5 ms·

USAID was audited by an (actual) independent (actual) auditor in November of 2024. They recommended a review of leases and to tighten up their employee expense

USAID was audited by an (actual) independent (actual) auditor in November of 2024. They recommended a review of leases and to tighten up their employee expense reporting requirements. You have no reason to believe Elon is either competent, nor independent, nor well-intentioned on any of this. No, no one is against “a more efficient government.” Obviously. No one is “pro-fraud.” Obviously. Please post specific examples of fraud that DOGE has surfaced, not just “things that were congressionally approved but I don’t like.”

paulddraper 2y ago
> congressionally approved You say that like it’s a good thing…
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Following the constitutionally designed balance of powers is a good thing, even when some line items appear in the budget which I personally disagree with. This is what’s known as “compromise,” or otherwise “being a fucking adult.”
  - paulddraper 2y ago
    Yeah it's called pork.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      One man's pork is another man's bacon. That's why it's in the budget. Everything in the budget had someone advocating for it, whether you agree with them or not. That's part of living in a society. As a child, you may have run into situations where you had to accept something you didn't think was perfect in order to get something you really wanted. This is like the big kid version of that! It's so complicated and so important to do at scale that we actually create these very elaborate systems called "governments" to manage the process. What we found over time was that these big systems could be captured by people who didn't want to compromise, so we invented "Constitutions" that constrain the system, regardless of who is currently operating it. Right now, you're saying that your personal assessment of what's pork and what's not justifies weakening the system that keeps all of us safe from our government. lol @ civilized people in 2025 falling for the “authoritarianism in exchange for quality of life promises” trick.
lend000 2y ago
This is what I saw most recently: [0]. Whether or not it could be vaguely considered to be congressionally authorized (the executive branch has leeway in the execution of said laws) is more or less irrelevant to whether it's wasteful and/or fraudulent, but it looks like those examples were not documented in law anyway. I imagine it will be thousands and thousands of examples of "small time corruption" with a few million here and a few tens of millions here that in no sane world should be spent. And for some reason, people prefer to hate billionaires that create wealth when instructed by multimillionaires who siphon wealth from taxpayers but happen to own newspapers. > You have no reason to believe Elon is either competent, nor independent, nor well-intentioned on any of this. You could say the last two about anyone, but to deny that Elon is competent, especially coming from an anonymous internet commenter... okay. [0] https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1887562751364481290 https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1887562751364481290
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  If only there were professionals we could pay to go into an organization and find waste, fraud, and abuse so we wouldn't have to rely on people like @ricwe123 on X. Ah, yes, there are. They're called auditors. They audited USAID 4 months ago. The entire US government spent only $7.7MM on Politico over the last 12 months. Oooo spooky stuff, if only there was a way to see what for! Turns out there is. You can scroll down and see the shocking revelation that the US government paid a news publication for subscriptions to a news publication! Similar to how if you work in the energy industry, for example, a smart employer would pay for energy trade publications so you can do your job better. https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c3-1bd39cc6a49e-C/latest https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c... In fact you can drill down all the way to individual line items. Here's the 49 subscriptions to Politico Pro that HHS, an organization with 83,500 employees, purchased. Looks suuuuper abusive... /s https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75F40120P00453_7524_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75F40120P00453_75... > to deny that Elon is competent Please show evidence of Elon being a competent public sector financial auditor. Or are we to believe that competence is just arbitrarily cross-applicable?
  - 2y ago

paulddraper 2y ago

> congressionally approved You say that like it’s a good thing…

llamaimperative 2y ago
Following the constitutionally designed balance of powers is a good thing, even when some line items appear in the budget which I personally disagree with. This is what’s known as “compromise,” or otherwise “being a fucking adult.”
- paulddraper 2y ago
  Yeah it's called pork.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    One man's pork is another man's bacon. That's why it's in the budget. Everything in the budget had someone advocating for it, whether you agree with them or not. That's part of living in a society. As a child, you may have run into situations where you had to accept something you didn't think was perfect in order to get something you really wanted. This is like the big kid version of that! It's so complicated and so important to do at scale that we actually create these very elaborate systems called "governments" to manage the process. What we found over time was that these big systems could be captured by people who didn't want to compromise, so we invented "Constitutions" that constrain the system, regardless of who is currently operating it. Right now, you're saying that your personal assessment of what's pork and what's not justifies weakening the system that keeps all of us safe from our government. lol @ civilized people in 2025 falling for the “authoritarianism in exchange for quality of life promises” trick.

lend000 2y ago

This is what I saw most recently: [0]. Whether or not it could be vaguely considered to be congressionally authorized (the executive branch has leeway in the execution of said laws) is more or less irrelevant to whether it's wasteful and/or fraudulent, but it looks like those examples were not documented in law anyway. I imagine it will be thousands and thousands of examples of "small time corruption" with a few million here and a few tens of millions here that in no sane world should be spent. And for some reason, people prefer to hate billionaires that create wealth when instructed by multimillionaires who siphon wealth from taxpayers but happen to own newspapers. > You have no reason to believe Elon is either competent, nor independent, nor well-intentioned on any of this. You could say the last two about anyone, but to deny that Elon is competent, especially coming from an anonymous internet commenter... okay. [0] https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1887562751364481290 https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1887562751364481290

llamaimperative 2y ago
If only there were professionals we could pay to go into an organization and find waste, fraud, and abuse so we wouldn't have to rely on people like @ricwe123 on X. Ah, yes, there are. They're called auditors. They audited USAID 4 months ago. The entire US government spent only $7.7MM on Politico over the last 12 months. Oooo spooky stuff, if only there was a way to see what for! Turns out there is. You can scroll down and see the shocking revelation that the US government paid a news publication for subscriptions to a news publication! Similar to how if you work in the energy industry, for example, a smart employer would pay for energy trade publications so you can do your job better. https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c3-1bd39cc6a49e-C/latest https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c... In fact you can drill down all the way to individual line items. Here's the 49 subscriptions to Politico Pro that HHS, an organization with 83,500 employees, purchased. Looks suuuuper abusive... /s https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75F40120P00453_7524_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75F40120P00453_75... > to deny that Elon is competent Please show evidence of Elon being a competent public sector financial auditor. Or are we to believe that competence is just arbitrarily cross-applicable?
- 2y ago