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>>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

>>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 ago
I assume Musk is just sending an email to Scott Bessent who orders some Treasury employee to actually stop the payment.
- mech422 2y ago
  I'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..
  - rayiner 2y ago
    There’s no “check and balances” issue here. This is entirely within the executive branch. Congress forked over a bunch of money to the executive to give out as grants. People with delegated authority from the elected president and his senate confirmed department head are stopping payment on some grants. That delegated authority is the only authority any executive branch employee has. Now, it’s fair to say that Trump and Musk are exploiting the fact that Congress abdicated its “power of the purse” to a great extent by giving the executive a bunch of slush funds instead of making specific appropriations. But that’s Congress’s problem. Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases.
    - ggm 2y ago
      > Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases. Useful info. I had forgotten he had that. Considering his 420 romps, it's surprising he retains it because more lowly worms lose theirs on less cause. But, your assumptions about line employees belies what I think is pretty well established ICT practice in government. If you can read it, your reading is logged. if you can alter it, you're in a small set and it's constrained by training/induction and also very strongly inculcated into "properly" Just randomly dumping the entire dataset to some disk you have brought in, and telling your wizzkid to look at it bigly, would not fall into usual practices.
    - mech422 2y ago
      It appears Musk's employees don't have clearance - which is apparently why they were denied access by the USAID _security_ officials. Its sorta their jobs. Given a lot of us work in Tech, I doubt most of our security officers would accept "tons of line employess" have access as an excuse :-P Not to mention plugging in hard drives (how are federal system even allowing usb devices to be accessed?? My stupid work laptop locks that down ??) Also, there may not be 'check and balances' but there is certainly procedure - which seems to be why lawsuits were filed. Specifically it appears around: "whether DOGE is a presidential advisory commission obeying federal transparency rules about certain practices, such as disclosure and hiring" and "alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that "the advisory committee have a fair balance in viewpoints represented, that they do not meet in secret, and that their records and work product be made available for public inspection." Anyway - guess we'll see how it plays out - but I wish there were some more clear cut explanations about
      - rayiner 2y ago
        The advisory commission lawsuit likely will fail. It’s based on the structure of DOGE disclosed prior to the inauguration, where it was to be an advisory committee outside the government. Apparently some smart lawyer looked at things again, and instead decided to create DOGE within the shell of USDS, in the executive office of the president.
      - 2y ago

rayiner 2y ago

I assume Musk is just sending an email to Scott Bessent who orders some Treasury employee to actually stop the payment.

mech422 2y ago
I'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..
- rayiner 2y ago
  There’s no “check and balances” issue here. This is entirely within the executive branch. Congress forked over a bunch of money to the executive to give out as grants. People with delegated authority from the elected president and his senate confirmed department head are stopping payment on some grants. That delegated authority is the only authority any executive branch employee has. Now, it’s fair to say that Trump and Musk are exploiting the fact that Congress abdicated its “power of the purse” to a great extent by giving the executive a bunch of slush funds instead of making specific appropriations. But that’s Congress’s problem. Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases.
  - ggm 2y ago
    > Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases. Useful info. I had forgotten he had that. Considering his 420 romps, it's surprising he retains it because more lowly worms lose theirs on less cause. But, your assumptions about line employees belies what I think is pretty well established ICT practice in government. If you can read it, your reading is logged. if you can alter it, you're in a small set and it's constrained by training/induction and also very strongly inculcated into "properly" Just randomly dumping the entire dataset to some disk you have brought in, and telling your wizzkid to look at it bigly, would not fall into usual practices.
  - mech422 2y ago
    It appears Musk's employees don't have clearance - which is apparently why they were denied access by the USAID _security_ officials. Its sorta their jobs. Given a lot of us work in Tech, I doubt most of our security officers would accept "tons of line employess" have access as an excuse :-P Not to mention plugging in hard drives (how are federal system even allowing usb devices to be accessed?? My stupid work laptop locks that down ??) Also, there may not be 'check and balances' but there is certainly procedure - which seems to be why lawsuits were filed. Specifically it appears around: "whether DOGE is a presidential advisory commission obeying federal transparency rules about certain practices, such as disclosure and hiring" and "alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that "the advisory committee have a fair balance in viewpoints represented, that they do not meet in secret, and that their records and work product be made available for public inspection." Anyway - guess we'll see how it plays out - but I wish there were some more clear cut explanations about
    - rayiner 2y ago
      The advisory commission lawsuit likely will fail. It’s based on the structure of DOGE disclosed prior to the inauguration, where it was to be an advisory committee outside the government. Apparently some smart lawyer looked at things again, and instead decided to create DOGE within the shell of USDS, in the executive office of the president.
    - 2y ago