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Between Elon's stated goals, the systems under scope and my personal experience from state & local finance, they are performing a strategic efficacy audit of tr

Between Elon's stated goals, the systems under scope and my personal experience from state & local finance, they are performing a strategic efficacy audit of treasury spending. The US Treasury normally doesn't audit transactions -- they execute requests for transfers from other agencies and defer governance to congressional oversight. The GAO doesn't even audit in the intuitive sense. They audit that spending is being recorded properly, and for many agencies even that low bar isn't met. In other words GAO is okay with you dumping money into a hole as long as you count how much. DOGE is doing a practical audit of the spending. i.e. taking high-level spending principals from trump and identifying specific budget items to eliminate.

tonymet 2y ago
It's worth noting the difference between Budget & expenses since families normally blur the two. Budgets are the plans developed by the President and approved by Congress, and expenses are what actually get spent during the year-- and they vary widely. DOGE's unique approach is to use the Treasury as the "chokepoint" for telemetry so they can cluster and classify all of the transactions . Imagine a massive microservices platform with 10k services and you want to know which ones are viable ( cost/benefit). Rather than survey all 10k, you would surveil a router or LB chokepoint to measure the input & output of all 10k services. That seems to be their approach with the treasury.
- kelnos 2y ago
  One minor nit: while presidents do usually present their version of the ideal budget, Congress is responsible for developing the budget, and what they pass can sometimes look pretty different from what the president proposes.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    Good point
Trasmatta 2y ago
This is propaganda.
- liontwist 2y ago
  and the messaging saying that it’s a fascist power grab by oligarchs is not propaganda? This is politics. All parties are presenting messaging that supports their goals.
- tonymet 2y ago
  how so?
guax 2y ago
Asking the treasury to do ideological/legal analysis of transactions is the same as giving your bank the responsibility of approving your credit card expenditure based on their idea of what you need/should buy. The fact that they're going for the payment system and not for contract/orders analysis is exactly the red flag people are and should be concerned about.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Banks actually do that though. Credit cards have massive risk analysis engines behind them, and the limits are tied to your creditworthyness. So maybe it's not a good analogy.
  - guax 2y ago
    Thats for giving you credit. Not for spending your own balance.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      It's about spending your balance too. They will block transactions if they think there's a high risk of the transaction triggering a chargeback complaint, if they think the recipient might be sanctioned, if they aren't sure if the card was cloned etc.
- tonymet 2y ago
  What would be your recommendation?

tonymet 2y ago

It's worth noting the difference between Budget & expenses since families normally blur the two. Budgets are the plans developed by the President and approved by Congress, and expenses are what actually get spent during the year-- and they vary widely. DOGE's unique approach is to use the Treasury as the "chokepoint" for telemetry so they can cluster and classify all of the transactions . Imagine a massive microservices platform with 10k services and you want to know which ones are viable ( cost/benefit). Rather than survey all 10k, you would surveil a router or LB chokepoint to measure the input & output of all 10k services. That seems to be their approach with the treasury.

kelnos 2y ago
One minor nit: while presidents do usually present their version of the ideal budget, Congress is responsible for developing the budget, and what they pass can sometimes look pretty different from what the president proposes.
- tonymet 2y ago
  Good point

Trasmatta 2y ago

This is propaganda.

liontwist 2y ago
and the messaging saying that it’s a fascist power grab by oligarchs is not propaganda? This is politics. All parties are presenting messaging that supports their goals.
tonymet 2y ago
how so?

guax 2y ago

Asking the treasury to do ideological/legal analysis of transactions is the same as giving your bank the responsibility of approving your credit card expenditure based on their idea of what you need/should buy. The fact that they're going for the payment system and not for contract/orders analysis is exactly the red flag people are and should be concerned about.

mike_hearn 2y ago
Banks actually do that though. Credit cards have massive risk analysis engines behind them, and the limits are tied to your creditworthyness. So maybe it's not a good analogy.
- guax 2y ago
  Thats for giving you credit. Not for spending your own balance.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    It's about spending your balance too. They will block transactions if they think there's a high risk of the transaction triggering a chargeback complaint, if they think the recipient might be sanctioned, if they aren't sure if the card was cloned etc.
tonymet 2y ago
What would be your recommendation?