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Musk says DOGE is halting Treasury payments to US contractors
- boredatoms 2y agoHow is this legal?
- bloomingkales 2y agoLawyers, we need you explain the world right now. Edit: Do not flag this guys, this is our world. It’s very serious.
- lapcat 2y ago> Lawyers, we need you explain the world right now. You don't need a lawyer, you need an exorcist.
- do_not_redeem 2y ago[flagged]
- bloomingkales 2y agoYou want to talk about other things when Fascism is at your doorstep? Sprinkle a little bit of reality into your diet.
- do_not_redeem 2y ago[flagged]
- bloomingkales 2y agoThis thread is also very easy to not click on. I don’t want people like you adding to voices that suggest this isn’t as fucking serious as it is.
- do_not_redeem 2y agoWhen did I suggest it's not serious? I suggested you can go be serious elsewhere. Humanity has lots of horrific things to offer which are serious yet don't belong cluttering up HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You might want to read "What to Submit." Did you submit this because good hackers would find it interesting, and it gratifies your intellectual curiosity? Or did you submit it because you're angry and it's "fucking serious?"
- CyberDildonics 2y agoHacker news is 60% pop culture clickbait at least. Actual new stories of tech oligarchs taking over the US government is more relevant than most of the links.
- nozzlegear 2y agoTech and politics are inextricably linked in our society and daily lives. We can't avoid that truth any longer.
- projectileboy 2y agoHacker News tries to avoid political news in general, but it seems warranted in this case because Musk is a major figure in the tech industry, and also because it appears he’s using a small number of young engineers from his companies to gain access to and control over systems at OPM.
- computerthings 2y ago> it appears he’s using a small number of young engineers from his companies to gain access to and control over systems at OPM. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engin...
- TheCleric 2y agoAt this point, this is the wrong question to ask. The correct question is: if this is illegal what are the possible consequences and when would they be enforced? Musk has shown time and again whether it is legal or not isn’t very important to him. It’s what he can get away with, for how long, and what the possible penalties are.
- QuantumGood 2y agoMusk just has more power and audacity than most. (Reddit style: "You misspelled 'humans' as 'Musk')
- rayiner 2y agoFor the same reason it was legal for Biden to stop payment on contacts for Trump’s border wall: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/biden-terminates-border-wall-construction-485123 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/biden-terminates-bo.... If Congress appropriates a specific amount of money for a specific thing, the president has limited power to not spend the money. But many cases, Congress doesn’t appropriate specific amounts of money for specific things. It appropriates a bunch of money and gives it to agencies and department. That leaves the president with a lot of discretion in how and whether to spend the money. It doesn’t help that Congress has been operating under continuing resolutions. That means Congress is shoveling money to the executive branch but hasn’t enacted former appropriations bills for many things. As to why Musk can do it. Treasury is a department, not even an independent agency. The president runs it, along with the president’s appointee the secretary of treasury. DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President. The President can just create offices for executive managers, like Obama did to appoint the first Chief Technology Officer: https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/20/aneesh_chopra_us_cto/ https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/20/aneesh_chopra_us_cto/.
- mech422 2y ago>>As to why Musk can do it. Treasury is a department, not even an independent agency. The president runs it, along with the president’s appointee the secretary of treasury. DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President. That doesn't give Musk or DOGE authority over it, any more then the dept. of the Interior can control what gets paid..
- rayiner 2y agoI assume Musk is just sending an email to Scott Bessent who orders some Treasury employee to actually stop the payment.
- mech422 2y agoI'd probably have to agree, something along those lines... However, I can't say "Govt by good ole boy network" seems proper - and its really hard to figure out what power/limits/check and balances for all this is... Musk basically took over the IT arm of the executive branch ("U.S. Digital Service") - not sure how that allows him and other people without clearances access to secure data, or to make spending decisions for other groups..
- D13Fd 2y agoIf it’s not legal, who will enforce the law? The courts more or less can’t do it on their own (I.e. without the DOJ). And if the law gets enforced, won’t the president just pardon Musk?
- pavel_lishin 2y agoPaywall. The only actual meat of this article seems to be this paragraph, about a single contractor whose payments are being cut off: Musk said DOGE was shutting down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees. HHS and Lutheran Family Services didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Everything else is mostly fluff, but fluff I've reproduced below: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Elon Musk said his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down payments to federal contractors, suggesting that the world’s richest man may have access to sensitive systems used at the US Treasury Department. “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. The Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to questions about the extent of Musk’s access. President Donald Trump has put the Tesla CEO — and largest donor to his election effort — in charge of an effort to modernize federal information technology. But Musk seems to be expanding that mandate to include control over financial flows in other parts of the federal government. Top security officials at USAID were placed on leave Saturday after refusing to allow DOGE staffers access to systems at the foreign assistance agency, saying they lacked the required security clearances. Musk on Sunday called USAID “a criminal organization” that should “die.” Musk is targeting systems that process tens of billions of dollars in payments for US government agencies and the officials that oversee them. Musk’s statements on Sunday follow last week’s departure of David Lebryk, the Treasury Department’s most senior career official, who had been in charge of payment systems at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Trump gave Musk’s efforts his seal of approval Sunday night. “Elon’s doing a good job,” Trump told reporters Sunday night. “He’s a big cost cutter,” Trump said. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.” Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that he’s been told that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted DOGE full access to Treasury’s payment systems. “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies,” Wyden said on BlueSky, a social media rival to Musk’s X. “All of it.” Treasury officials have long maintained that its role is to serve as the federal government’s checkbook — and that the decision about whether to approve or deny payment belongs to individual agencies based on funds appropriated by Congress. “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once,” Musk wrote on X. Musk said DOGE was shutting down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees. HHS and Lutheran Family Services didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snowwrestler 2y agoI feel like an entire generation of federal prosecutors are going to make careers by following up on what these folks do for the next four years.
- rayiner 2y ago[flagged]
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago> Impoundment is an act by a President of the United States of not spending money that has been appropriated by the U.S. Congress. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to exercise the power of impoundment in 1801. The power was available to all presidents up to and including Richard Nixon, and was regarded as a power inherent to the office, although one with limits. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 was passed in response to the abuse of power under President Nixon.[1] The Act removed that power, and Train v. City of New York (whose facts predate the 1974 Act, but which was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court after its passage), closed potential loopholes in the 1974 Act. The president's ability to indefinitely reject congressionally approved spending was thus removed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_...
- rayiner 2y agoThe Impoundment Act doesn’t require the president to make any specific grant unless Congress specifically says so. The Act says the president needs to seek recession: “Whenever the President determines that all or part of any budget authority will not be required to carry out the full objectives or scope of programs for which it is provided.” Congress typically provides for these “programs” to be quite broad with a big bucket of funding. The president can’t just shut down a program and refuse to spend the money without seeking rescission, but nothing stops the president from canceling specific grants that the executive decides to make out of some larger program.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910345
- jhanschoo 2y agoWhile an important story, I've flagged this for having an extremely inaccurate headline. The headline suggests that Treasury payments to contractors are in the process of being halted; presumably blind as to whether services have been rendered or not. However, pavel_lishin points out that presently only one payee is having the relationship terminated. In addition, it is a charity, which means that I suspect that the payment was a recurring grant rendered without expectation of services. The other relationships are presumably being reviewed.
- ddalex 2y agoI mean EVERYTHING related to Musk is flagged, how do you expect to explain your PoV if it is flagged ? :D
- tim333 2y agoIt doesn't seems a very efficient way of doing things, for an efficiency department. I mean they should plan things out and hear arguments for what is effective or not rather than just stopping payments arbitrarily.
- camillomiller 2y agoWhy was this post flagged?
- hooverd 2y agoThe HN ownership explicitly approves of our South African friend's actions.
- aceazzameen 2y agoIt's more likely that Musk cultists or Musk bots are flagging it.