherans, USAID — before presenting a little blue sky thinking on future legal and political attacks on DOGE (given that lawfare what Democrats seem to be best at). If I am lucky, some readers will find the blue sky thinking helpful, as with HICPAC. Finally, I will not be covering Elon’s rampage through Twitter’s innards, suggestive though it may be for the course of DOGE, or the corruption of Silicon Valley’s “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” culture, or Elon’s extremely young team of Peter Thiel-adjacent blood bags programmers. Perhaps another time! (Adding, this might get a bit long. Sorry!)
Setting the scene:
It’s now not just the “legal plumbing,” it’s the payments plumbing too. This is now also the closest thing we’ve ever had to a payment system constitutional crisis.
So what happened? According to reporting on Friday — first at the Washington Post and then in more detail from CNN as well as the New York Times — the Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury David Lebryk[1] has been put on paid administrative leave and plans to resign after refusing to give Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) access to the operational details of the Treasury’s payment system and the data it processes. In particular, Musk’s DOGE team has been asking for what the New York Times reporting refers to as “source code information” since December and has been rebuffed. The CNN reporting specifically states that they were inquiring about the technical ability to stop payments.
David Lebryk has been an employee at the United States Treasury since 1989 and has been Fiscal Assistant Treasury Secretary since 2014, which is the highest position a civil service employee can reach; everyone above him is a political appointee. Donald Trump named Lebryk acting Treasury Secretary while his nominee Scott Bessent went through the nominations process….
Lebryk being put on paid administrative leave reportedly happened after he requested and got a meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, fresh from his confirmation by the Senate. Bessent’s full willingness to cooperate with DOGE’s desire to access the operational aspects of the Treasury’s payment system, even to the point of overruling Lebryk, is an extremely shocking development. It implies a level of willingness to serve Trump’s interests that has not previously been understood by Congress, Wall Street, or corporate America at-large.
However, this is consistent with internal conversations among those in the president’s orbit. I can exclusively report here for the first time that Scott Bessent was advised that what Donald Trump wanted in a Treasury Secretary was a person who would have the credibility Steve Mnuchin had with Wall Street but who would be loyal to Trump above all other considerations, according to two sources familiar with the situation. This included, but was not limited to, unconditionally agreeing to work with whomever Trump sent over to the Treasury Department and helping go after Donald Trump’s enemies. In the context of Bessent’s actions this week, and what Elon Musk and DOGE want from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, these commitments take on a dark new meaning.
The danger is also not in the near future, it is here. Follow up reporting from the New York Times Saturday evening in an article straightforwardly informed readers in its headline that ‘Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Full Access to Treasury’s Payments System.’…. For reasons I will go into below, I do believe that it is the case that Musk and his team are not yet near having ‘operational capabilities.’ The key word is ‘yet.’
Operationally, in short form, agencies approve payments; the Bureau of the Fiscal Service cuts the checks. This architecture leads to the the key point:
Without political control of the payment’s heart, the Trump administration and Elon Musk must chase down every agency and bend it to their will. They are in the process of doing that, but bureaucrats can notionally continue to respect the law and resist their efforts. They are helped in this effort by court injunctions they can point to. This is bureaucratic trench warfare. But if Musk and Trump can reach into the choke point, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, they could possibly not need agency cooperation. They can just impound agency payments themselves. They could also possibly stop paying federal employees they have forced on paid administrative leave, coercing them to resign. These possibilities are what every Treasury expert I’ve talked to instantly thought of the moment they read the Washington Post reporting and are incredibly alarmed about.
There’s much, much more to the Tankus post (the word “COBOL” appears frequently going forward), and I urge you to read it in full, but seeing the Bureau of the Fiscal Service as the chokepoint Elon and his tech bros which to seize is the key point politically and instruc
Kelton: Will the Ratings Agencies React to the Breakdown in Governance?
Setting the scene:
Under the Constitution, once Congress appropriates funding for various programs—be it Social Security, Medicaid, the Inflation Reduction Act, or Meals on Wheels—it is up to the executive branch (the U.S. Treasury and the White House) to faithfully execute the law. As I wrote for Newsweek last week, no one—not Elon Musk or President Trump—has the legal authority to delay or cancel appropriations once they have been enacted into law. Any default would violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
But that clearly doesn’t matter to President Trump and his team, who have already demonstrated a willingness to ignore the law. As evidence, look no further than the the administration’s attempt to claim sweeping powers to impound spending via executive order just last last week.
The key point:
So what happens if DOGE gains operational control and decides to start picking and choosing which government commitments to honor?… Alarm bells should be ringing from on high, and I can’t help but wonder whether the ratings agencies—Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s—are going to weigh in.1 The last time there was this much chaos and uncertainty (after the January 6 insurrection and debt ceiling shenanigans), Fitch downgraded its rating on US government debt from AAA to AA+, highlighting concerns about a ‘steady deterioration in [America’s] standards of governance.’ It’s hard to see how they can look through this moment….[E]ven if the Treasury continues to pay interest and principal to bondholders without interruption, seizing control of the payment system and arbitrarily defaulting on other commitments would surely demonstrate a further ‘deterioration in the standards of governance.’ It’s time to acknowledge the unprecedented breach of protocol, the brazen disregard for the rule of law, and the elevated risk of default. NOTE I’m not suggesting that a downgrade would cause investors to sour on US Treasuries and force the administration to back down. It’s more about acknowledging the breakdown in governance and the elevated risk of voluntary defaults across the spectrum of government obligations.
Kelton’s article, too, is worth reading in full.
DOGE is a “Temporary Organization”
Last year — whoopsie, sorry, 22 days ago — I wrote that “The Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) Lacks Legal Structure and Promised Transparency“; back then, a Federal advisory committee seemed the best fit for what DOGE was, or at least how it was acting, which meant it was subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). A week later, President Trump’s Executive Order “THE PRESIDENT’S “DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY”” (quotes in the original (it’s not a department)) came out:
Sec. 3. DOGE Structure. (a) Reorganization and Renaming of the United States Digital Service. The United States Digital Service is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President.
(b) Establishment of a Temporary Organization. There shall be a USDS Administrator established in the Executive Office of the President who shall report to the White House Chief of Staff. There is further established within USDS, in accordance with section 3161 of title 5, United States Code, a temporary organization known as “the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization”. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall be headed by the USDS Administrator and shall be dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall terminate on July 4, 2026.
Writes Wired:
A former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic jiu-jitsu move.”
And so it is. First, DOGE not a federal executive department, so it doesn’t need Congressional approval. Second, a temporary organization has a lot fewer of those pesky regulatory requirements than an advisory committee does. Lexology lists a lot of attack surfaces that lawyers, jailhouse and otherwise, can cross off their lists:
The structure evades lots of oversight…. For example:
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): FOIA applies to federal agencies as defined in 5 U.S.C. § 551, which excludes the Executive Office of the President and its components. Since DOGE operates within the Executive Office, it is generally not subject to FOIA.
Administrative Procedure Act (APA): The APA governs federal agencies’ rulemaking and adjudication processes. Entities within the Executive Office of the President that solely advise and assist the President are exempt from the APA. DOGE’s advisory role likely places it outside the scope of the APA.
Open Meetings Requirements: The Sunshine Act mandates open meetings for federal agencies headed by a collegial body. Since DOGE is led by an administrator rather than a multimember body, this act does not apply.
Federal Register Publications: Agencies must publish certain information in the Federal Register. However, components of the Executive Office of the President that solely advise and assist the President are typically exempt from these requirements. DOGE is not obligated to publish its findings or recommendations in the Federal Register.
Annual Federal Appropriations: DOGE’s activities depend on funding through annual appropriations. The implementation of its initiatives is subject to the availability of appropriated funds, as stated in the executive order.
Other Legal Limitations: DOGE must operate within the bounds of existing laws and regulations. The executive order specifies that its provisions should not impair or affect the authority granted by law to executive departments or agencies, nor the functions of the Office of Management and Budget. Implementation is subject to the availability of appropriations and applicable law.
(Attack surfaces remain, and we’ll go into some of them below.)
Status of Current DOGE Cases
From Just Security’s litigation tracker, these are the DOGE cases:
- Public Citizen Inc et al v. Donald J. Trump and Office of Management and Budget (D.D.C.)
- Jerald Lentini, Joshua Erlich, and National Security Counselors v. Department of Government Efficiency, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Personnel Management, Executive Office of the President, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Russell Vought, Scott Kupor, and Donald Trump (D.D.C.)
- American Public Health Association et al v. Office of Management and Budget, Acting Director of the Office of
- Management and Budget, and the Department of Government Efficiency (D.D.C.)
The first three are FACA cases and the fourth is FOIA. Neither FACA nor FOIA apply to temporary organizations in the executive department.[2]
Sidebar: Fact Set
Despite all the hue and cry, DOGE’s case for enormous amounts of fraud that can only be rooted out via handing them control over the nation’s 1.27-billion-yearly-payment facility is strikingly weak (not least because the Treasury has existing anti-fraud facilties for the agencies to use[3]). For now, relax and enjoy the stupid, but I will use these cases below to present possible attack surfaces.
Terrorists. Elon writes:
Does Elon think we are little children of six? How could we be funding Al Qaeda and the Taliban if we didn’t cut them checks? (More seriously, Tankus describes the architecture; the agencies vet the payees. Seemingly, Elon doesn’t know this; at best, he’s got his future, political goal confused with how payments work now.)
The Lutherans:
Now it’s the “Lutheran” faith (this use of “religion” as a money laundering operation must end):
Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations receive massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, and the numbers speak for themselves. These funds, total BILLIONS of American… pic.twitter.com/IaTG2uNXRB
— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) February 2, 2025
We’ll leave the question of how the Lutherans stuff all that cash into their hot dishes for another day; suffice to say that a spreadsheet is no evidence at all of fraud; the numbers “speak for themselves” only to the extremely credulous. Here let me note some extremely coverage, from Bloomberg of all places:
“The corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time,” Musk posted on X, saying officials reporting to his so-called Department of Government Efficiency are “rapidly shutting down” payments to a Lutheran charity.
DOGE is a “temporary organization.” How do genuine government “officials” report to it? As for “rapidly shutting down,” I guess we’ll have to see[4].
USAID. This is quite a volatile situation. From Yahoo News:
Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters, and yellow police tape and officers blocked the agency’s lobby on Monday, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
USAID staffers also said more than 600 additional employees had reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.” The agency’s website vanished Saturday without explanation.
On the coverage, note the lack of agency in “instructed by.” Note the weird agency in “Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump….” The cops block the lobby because Elon said something? Really? Meanwhile, the Democrats bestir themselves:
Members of Congress attempt to enter USAID pic.twitter.com/8YJSLOkEgx
— Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) February 3, 2025
Yes, the Democrats rush to defend the cover story-generating portion of the inteligence community’s premier color revolutions fomenter. Hilarity ensues. That said, USAID is an agency established by Congress; Elon can’t just abolish it.
Possible DOGE Attack Surfaces
Enforce “Access”: Previously reputable Treasury Secretary Bessent seems not to have sold his entire soul:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has signed off on a plan to give access to the payment system to a team led by Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, who is now working for the Treasury Department and serves as a liaison to Musk’s DOGE group that operates out of the United States Digital Service. One person familiar with the effort said Krause’s role will be subject to safeguards that would not allow any ability to make changes to the system and that no one outside Treasury would have access.
“The secretary’s approval was contingent on it being essentially a read-only operation,”[5] the person said.
Fine, but anybody who takes Elon’s word on this, or the word of any of his minions, should go talk to the SEC. Ron Wyden’s sternly worded letter to Bessent was in fact quite weak:
Please describe what information security measures and other operational security steps will be taken to ensure that providing officials associated with Elon Musk or DOGE such access does not result in hackers and foreign spies breaching or otherwise gaining access to the Fiscal Service’s payment systems
First, he gave Bessent a week to respond. Why not a day? Second, the issue [lambert pounds head on desk] isn’t Chinese spies and hackers; it’s DOGE itself.
The Democrats should find somebody who actually wants to govern, and make sure that Treasury data is not changed. Maybe some clever lawyer could craft an injunction.
Privacy Violations. From Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C. § 552a:
(b) CONDITIONS OF DISCLOSURE.—No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains, unless disclosure of the record would be—
(1) to those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties; (2) required under section 552 of this title;
(3) for a routine use as defined in subsection (a)(7) of this section and described under subsection (e)(4)(D) of this section;
(4) to the Bureau of the Census for purposes of planning or carrying out a census or survey or related activity pursuant to the provisions of title 13;
(5) to a recipient who has provided the agency with advance adequate written assurance that the record will be used solely as a statistical research or reporting record, and the record is to be transferred in a form that is not individually identifiable;
(6) to the National Archives and Records Administration as a record which has sufficient historical or other value to warrant its continued preservation by the United States Government, or for evaluation by the Archivist of the United States or the designee of the Archivist to determine whether the record has such value;
(7) to another agency or to an instrumentality of any governmental jurisdiction within or under the control of the United States for a civil or criminal law enforcement activity if the activity is authorized by law, and if the head of the agency or instrumentality has made a written request to the agency which maintains the record specifying the particular portion desired and the law enforcement activity for which the record is sought;
(8) to a person pursuant to a showing of compelling circumstances affecting the health or safety of an individual if upon such disclosure notification is transmitted to the last known address of such individual;
(9) to either House of Congress, or, to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, any committee or subcommittee thereof, any joint committee of Congress or subcommittee of any such joint committee;
(10) to the Comptroller General, or any of his authorized representatives, in the course of the performance of the duties of the Government Accountability Office;
(11) pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction; or
(12) to a consumer reporting agency in accordance with section 3711(e) of title 31.
IANAL, but if Flynn’s Lutheran spreadsheet data is Fiscal Service data, both he and the DOGE goon who supplied it broke the law, because none of those exemptions cover the case. Perhaps some clever lawyer could write another injunction.
Security Violations. Trump’s executive order establishing DOGE reads:
USDS shall adhere to rigorous data protection standards.
What does that even mean? Surely there’s some sort of standard here? Does “rigorous,” for example, mean the same baseline as Fiscal Services? Lower? Higher? I assume lower, because otherwise why not just say “the same as Fiscal Services”? Perhaps some aggressive Democrat could find out.
Impersonating Federal Officer
I think this is an edge case, but I keep hearing about full-time Federal employees being fired or interfered with in the performance of their duties by DOGE goons, when DOGE is a temporary organization. That seems odd in itself, but if the goon is a volunteer — as many DOGE types have been said to be — I’d be even more surprised if they can do that.
Elon’s Role, and His Conflicts
First, I’m having a hard time fitting Elon into the temporary organization org chart. What exactly is Elon’s role? Is he, for example, a one-man advisory committee, and hence subject to FACA? Some clever lawyer should find out.
Second, when asked if the US Budget should go “on the blockchain,” Elon answered “yes.” I have it on good authority that this a really bad idea, but Elon’s putative software expertise aside, that makes him massively conflicted, since his blockchain holdings would go soar if this stupid idea is legimated by the State MR SUBLIMINAL Oh, libertarians. How could you… I suppose that one could categorize that outcome as “honest graft,” were that not such a new experience for Silicon Valley. Obviously a political question, and maybe some social media-savvy Democrat could go on the Twitter — why aren’t they doing that already? — and have it out with Elon. “Do you view your bitcoin holdings as honest graft, and if not, why not?” Could be fun!
Conclusion
“Th-th-that’s all, folks!” I wonder what tomorrow will bring!
NOTES
[1] Of Lebryk, Tankus writes: “Lebryk, who first joined the Treasury Department in 1989 and slowly worked his way up until he was its highest ranking non-political appointee, is clearly the person on earth who understands this IT apparatus the best. Having known his equivalents on far smaller and less important scales in other legacy IT systems, I can tell you that there are certainly things about this IT system that he knows and no one else does.” That’s an institutional problem, since it means Lebryk shouldn’t be going up in small planes or, for that matter, crossing the street. And speculating freely, this makes me wonder if Lebryk knows any back doors. Musical interlude.
[2] Of these cases, Brookings says “Soon after Trump assumed office, numerous lawsuits were filed aiming to shut down the DOGE initiative for violations of transparency rules related to governmental advisory entities. These lawsuits target the broader DOGE initiative rather than the specific executive order issued on January 20th, 2025.” I think that tranlstes to “these cases are moot” (assuming that the Trump administration has avoided being really sloppy, and moved all its efforts under the temporary organization).
[3] Is it possible the Silicon Valley tech bros running DOGE — itself named after a scamming coin — are projecting?
[4] I do understand that NGOs are Republican targets (and frankly they’d be doing the Democrat Party a favor by taking them down, since they’re a key element in keeping a genuine left divided and powerless). However, the numbers do not speak for themselves.
[5] CRUD is an acronym for CREATE, READ, UPDATE, and DELETE, the four basic operations of persistent storage as for the Fiscal Services data (though I don’t know the COBOL terms). I understand “access” to mean READ, meaning that changing Fiscal Services Data, via CREATE, READ, or UPDATE, is not possible. I do not, however, know the meaning of “access” in law.
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Maybe all the relevant lawyers have already been quietly told that if they try to practice any law to stop this or slow it down, they and/or their family members will be kidnapped and/or killed.
“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
– Dick the Butcher, Henry VI, Part II (Act 4, Scene 2)
To interpret the words of The Bard, one has to know if those words were spoken by an admirable character, or a wicked one. (I would be more selective with lawyers…)
Lutheran Social Services provides all kinds of services, (most of what I am familiar with is mental health counseling) to kids in Wisconsin. It has absolutely nothing to do with religion, it is a non-profit agency that contracts with the state. It’s been around a long time and does very good and reliable work. Muskrat, the pet oligarch, is evil beyond words.
Excellent capture of the current state of play Lambert. Thank you for this.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but what if the DOGE activities, which may be in contravention of one or more laws, are serving as a pressure relief valve for that chunk of the electorate who feel they voted for an end to business-as-usual? And if ending business-as-usual means violating some laws, that is the price of progress?
For a few years now, I’ve been of the opinion that, short of drastic course change, the US is headed for some sort of violent insurrection no later than 2030. To the extent that DOGE is de-risking that outcome, I’m not complaining.
DOGE is not de-risking that outcome. Maybe getting there by a more expeditious route, if anything.
Perhaps it has begun, and one side is doing really good. If it looks like a duck….
That “looks like a duck” is referred to libertarians?
“if ending business-as-usual means violating some laws, that is the price of progress?”
Sounds like, inter alia, the oil that greased the rise of the Third Reich, among others.
“Bessent’s full willingness to cooperate with DOGE’s desire to access the operational aspects of the Treasury’s payment system, even to the point of overruling Lebryk, is an extremely shocking development. It implies a level of willingness to serve Trump’s interests that has not previously been understood by Congress, Wall Street, or corporate America at-large.”
yup, you always think it couldn’t happen here—until it does
You don’t get to make that decision. Nor does Elon, or even Trump. You can vote, and you can persuade. But we are still governed by a Constitution and I hope I live to see Musk and his minions go to prison.
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
Dangerous Oligarchs Grabbing Everything … I love it!
“… even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.”
Must be talking about Azov and “The Middle East’s Only Democracy™”
“Dangerous Oligarchs Grabbing Everything” staffed by young “Elongelicals”.
Hmm… I had read in I think 2 separate pieces that USAID was created by JFK via EO.
Yes, this was Feb 1st:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250201012053/https://www.usaid.gov/about-us/usaid-history
But as the link states “with the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (pdf) by Congress, U.S. foreign assistance activities underwent a major transformation”. So while the exact agency may be decided by EO, the activities the agency was formed to perform are a matter of law (and presumably budget). And the way this is approached, it is clearly not an attempt to move responsibilities to another agency, it is a smash and destroy approach.
And if it works for destorying USAID, more agencies are probably in Musk’s sights.
My understanding is that USAID was made an agency separate from the State Department by act of Congress in 1998. So it can’t be shut down by EO.
This looks promising:
https://x.com/ddayen/status/1886548020105503087#m
https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-03-lawsuit-takes-on-musk-payment-system-takeover-on-privacy-grounds/
Dangerous Oligarchs Grabbing Everything is EXACTLY the correct description of this situation.
Privacy Act 5 U.S.C. § 552a lawsuit filed today
Advocacy Group, Unions Sue Treasury Department Over Illegal DOGE Data Access
Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed suit today against the Department of the Treasury for sharing confidential data with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)…
https://retiredamericans.org/advocacy-group-unions-sue-treasury-department-over-illegal-doge-data-access/
Complaint: https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-7.pdf
Re: DOGE is temporary (self-terminating June 2026)
Presumably, the employment contracts of DOGE employees include pre-emptive pardons as a perk.
They’ve got two plus years to run a crime spree with a get-out-of-jail-free card.
“They’ve got two plus years to run a crime spree with a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
I’d be hopping mad if I was in prison for stealing ANYTHING after 2008 heist, the Ukraine grift, and now this and so much more.
They claim to be looking for corruption (excpet if its among their crowd of course). If there’s an investigation that needs to be announced, then there should be a suspect and charges.
But it’s some good distraction. Look at that stealing over there…while they skim and rob.
First, Musk is busting through FOIA, the bureaucrats’ tool to hide.
Why can’t the pentagon pass a financial audit?
One set of reasons: Treasury may be writing checks for payments on contracts not “faithfully executed”. In other words; the contracted specification of F-35’s now being delivered does not match the bent metal that causes a DD 250 to be sent to DoD comptroller to be used to write a check on the treasury. One of those F-35’s fell out of the Alaskan sky last week.
What some may call “loyalty to Trump” is as simple as going around some bureaucrat who would slow roll and/or disapprove a FOIA.
Just think if you or I could get information we needed from the government without the rig-a-ma-roll!
Second: DoD budget on block chain:
Government contracts specify a deliverable, which in case of hard things demands a production specification, backed by functional and performance specs. Block chain does the audit of technical representations of things very efficiently! It is even useful in linking specification changes to specific serial numbered items like an F-35. Maybe the pentagon could clear an audit on its trillions with block chain. Tech spec uses of block chain are neither recent nor unique to current iterations. Uses in supply chain!
Busting through FOIA is best thing that can happen to unscrambling the puzzle palaces inside the DC beltway.
Maybe Musk will uncover things that would cause the mob to go after the monster that is the federal bureaucracy. Torches and pitchforks!
If you think that is Musk’s goal, as opposed to a pretext, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
He can now loot and blackmail people by having all of their Federal ID, tax info and more. And I don’t mean those who engaged in bad conduct. I mean everyone.
This makes the Stasi look like pikers.
From 1985 to 2019 I was in DoD acquisition program offices.
“Faithfully executed” contracts, are like “western civilization” to Gandhi.
Transparency in the process that issues checks on the US Treasury is needed!
Collateral damage from Musk is worthy!
Thank you, Yves, for pointing out how dangerous these actions appear to be. There are millions of US citizens who only have Social Security money to help pay for their bills.
We would gratefully appreciate if someone here could answer the following question: Should those millions of citizens on Social Security fear that DOGE could/can be capable of taking those funds only to end up putting that money on Wall Street, or in Banks; enabling them to make super profits on The World Financial Market?
Thank you
The “monster” is Wall Street, Finance Capital, and their servants like the dingbat Musk. Get off the hopium before it’s too late.
This is another attack on whatever legitimacy our constitutional government has left. With Democrats sullying impeachment further, and the national security state going after a presidential candidate and then sitting president.
But literally blowing up the payments system is an attack on the day to day functioning of the government such as it is. Kind of like Trump signaling further that international agreements with America, ratified by Congress, are meaningless.
This year is gonna be lit.
[Ok, never ran into the comment moderation before… Perhaps it was the platform I was trying to use.]
https://web.archive.org/web/20250124220711/https://www.usaid.gov/about-us/usaid-history
I saw 2 different news sources (I think one was RT) comment USAID was created by Executive Order by JFK in the early 60s. The link to a snapshot from Feb 01 2025 above mostly confirms this.
What can be done by EO, can be undone by EO. From what I understand NED [National Endowment for Democracy] is no different, with the exception that the former reports to a House committee, while the latter to a Senate (or vise versa). Expect the latter on-deck next.
Honestly some of these comments show how little you know about the ways that social services are provided in this country. All the data that Mike Flynn showed is publicly available on USAspending.gov for every grant loan and contract the US govt awards baring classified ones. And HHS has its own system for showing the same information called TAGGS.
Agencies like Lutheran Family Services, Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services etc are how social services are provided in this country. They do ESOL, job training, citizen applications, tax prep assistance, mental and behavioral health, HIV case management, and on and on. Money from HHS is awarded on a competitive basis, as in you reply to an RFA and your project is awarded based on the recommendation of a panel review and then you implement. You are subject to performance reviews, GAO audits and regular financial reporting. For better or worse this is how HHS does things. This isn’t some nefarious ring of NGOs that are cut outs for Democratic party interests. If you want the Republicans to break this system then you’re asking for a lot of pain and suffering.
Is it a perfect system, no, but a lot of the people who staff these agencies care about their jobs and do their work better and for less total compensation than people in the public sector.
Your continued drive bys on USAID also show you either don’t know all that much about it as an agency or don’t value the actual good work it did. Yes, anything that is civil society or elections related is at best spook adjacent if not fully controlled by spooks. But the global health bureau, bureau of humanitarian assistance, child protection teams etc are maybe the only good the US actually does in this world and not something to be thrown in the bin on the whim of a crackpot billionaire.
I’ve been in this field for nearly 20 years and happy to answer any questions I can about USAID, refugees or other social service programming, the good and the bad.
I had noticed earlier today on social media, some posting about the above aforementioned kerfuffle regards to the Lutheran affiliated organization(s) and related questions about funding, purposes, etc…fwiw a life long friend is a long serving Lutheran minister. I would trust my friend and his judgement on such matters, before trusting anything that gets posted to X.
That being said, my suggestion is to consider the rubric of all the good being done in the guise of our government by the agency you appear highly knowledgeable in, versus what many of us know here about say, state Medicaid offices and services. One example, Americans don’t just need to be dirt poor to rightly qualify but they best shift any real estate holdings lest is disqualify them or their parents. I do think dating to the GFC and any real life aftermath to many people of various stripes, this being outside of large banks and investment funds of course. To speak on behalf of just my own circumstances and interests there is a pent up frustration or just a lack of answers on what all else, in its entirety that our federal government willingly funds and is never actually questioned or really brought into light.
Far too often our national politicians have told their counterparts to pass the bill and trust the authors , so we can never know what is in the bill beforehand. We, our government I mean, hand out large stacks of US billions so freely but yet many are one paycheck from financial ruin. I am intentionally keeping this a very broad and not overly specified to USAID, but I welcome a chance to learn and gain some new information. I add, my distrust of many politicians is closely parallel to a distrust of just about all American billionaires, granted a tiny sliver do something decent such as the Robin Hood foundation.
I’m looking at what DOGE says and what people like Flynn would have you believe. Clearly, Musk has a h*** up his a** about Lutherans, which I think is stupid (hence to hot dish joke). Given the context of my encounter with Flynn — I can’t reproduce the thread — I assumed Flynn had gotten the spreadsheet from DOGE. It would be hilarious if the DOGE tech bros were not, in fact, able to process Fiscal Service data and had to fake it with a spreadsheet from USAspending.gov.
As far as the good that USAID does in the world, I’m sure defenders of the British Raj in India thought much the same thing. But the Raj had to die, and it was good that it died. And so with our own Empire, in which USAID is an important part (see here on Pinochet’s Chile, for example).
> Agencies like Lutheran Family Services, Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services etc are how social services are provided in this country.
Why should I accept that as given First, the purpose of the NGOs is the same as the purpose of the Democrat Party: To divide the left, and the working class. Second, the purpose of government is to provision the citizenry. To the extent that NGOs substitute themselves for that function, that’s bad. The liberal legacy of a divided left and a dysfunctional government is in large part a cause of our current plight. (I also worked for a time with a local NGO, and it was the most useless organization imaginable, though full of well-spoken professionals and faultless brochures. What kind of rural aid organization misses the fentanyl crisis?)
> This isn’t some nefarious ring of NGOs that are cut outs for Democratic party interests
From the inside, it probably looks like that. But see here for the role of the NGOs in “the supply chain of human migration.” Key paragraph:
Completely opaque and democratic. It’s absolutely nefarious. Needs to be broken up with a jackhammer.
That Lutheran “fraud” being “rapidly shut down” looks like refugee settlement and services funding if you want to know who gets screwed in this particular case. Because NGOs.
BTW, anybody seen the Dems? Lol, I forgot. They’re getting their pictures taken over at the USAID office.
If anyone has a plan for Mpox vaccinations in east Africa or Ebola outbreak responses that take place without some spooks creeping in, I’m all ears.
The DOGE, “we’ll coup anyone we want to”, approach is goon squads that don’t waste most of their time and money on actual programs.
I very much agree. It’s easy to point at the villains, rebuilding the foundation supporting the international public health effort is another matter. I’m skeptical that the US will have a meaningful role in the near term. Maybe China will see to it.
The notion that Elon Musk’s ability to ruthlessly pursue organizational efficiency is inapplicable to the Federal Government is questionable. He will find waste and corruption. The question is will his disruptive actions inflict harm on the structure of government that outweighs the benefit of any savings.
The Pentagon has repeatedly failed audits and has an obscenely excessive budget. I look forward to DOGE turning its attention to that sector of the government.
I would expect that the Pentagon gets an audit after all relevant positions have been filled with loyalists, which doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.
Also, if you expect DOGE to result in actual reductions of expenditures, I would temper your expectations; what’s in store is redirecting money to the worthy away from the unworthy. Any significant reductions in direct government expenditures are likely to be matched by indirect ones, provided by the efficient free market – just don’t ask what it’s efficient at, or who defines what free means.
> I look forward to DOGE turning its attention to that sector of the government.
What makes you think they will do that?
I suspect he’ll be very eager to find waste/fraud in contracts with the Big 5 defence contractors. But only to use as a lever to redirect the Pentagon spigot towards Space-X, Palantir, Anduril, and the other SV VC backed Defence Start-Ups. I’m also sure there are many federal employees who can be fired or blackmailed to further this aim.
There will be no defence budget reduction.
Everything else, however is there to be excised or coopted
If there is not a significant defense budget reduction, the smoke and mirrors of this entire exercise will be more obvious than they are now.
Musk companies are huge defense contractors; come on, man
The DOD is exempt from DOGE scrutiny.
“How could we be funding Al Qaeda and the Taliban if we didn’t cut them checks?”
Uh, sacks of 100s delivered by C-130s?
Here’s wiki on the creation of USAID
“Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid. USAID was subsequently established by the executive order of President John F. Kennedy, who sought to unite several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency.[5] USAID became the first U.S. foreign assistance organization whose primary focus was long-term socioeconomic development.”
So the rightwingers are correct that USAID was created by JFK by executive order but that was done at the request of Congress. Guess the courts will have to sort it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usaid
We did send in money by the palletfull right after the Iraq War, allegedly to provide liquidity to the economy. As in billions in cash. IIRC $40 billion. So there is a precedent.
Plus there are plenty of secrecy jurisdictions: Panama. Malta. The Isle of Man. Caymans. The list is long.
In one interview with Col. Wilkerson a while back, he remembers seeing the money on the airplanes going into Iraq and being told exactly how much in $100 bills was on each pallet (I forget, it was like $6-8M per pallet.) He said something like 40% of the money immediately disappeared after arrival in Iraq.
Sorta reminds one of Zelensky complaining that he didn’t know where $100B in aid to Ukraine was a day or two ago.
This is not from someone like Wilkerson. It was reported in the MSM not long after the event. Geithner, then head of the NY Fed, played a role.
> Uh, sacks of 100s delivered by C-130s?
This is the story of the $40 billion that went to Iraq on pallets (one such pallet being the MacGuffin in William Gibson’s wonderful Spook Country). I don’t have time to do research on it, but for our purposes in looking at the Fiscal Office this seems relevant, from CNBC. Apparenltly, all the shipments were met at Baghdad’s airport by a dude named Basel:
If you believe in accidents. From the above, it doesn’t look to me like the Iraq cash went through the Fiscal Office.
That’s good digging, I like the …imagine just what could have happened if the mafia found out, heh heh heh, mafia you say, best keep it off the books then.
> So the rightwingers are correct that USAID was created by JFK by executive order
Yes, but that’s not the whole story. BBC:
No time to find the statute now, but I’ve heard the same from other sources.
Trump doesn’t have to “win” in order to win. Forcing Congress and/or the courts to assert their authority on behalf of a corrupt agency is a win for Trump even if he loses. Politically speaking, watching this administration so far is like watching Panzers rolling over borders and into history.
A lot of upstanding and powerful citizens need a timeout in a federal prison. It would not be unprecedented for their jailers to join them five to nine years from now. Speaking as a lapsed Lutheran I do not care if Trump rounds up all the Lutherans myself included IF HE STOPS ALL THE @#$! WARS!
The only thing that’s stopped me from setting myself on fire in protest is that it’s never worked to stop a war. In my book (a worn Lutheran catechism) Trump can break any laws he likes if he stops the wars. This is a discussion about evil, and I am OK with Satan winning when it can be proved that God (the West) started all the wars and that Satan represents a lesser evil. I will settle for less evil since the alternative is more war. Let the Democrats file FOIAs to find out what’s happening (and good luck with that).
Missouri Synod, Mr. Gisleson?
“In short, that means Trump cannot necessarily simply abolish USAID by signing an executive order, and any attempt to do so would almost certainly face strong challenges in the courts and Congress.”
I hope, write to and urge our congress to uphold their sworn oaths to challenge usurpations by the executive onto the legislative branch. I would hope not to shame them to action but, given the history of congressional action, that being, to use public facing photo-ops and feigned outrage, condemnation, sloganeering and pearl clutching as substitute for actual action under their office and branch and, to actually check (as in the hockey term) and balance things – well that history has shown the only way to stay in office is to cater to the moneyed interests by speaking big words while taking no action. This congruence of money and congress/judiciary electability in elections via big money has me concerned –
I guess what I mean to say is that, all means are necessary to keep heat up upon all party persuasion of congress critter to just step-up, get some backbone and do their apportioned duties. Stop posing and pretending to acknowledge what the consent of the governed have told you they want and then, going on with no action except that action the interests of big money have told them to take. F&cking do your jobs.
If I’m understanding this correctly, Musk would not have access to payment systems without Bessent’s approval. And Bessent’s recent confirmation was one of the least controversial, with all Republicans voting in favor despite Bessent being a Soros acolyte, and sixteen Democrats joining them despite anyone associated with Trump being Hitler. I really don’t understand how Bessent sailed right through with hardly anyone making a peep. And also starting to wonder if keeping any money in a Treasury Direct account is a good idea.
Maybe you “didn’t” understand how he sailed right through. Maybe now you do understand.
Any inside job needs an inside jobber and and the easiest way to pick a lock is with the Master Key.
One wonders if any of the Senators knew anything about prior plans and arrangements between Bessen and Musk over what Bessen would do with all his inside access.
Some of the senator in blue states were hearing from constituents. So they should have understood. The more right wing senators were on board. Even those surprised to find leopards nibbling at their faces.
> If I’m understanding this correctly, Musk would not have access to payment systems without Bessent’s approval.
1) That is the reporting on what Bessent said
2) We don’t really have anything on the record
3) But in any case, DOGE has raced far beyond that; one of Thiel’s
blood bagsyoung men has administrator access to the software in the Fiscal Office (search below on “Marko Elez”).4) If in fact (Elon -> Elez) betrayed Bessent that is in fact all to the good, the more betrayals they do, the greater resistance to them will be.
Perhaps the Senate was too busy grilling [or grandstanding about] Tulsi and RFK Jr to do any more homework on Bessent.
Lambert, thank you for this post as was confused by what was happening.
Just some observations.
Congress is supposed to be the most powerful branch of government being as it creates the laws and controls the purse; it could try and impeach anyone it wants to especially presidents, which means seeing the flock of Congresscritters running over to the USAID office and being blocked by the police is both theatrical and pathetic. I think that seeing this that we do not really have a Congress. We have a bunch of people that are pretending to be members of Congress who are pretending to be doing their jobs. It’s like that Soviet joke of “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”
Since the central government is “managed” by people people playing at being whatever their position is such as President Biden or much of the current Congress, and I can add healthcare, the police, military, education, the arts, nonprofits, corporations, and so on, does not just the government, but the entire system have the Mandate of Heaven anymore? Even if somehow it does, will the current shenanigans finish it off? If so, what happens when the next clusterflock happens, another Palisades, South Carolina hurricane, earthquake, Denali eruption, war, whatever, and the government messes it up again? Not to mention bird flu, covid, tuberculosis, and whatever else is happening. And the economy.
After seeing Luigi the Adjuster provoke such an unexpected emotional reaction both by the population and the oligarchs, I really believe that whatever disaster happens this summer it’s going to cause an explode and not metaphorically. If for no other reason than the likely backlash from the government against any kind of protest no matter how peaceful or justified. There doesn’t seem to be any adults in charge meaning that the likely response will be poor.
From what Trumps been saying FEMA is going away; states are going to have to deal with their own crises unless they want to get help from a central organisation (think the RNC was floated?) and they will have to provide a quo for the quid, as it were.
Is this likely to work? Who knows. It’s obvious that Trump can delay aid from going out; the US justice system is biased towards giving each side plenty of time to explain itself, and theoretically, Trump or his people can just keep inventing reasons to delay payments – a temporary freeze here, an executive order dissolving the agency there, coupled with aggressively appealing everything and splashing any submissions with reductions (due to national security, ofc) which has the effect of slowing things down.
A “rogue” executive branch is expected to be brought to heel by the legislative branch, not the judicial one AFAIK.
> Is this likely to work? Who knows.
If course not. The states are not sovereign their own currency, therefore they will all have to set up rainy day funds (or not, if you believe that only people on own bunkers on the high ground deserve to survive).
FWIW in same press session as Trump mentioned having the states take over FEMA activities, he said the feds would provide the money. Agree that states can’t possibly fund it.
RE: Yes, the Democrats rush to defend the cover story-generating portion of the intelligence community’s premier color revolutions fomenter.
I thought you were being sarcastic there, Lambert, and that the Democrats would focus on USAID’s supposedly more humanitarian measures, but here’s Chris Murphy coming right out and defending the spook stuff . Is he really sure it’s firewood the Ukrainian’s will be missing out on though?
The Democrats response bothers me more than the Musk takeover because there are always arrogant men who will steal or destroy as much as they can. It is his opponents, not words on a page or the norms fairies, that stops him.
Both major parties are shells with the Democrats more empty, but the Republicans, while more willing to use their power, are also increasingly dysfunctional. President Trump’s political opposition is more notational or performative than real, which when added to the other failures, past, present, and future, almost certainly means the collapse of both political parties in the near future. This will create a gigantic hole in political leadership. This means our country’s collapse of some kind. I could be wrong, but all our institutions have been hollowed out and transformed into grifts that have no ability to function at all, even on autopilot, without some effective leadership. Bomb throwing is not leadership.
> I thought you were being sarcastic there, Lambert
Moi?
William Gibson seems prescient. I am waiting none to patiently for the third of the “Jackpot” trilogy.
It’s being “written” all around you in real time over the next few slow-rolling decades.
“Goodbye and good luck.”
Thank you for superbly distilling Nathan Tankus and Stephanie Kelton. This is indeed an end-run around the rule of law and open government. Part of me says: Go for it. However, I’m reminded of an aphorism about babies and bathwater.
The damned baby has been crapping the tub for some time now, at least since Shrub/Cheney’s GWOT, but there are much better ways to take down imperialist NGO’s run through USAID. They would involve taking down the Pentagon, the evil Eye of Sauron. That just might get Orange Foolius and his keto/breeder Springbok funder liquidated pronto. Heavens forbid; they wouldn’t want to risk that.
So out the window goes the baby and there will be hell to pay for the rest of us…
Cutting off payments for regime change operations is a great way to show Russia we are serious about not getting any farther into ww3.
I guarantee this was not the intent. All the screeching has been about DEI programs abroad.
> there are much better ways to take down imperialist NGO’s run through USAID.
But those ways are not on offer.
Adding, if you think the US empire nets out positive worldwide, then by all means support USAID in its current form.
Well, it looks like everybody from the Dept. of Agriculture to the Weather Bureau was told their services were no longer needed in a carefully worded email. I’m not sure what the part about “All your base are belong to us” meant though . .
Make your time, I guess
“Cats: ha ha ha”. What is this voodoo? It’s too early to hit the bong, I’m gonna have to try again later.
The COBOL angle is actually the greatest danger, as discussed by Tankus. He explains how legacy IT systems have been carefully stitched together to create organization-wide systems that literally almost no one understands because COBOL dates back to the 1960s! And Trump and his minions have been demanding access to this source code!
Tankus writes:
I posted about Tankus’s article at DailyKos, and some old IT people familiar with legacy IT systems have left a bunch of very important and insightful comments, all amplifying Tankus’s warnings and concerns. One commenter wrote:
Yes, we have written for many years how the core systems at big banks are still on Cobol, and no one has transitioned off. Aside from the huge failure rate of big IT projects, the other barrier is the cost. One knowledgeable reader (as in a bank IT guy) said it would take a full three years of profits.
Why on earth we aren’t simply training people in COBOL I will never understand. People seem to think that a system that’s been running for 50 years is bad. In fact, if I were recommending a career to a young person, I’d put COBOL on the list along with plumbing and electrical, and basically for the same reason.
“OMG, the syntax is so awful.” Sheesh, grow up.
Plus when you learn an old language like that (for me it was Fortran) you HAD to learn to anticipate when the program would compile but might give you a nonsense answer. Pre-Fortran I’d never had to consider that I’d have to define the nature of the output in terms of significant figures etc.
This forced me to get good at using rules of thumb and getting an instinctive “feel” for my data so I’d know instantly if the Fortran answer was “precise but wrong”. The paper that made my name and reputation was a guide for health economists to using the choice model I co-developed, using FOUR different ways of running it, so you had precisely zero excuse for mucking up.
it was Fortran, with a computer the size of an executive office I imagine. Punch cards and infinite loops.
Its too hard for kids who only know Python and JavaScript!
Clients who worked in COBOL were telling me back in the ’90s that almost all the COBOL programmers were being laid off and that that was a huge mistake. Another can kicked down the road.
Thank You! COBOL was devised so that Administrative Professionals could review the encoded processes and validate the program was correct. Modern programmers prefer languages more attuned to mathematical expression. COBOL is an International Standard (ISO-IEC) revised as of 2023 and is not involved in the various programming language “Beauty Contest” wars. Note that the Free Software Foundation’s GNU project has TWO implementations of COBOL targeting Linux and other platforms!
Training is cheap! A decent experienced programmer can, grudgingly, pick up the language in a few days. “Porting” Cobol is infinitely cheaper than rewriting. Info at [COBOLworx](http://cobolworx.com)
I suspect the source code is missing for some of the cobol programs and they only exist in compiled form which is not unusual for long running legacy programs. It doesn’t matter that someone knows Cobol. The source code is not available.
You are correct. I worked in IT at a Wall Street firm and the problem of lost source code was known. Moreover, when code has been modified and patched over many years, it is difficult to maintain without introducing errors. The result is an “if it ain’t broke” attitude.
Help is on the way in the form of code analyzing and translating AI agents. Today’s programmers will be replaced by software architects directing the work of AI agents.
Will these be error and hallucination free? I refer to both the AI and the software architect.
Software testing is boring drudge work, and it is often done incompletely because of competitive pressure to release a software product. This is why we suffer from buggy releases to this day, and a common practice is to avoid the first release of any major software package. Tireless and powerful AI agents will improve testing considerably, and we will all benefit. Anecdotal evidence of AI shortcomings obscures the point that the AI doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be significantly better than the human alternative.
Maybe the old COBOList wizards can passively resist by refusing to help the muskites wherever their help would be needed
Musk has supposed to have installed a server there. I guess that this would give Trump and/or Musk the ability to kill any payments that they like by acting as a “filter”. This may be the ultimate victory of the tech bros here. Could the big Wall Street firms go against them if Trump could put a stop to all that free money that they get from the Feds? Could any corporation?
> Musk has supposed to have installed a server there.
I believe DOGE installed a server in the Office of Personnel Management (it was insecure, and there’s a lawsuit about that).
Then again (see below) if DOGE has CRUD permissions at the Fiscal Office, they could log in remotely and do whatever they wanted (with a level of effort to remove checks).
Here’s a way to save money on Social Security payments. Simply stop any SS payments to expat Americans currently getting them. Tell them they have to move back to America to get SS payments.
And no “back-payments” for any SS payments they did not get while living abroad.
Should we believe the muskites have not already thought of that?
Why? Expats pay taxes and are due this earned benefit.
The theoretical ability, yes. However, legacy systems – and many not so legacy systems – aren’t necessarily easy to modify to do your bidding. Sometimes, it’s easy – maybe the systems generate some sort of big text file where each line has “bank account information” followed by “number of dollars to send” – in that case, simply watching that file and modifying it every time it gets updated could work. (there’s still possible failures – maybe the target system reads the file before you modify it, maybe it fails to read it if you are modifying the file as it tries to read it, and so on)
How programs usually work is that the list is usually stored in a database somewhere (databases can be made to be a bit more resllient than a single file in a computer), and it consists of “internal representation of an account, as created by someone in the 1980s and updated piecemeal by poor, doomed fools ever since” followed by “reference to the payments table, as modified by the instructions given from a manager over a scratchy voiceline while driving through several tunnels” – basically, in order to modify the payment, you’d need to understand how the program works.
Legacy systems are usually complex (otherwise they get replaced); there’s a reason things turn into legacy systems after a while.
How very Hillaryesque of them. I can’t imagine congress wanting to do anything of the lawsuit nature to stop this bipartisan behavior.
Let’s assume for a moment that they get full CRUD access, is there a thing in the world that would stop them from redirecting all government payments to themselves?
Money is power and a few trillion dollars could go quite a long way in radically reshaping the nation.
Perhaps a hysterical take, but objectively, what would be stopping DOGE?
> Let’s assume for a moment that they get full CRUD access, is there a thing in the world that would stop them from redirecting all government payments to themselves?
Yes, their ideology. I’ve done a little reading — very little — on the ideologues that oligarchs like Theil respect. See here.
It’s entirely possible they believe in some libertarian nonsense like destroying the State (“drown it in a bathtub” as the retrospectively sane Grover Norquist said). Of course, that’s not to imply that they won’t come to quite like State power when they have it:
I don’t think self-reflection is a strong point for any of these people.
This is bad:
A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System Wired
This is not Access, the R in CRUD. It is CRUD in total (CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE) and it is absolutely not permitted by the Trump executive order. Nor is it permitted by Bessent’s read-only permission. Some Democrat lawyer — where’s that shark Marc Elias when something other than rigging elections is needed — needs to get an injunction rolling back Elez’s privileges immediately. And some enterpring reporter needs to get on the record what Bessent actually said. More:
They can’t conceive of a reason because there is no reason. More:
I say shut the whole thing down until we find out what’s going on.
NOTE I did a quick search on “Office of Personnel Management” and “Fiscal Service” in Project 2025. I don’t think DOGE is a Heritage (Beltway) thing at all (though of course they might all in line). I think it’s a wild Silicon Valley scheme cobbled together by a gaggle of lost boys and boy men who’ve read far too much Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein, and not nearly enough of anything else. They think Twitter and SpaceX are big. They’re not.
NOTE If I were really foily, I’d guess Trump stages the whole tariff thing as a diversion.
The hiring of the 19 – 25 year olds isn’t because of what they know. I don’t believe that BS for a second.
He hired them because of what they don’t know..
> He hired them because of what they don’t know..
Like how to work with enormous legacy systems without breaking them. Indeed.
And they have no understanding of what the consequences mean for people. And they are more easily impressed and manipulated.
I bet they were also selected for having a trait that makes them “empathy-challenged”.
A point of order: while technically admin access to files on a system can be used to replace said files, it does require the replacements to work as you wish in order for your will to be done. This is why most programs provide ways to interact with it that does not require all that knowledge (the User Interface part of systems) – bypassing it and going directly to file level access is a bold move, and never my first choice when dealing with legacy systems.
For non-techies, having file system access would be similar to having access to the desk of a worker – you could change anything on the desk – papers, pens, photos of the family. Only, the person working on the desk understands but ancient greek, and thus writes and reads only in that most noble tongue. Sure, you can create pages, read them, rip them up (delete) and scribble all over them (update) – but what you can’t do is make the desk worker understand your scribbles, should they be written in another language than ancient greek.
I would expect changes made by a 25 year old without legacy system experience to fail rather bad the first few times – this might be the intent, and provide an easy scapegoat as well as a reason to modernize the old systems.
Cash. Now.
And a good supply of what money can’t buy.
That was exactly my thought when I read Nathan’s
piece (well, except the plane/crossing the road part). Lebeyk must surely be approaching retirement age. Is there (or, I guess, was there) a replacement civil servant lined up? A protégé he was training?
Separately, Nathan’s a young guy who goes it alone despite clearly having the chops to be a first-rate academic, so if anyone who read his piece and feels they profited by it can afford to subscribe to his newsletter, they should consider it. He does a lot of work with FOIA to research and uncover Federal Reserve history. A bit niche for me but that too seems like good work that is well received.
Re: Palantir and Doge
https://archive.ph/f47FD/
Just the opening:
“Palantir shares surged to a record high as Peter Thiel’s data analytics company reported forecast-beating results, raised its 2025 outlook and projected a windfall from President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the federal government.
Chief executive Alex Karp told analysts on Monday that work by billionaire Elon Musk and the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency he leads would be “good for Americans” and “very good for Palantir”, which generates about two-thirds of its US-based revenue from government contracts.
“Disruption at the end of the day exposes things that aren’t working. There’ll be ups and downs,” Karp continued. “This is a revolution. Some people will get their heads cut off . . . We’re expecting to see really unexpected things and to win.”
—-
Just note the language.
And people still tell others “just don’t call it class war.”
When’s the “F The Billionaires” march???
‘Cause that’s what they are saying to you.
Just a whole bunch of Defeat The Far Right Trump Billionaire Agenda by the PSL and other political organizations.
Apparently Lib Billionaires are fine?
– is DOGE getting access to all Tresaury payees, in order to run some sort of data-mining (“AI”) over the data looking for connections / targets of interest? I hope so! This would be an excellent way to audit what past administrations have done in the name of USG. The Pentagon gets to find out where its money went. So does Congress. But getting this data is clearly an “innovation” or breach of practice/regulations. There’s definitely a fence or two being knocked down here.
– is DOGE looking to control Treasury payments? Maybe… but is this actually an issue? i mean, *somebody* must have had control of this system last week. Who was it? If they were part of the Executive and ultimately reported to the President, what’s the problem with that control being moved within the Executive? If they were not part of the Executive, well, shouldn’t we know who was controlling $1.27trillion of payment flow and was *not* democratically accountable? Operationally, there should be some better governance on changes than allowing Musk to make them, but politically…?
– is DOGE looking to loot Treasury payments? Everybody is running around with their hair on fire as if Musk wears a hooped jumper and carries a bag labelled SWAG. It’s hard to take seriously from this side of the pond that Trump and his team plan to loot the USG in broad daylight, both because the political class has done very nicely skimming the money in the darkness until now (why break a good thing?) and because the idea is so brazen, what happens next? Trump takes a fly-past and military review in mirrored sungalsses and goesthe full caudillo? When he is already a billionnaire and Musk is a centi-billionnaire?
Why is so little credit given to the idea that perhaps they believe much of what they say and they are in the process of breaking a lot of domestic and foreign policy rice bowls in the name of a weird Libertarian patriotism, in order to remake the US as a hemispheric great power rather than a world government?
Why any of this should affect market pricing of Treasuries is also beyond me. Until there is an actual default or the political will to default (Congressional debt limit kabuki), if they payments are made then the system works. That’s all Mr Market needs to know.
Have you lost your mind? Do you also cheerlead NSA/5 Eyes snooping? Or do you not care because Americans are the ones on the receiving end?
The data these guys will get is vastly better ordered v. potential targets than NSA bulk collection, where they have to break a sweat to connect that to payments activity of individuals (as in do what in the old days was called data mining). With identifiers like the Social Security number as the “one ring that rules them all,” the process is vastly simplified.
The demonization of Musk was predictable as soon as he supported Trump. Satanic properties are assigned instantly to anyone in league with the Orange One. Almost overnight, the man who advanced electrification of cars by a decade, brought universal broadband to the World through Starlink, and cut the cost of orbital payloads by an order of magnitude became a greedy robber baron intent on plunder and destruction.
DOGE is turning over a large rock. Let’s wait to see what crawls out before declaring the end of the republic.
Helon Hmusk?
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Elon
In tradition with the family plan
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Elon
Elton John, Levon
You forgot “Heil Musk!” at the end.
Nice try, Mr. Muskbara.
“Let’s wait to see what crawls out before declaring the end of the republic.”
Well yes sure, but before one has the comfort of waiting to see, I would think one would have in place a mechanism by which one is guaranteed to actual see in it’s native form that which emerges —- Particularly when vested interests are showing a desire to cloth the naked beast with whatever vestiges and adornments they deem best to favor the executives vested economic and political interests.
In the constitutional format those separations of powers and checks on overreach even just judicial, congressional, and executive oversight with daylight transparency are de minimus in my view
And, ranting upon my view, it is the great concentration of money and corrupting influence of money in politics “”This reversal of the classical ideal of a “free Market” – a market free FROM land rent, monopoly rent and predatory finance – has been promoted with a new vocabulary of Orwellian Doublespeak”” Found in the Foreward of Michael Hudson’s J is for Junk Economics
It is this economics and concentration that posses the greatest threat to the republic, to democracy, to peace and a habitable planet —their I have done my rant – sorry HH …I am not disagreeing that a bunch a creatures need to come out of the closet but, I don’t agree that a unaccountable group should get a chance to stage that which comes out.
While there is a whole lot to hate about this situation from just a democracy perspective, what I find really frightening is that in the last month I have not heard anything from Elon that makes me think he has any real grasp of how the financial system works and how government spending (or not spending) figures into the economy and the financial system.
Not spending money that was allocated will directly impact GDP, but if you stop payments in a flawed fashion you are now potentially shorting financial institutions (at least temporarily) during the settlement process and given the size of the governments spending this could be large dollar shortage amounts which will likely cause concern on Wall Street if not outright panic.
None at all
And he’s shown a real interest in not honoring contracts.
This is a man who posted high school-level homework problems to prove something-something PHD in physics, not surprised he’s posting about rooting out the evil of Lutheran Social Services to reduce the debt.
> Lutheran Social Services
Up against the wall, lutefisk!
Where are the lawyers?
Being put in place.
https://x.com/EagleEdMartin/status/1886456136032817488?mx=2
{slips on Reynolds Wrap toque and looks in the mirror-smashing!}
What if the shenanigains were to switch from the $ to Bitcoin, $99,468.51 being the current conversion rate for all monies online, real or imagined.
From the bottom of my coffee cup. The plan is to establish a parallel currency via the National Bitcoin reserve idea, tank the dollar and settle treasury debt on the cheap and kill cash transactions while operating on the crypto “reserve”. Needless to say, this plan has risks, lol.
IIRC, Neal Stephensons Baroque Cycle has discussions on the role and power of the treasury woven throughout. Another re-read on the pile.
I see the ratings agencies paying attention more from the perspective on what the implications are for private debt rather than public (Fed Gov) debt. Because if any of this results in reduced fiscal spend then that means less ability of the private sector to service its private debt. In which case, if I’m a rating agency I keep an eye on who ends up on the losing end. But this is no different than what ratings agencies should be doing anyways when monitoring fiscal policy. And I suspect whatever DOGE is doing won’t be nearly as large as budget decisions. In any case, it will be funny if Trump does end up shrinking the economy by reducing Fed Gov spending, whether via DOGE shenanigans or budget “statesmanship”. Well funny until I lose my job.
Otherwise, I think DOGE is smart enough not to touch interest payments on Fed Gov debt. This would be equivalent to starting a self destruct nuclear bomb on the financial structure of our economy and to the euro-dollar-based international trading system in general.
> “Stupid? Shit, no, he was smart as hell.” The Finn stubbed his cigarette out in a cracked ceramic Campari ashtray. “Just a total f-up, was all.” –William Gibson, Count Zero
As they say in the mafia, “nothing personal, it’s just business”. Of course, if you’re in another part of the mafia that’s being disrupted, that’s very much going to look like “just a total f-up”.
Anyways I think of DOGE and Trump as engaging in the “Find Out” discovery process. Basically F around until another center of power responds with “Find Out”. In the mean time they’re establishing a new equilibrium in the balance of powers proscribed by our constitution.
Remember it’s this balance of power that will insure our safety. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3tDSCldYvk
Firstly, excuse my dumbness, but, I dont quite get it. An institution meant for foreign projects (“international”) finances domestic social services?
And secondly, I very much have the impression, USAID is set up much like Hamas digging tunnels under hospitals. Busting them will inevitably produce collateral damage. Who do you blame for this?