DOGE staffer admits Elon Musk’s cost-cutting agency failed to reduce the federal deficit

Guno צְבִי

Guno צְבִי

We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
In its early days, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) bragged it could cut up to $2 trillion from the U.S. federal budget. In December, Musk conceded the special advisory only saved $200 billion in “zombie payments” for cancelled contracts or fraudulent unemployment claims.

But a recent estimation of DOGE’s overall impact indicated any savings it found did little, if anything, for the deficit.

In a deposition video from January, which recently went viral, DOGE employee Nate Cavanaugh said cost-cutting efforts fell far short of its original $2 trillion goal. The deposition was part of a larger lawsuit filed by the American Council of Learned Societies, a nonprofit consortium of scholarly institutions, alleging DOGE used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to identify and then cancel more than $100 million in diversity, equity, and inclusion grants.

 
Walt said:
We keep hearing how trump is about to cut the deficit, and the deficit keeps skyrocketing. Kind of odd how that works.
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Repubs never cut the debt. Long ago, they decided when they got power they would slash taxes for the wealthy and spend a shit ton on defense. That would make it very difficult for the Dems to do those horrible programs that might help the people. We cannot afford them. The Repubs are the party of the super-rich and corporations. Look at what they do through that prism and you may understand why they do what they do.
 
Nordberg said:
Musk got info on all the people in America and got paid to steal it. That is valuable. Even some Trumpys noticed how short a time DOGE kept to their pretend mission. He used the same thing Trump does, big lies, the bigger the better.
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Yup.

There is a video of Larry Elison a couple years back saying the government had the last remaining large data set that had not yet been accessed for training AI models and he said that data was amongst the most valuable as it is very specific and detailed.
 
Nordberg said:
Repubs never cut the debt. Long ago, they decided when they got power they would slash taxes for the wealthy and spend a shit ton on defense. That would make it very difficult for the Dems to do those horrible programs that might help the people. We cannot afford them. The Repubs are the party of the super-rich and corporations. Look at what they do through that prism and you may understand why they do what they do.
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The last Republican who cut the deficit was Eisenhower, almost 70 years ago. Ford almost did it, and deserves some credit for that, 50 years ago.

Since then all the Democrats have cut the deficit. Clinton actually reduced the debt, which is amazing.
 
Walt said:
The last Republican who cut the deficit was Eisenhower, almost 70 years ago. Ford almost did it, and deserves some credit for that, 50 years ago.

Since then all the Democrats have cut the deficit. Clinton actually reduced the debt, which is amazing.
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Only because he lost control of Congress and they robbed Social Security. He never cut the deficit, we borrowed money to pay interest on the debt... no matter how often people lie about what happened in his term, these are the truths of it.
 
Walt said:
Clinton actually reduced the debt, which is amazing.
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Bill Clinton did not reduce the total (gross) national debt. It increased during his presidency.

He did slash the annual budget deficit to historic surpluses and paid down the more economically relevant “debt held by the public” (what the government actually owes to investors, foreign governments, individuals, etc, the part that matters for interest rates and the economy).

BTW, presidents do not control spending. Congress does.
 
Guno צְבִי said:
In its early days, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) bragged it could cut up to $2 trillion from the U.S. federal budget. In December, Musk conceded the special advisory only saved $200 billion in “zombie payments” for cancelled contracts or fraudulent unemployment claims.

But a recent estimation of DOGE’s overall impact indicated any savings it found did little, if anything, for the deficit.

In a deposition video from January, which recently went viral, DOGE employee Nate Cavanaugh said cost-cutting efforts fell far short of its original $2 trillion goal. The deposition was part of a larger lawsuit filed by the American Council of Learned Societies, a nonprofit consortium of scholarly institutions, alleging DOGE used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to identify and then cancel more than $100 million in diversity, equity, and inclusion grants.

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Considering the cuts to the IRS and consequently lost due tax revenue, Doge will cost the Government money
 
Damocles said:
He never cut the deficit, we borrowed money to pay interest on the debt...
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Clinton cut the deficit to the point of a surplus for a few months. He actually reduced the debt a tiny bit. Obama, Biden, and even Carter were able to cut the deficit, but not to the point of surplus, so did not cut the debt.

Damocles said:
no matter how often people lie about what happened in his term, these are the truths of it.
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The fact is the debt clock went in reverse during the end of Clinton's Presidency. The point you are complaining about is that the Social Security surplus was used to create a net surplus, which is a bit of a valid point, but the net debt did go down.
 
Guno צְבִי said:
In its early days, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) bragged it could cut up to $2 trillion from the U.S. federal budget. In December, Musk conceded the special advisory only saved $200 billion in “zombie payments” for cancelled contracts or fraudulent unemployment claims.

But a recent estimation of DOGE’s overall impact indicated any savings it found did little, if anything, for the deficit.

In a deposition video from January, which recently went viral, DOGE employee Nate Cavanaugh said cost-cutting efforts fell far short of its original $2 trillion goal. The deposition was part of a larger lawsuit filed by the American Council of Learned Societies, a nonprofit consortium of scholarly institutions, alleging DOGE used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to identify and then cancel more than $100 million in diversity, equity, and inclusion grants.

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They actually increased the deficit.
 
Damocles said:
Only because he lost control of Congress and they robbed Social Security. He never cut the deficit, we borrowed money to pay interest on the debt... no matter how often people lie about what happened in his term, these are the truths of it.
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Will you admit the Democrat POTUS have significantly out performed the Republican ones in that regard, even if you want to say in each and every instance it was due to some other reasons that the Dem did better or the Republican did worse?
 
QP! said:
Will you admit the Democrat POTUS have significantly out performed the Republican ones in that regard, even if you want to say in each and every instance it was due to some other reasons that the Dem did better or the Republican did worse?
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Newt Gingrich's "contract with America" created a movement that Clinton begrudgingly was forced into when Clinton lost the House Majority for the first time in 42 years to republicans. Newt's "contract with America" created a bit of dramatized imaginary budget math where we stole from one pocket to temporarily fill the other, and still were not quite able to pay down even $1 of actual debt.

I don't know why you would care if I admit that Republicans suck at the debt too... I have spent two decades on this site and 7 more years before I created this site at two other forums telling folks that the moment that the US Dollar is not the international trading money our economy will collapse.

Anyway, the reality is, none of the debt was paid off during this time, zero, nada, it never ran backwards, we borrowed money to pay interest. We simply stole money from the Social Security fund to temporarily make it look that way. There were no recission votes, spending did not drop, we weren't gathering tons of extra revenue that we would not normally from growth...

And because you are stupid and cannot tell the difference between the rare times I am seriously actually giving an opinion and my rather normalized and standard sarcasm. This is one of those rare times where you actually get unvarnished information from me about my opinion on a subject.
 
Damocles said:
Newt Gingrich's "contract with America" created a movement that Clinton begrudgingly was forced into when Clinton lost the House Majority for the first time in 42 years to republicans. Newt's "contract with America" created a bit of dramatized imaginary budget math where we stole from one pocket to temporarily fill the other, and still were not quite able to pay down even $1 of actual debt.

I don't know why you would care if I admit that Republicans suck at the debt too... I have spent two decades on this site and 7 more years before I created this site at two other forums telling folks that the moment that the US Dollar is not the international trading money our economy will collapse.

Anyway, the reality is, none of the debt was paid off during this time, zero, nada, it never ran backwards, we borrowed money to pay interest. We simply stole money from the Social Security fund to temporarily make it look that way. There were no recission votes, spending did not drop, we weren't gathering tons of extra revenue that we would not normally from growth...

And because you are stupid and cannot tell the difference between the rare times I am seriously actually giving an opinion and my rather normalized and standard sarcasm. This is one of those rare times where you actually get unvarnished information from me about my opinion on a subject.
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Ya we can argue about house or senate role but that is not what I am doing.

I am looking for an admission that regardless of that when we have Dem Potus the country does way better to the point it is not even close.

Agree?
 
QP! said:
Ya we can argue about house or senate role but that is not what I am doing.

I am looking for an admission that regardless of that when we have Dem Potus the country does way better to the point it is not even close.

Agree?
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I do not think that though. I think the country does better when Republicans control the purse strings if a Dem is in office. I will say that it is my experience that if the Rs control the purse strings and a populist jackwipe is in the WH that claims to be republican they turn into spendthrifts...
 
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