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DOGE puts $1 spending limit on government employee credit cards
- wewewedxfgdf 2y agoI felt a great disturbance in The Force, like a million SAAS and cloud companies crying out.
- bagels 2y agoWho administers these cards?
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe GSA system works through Citibank and U S. Bank, which take a small percentage off the top.
- codingwagie 2y agoThere have been alot of companies getting funded to create SAAS for the government.
- factorialboy 2y agoMagazines and news media will suffer most. SaaS / B2B contracts larger than a certain amount won't be on employee credit cards.
- iAMkenough 2y agoHow do you figure? Is this conjecture based on the propaganda out of DOGE? The media spend they're purporting are also over that certain amount.
- factorialboy 2y agoNo. Employee cards are not used for significant purchases. They are for employee expenses.
- alaithea 2y agoNot exactly. They can be and are often used for larger provisional purchases. For example, when we wanted to get Slack or any SaaS, it was put on a charge card so we could start using it quickly, but that would start the clock ticking on an official procurement, which entailed legal and security reviews, etc.
- factorialboy 2y agoExactly my point. Serious pubsec procurement is not done on employee cards.
- iAMkenough 2y agoThat is incorrect. They are for business expenses, like buying gas to fill your company car while traveling.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoUsing cards is the preferred procurement method for expenses under the $10k threshold. I suspect that covers a lot more than magazines and news.
- factorialboy 2y agoNot employee cards
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe article directly states that this applies to the GSA smartpay cards. Those are limited to approved purchases under the micro procurement threshold under GSA directives.
- factorialboy 2y agoExactly my point. Micro-Purchases.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe micro threshold is $10k, as I said earlier.
- factorialboy 2y agoYes, I get that. You may be underestimating the size of typical PubSec deals.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoI'm not talking about the multibillion dollar agency deals, I'm talking about day to day procurement like equipment, printing costs, office supplies, etc. You know, the routine purchases that keep the government running.
- 2y ago
- BobaFloutist 2y agoThat seems pretty low.
- factorialboy 2y agoMagazines and news media will suffer most. SaaS / B2B contracts larger than a certain amount won't be on employee credit cards.
- tartoran 2y ago> larger than a certain amount Larger than $1 is in this case zero, there's nothing one can buy for $1 on a credit card. I'm not sure why they chose this amount and didn't just set it to 0. Not sure when this is coming but soon government employees will need to bring their own paper and other needed officeware from home, unless they'll have to bring toilet paper and soap as well if the cut is too deep. At the same time the billionaire class has nearly doubled their wealth and nobody is batting an eye for it. Strange times we're living indeed.
- eitally 2y agoAfaict, they're doing everything the easy way. I wouldn't be surprised if the CC bank doesn't allow a $0 option, but DOGE doesn't want to actually administratively cancel all cards, either, so they're left with this.
- alaithea 2y agoGovernment workers were already making do with a lot less than is generally accepted in the private sector, especially after the GSA conference scandal of somewhat over a decade ago.[1] During my time as a federal employee, many government offices had no soap at the kitchenettes, and some had no coffee. Folks tended to bring in their own drip-coffee pots for the office. [1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/04/03/149930467/gsa-clown-conference-scandal-could-result-in-counterproductive-reaction https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/04/03/14993...
- tartoran 2y agoIt's an interesting arch.. I was not aware it got this bad. This is breaking the norm of hygiene, come on, soap and toilet paper was only missing in the third world or communist Easter block or Russia.
- jamesgreenleaf 2y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20250220174125/https://www.wired.com/story/doge-government-credit-cards/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250220174125/https://www.wired... I forget where I read this, but shutting off the cards was part of the playbook when Musk took ownership of Twitter. If I remember correctly, they shut off the cards and waited to see who complained. Apparently they discovered a bunch of subscription services that no one had even signed into or used at all, just paying out for years.
- alaithea 2y agoThat sounds like more of a failure of management than of the employee charge card system. They should be screening those charges and periodically reviewing contracts anyway.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lelandfe 2y agoCouldn't find much. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ends-many-twitter-perks-expenses-due-to-financial-situation-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ends-many-twitter-... > Twitter will no longer be covering several costs or paying for a number of perks made available to employees, some for many years, for example. And the maximum amount allotted for work-related trips has been limited, as those trips are also set to become rarer. > The allowance for a mobile phone bill is now $50 per month and the daily allowance for food while on a work trip is now $75... Meanwhile, the overall limit on expenses for any kind of work-related travel has been "revised" by seniority level Searched for things like "expenses," "cards," "subscriptions," etc.
- tecleandor 2y agoYeah, you don't even have to look on employees perks. Can easily go to the list of hundred (or hundreds already) of SaaS and similar stuff available in my company, and see contracts in the hundreds of thousands a year that nobody know who's using it. Or multiple contracts with the same function. Or Hashicorp contracts. :P
- duxup 2y agoDODGE is that new middle manager who thinks they know how everything works but doesn’t… and isn’t smart enough to ask.
- rqtwteye 2y agoAnd gets a big bonus for the "savings". And gets promoted before the consequences are seen.
- duxup 2y agoI wonder what the DODGE credit cards look like…
- ryandrake 2y agoI bet if you audited the company cards and other discretionary perk-spending of the top brass (who are in Elon's orbit) at Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, you'll find tons and tons of "inefficiency and waste" if not outright strip clubs and hookers type stuff.
- duxup 2y agoThe real waste is always produced by the folks who are exempt.
- tombert 2y agoYeah I find it odd that DOGE hasn't found any inefficiencies with SpaceX's and Tesla's contracts with the government. It's almost like they don't really care about things being "efficient".
- ryandrake 2y agoYea, such an odd coincidence! I wonder how many parts of the government they'll declare as "inefficient" and "wasteful" where there's a corporate donor just licking their chops, waiting to swoop in and profit from the same work. That'll be such a goofy coincidence, too.
- alaithea 2y agoDumbest change ever. The employee charge cards are there to get rid of red tape. Now workers will have to spend $100 of their time filling out forms to buy $50 worth of office supplies.
- eitally 2y agoThis is the equivalent level of pettiness as removing free coffee from offices.
- alaithea 2y agoMany government offices had no free coffee already. This was the case in the mid-teens at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where the federal CTO and CIO sit, and the National Security Council, just to name a couple.
- vonmoltke 2y agoI spent the first 9.5 years of my career at a large defense contractor. We never had free coffee.
- sitkack 2y agoJust one person taking a coffee break to go get coffee obviates any savings. The free coffee isn't there for the staff, it is there to save the org money.
- selectodude 2y agoThe federal government is so worried about the appearance of spending excess taxpayer money that employees set up water clubs and coffee clubs where the employees all chip in for a water cooler and a coffee machine every month.
- fallingknife 2y ago
- jpcom 2y ago[flagged]
- grayhatter 2y agohuh? what idea are you trying to convey?
- subjectsigma 2y agoHow the fuck does kneecapping the ability of government employees to purchase things on a credit card increase accountability? Either they’re monitoring purchases or they aren’t, it isn’t any more difficult to do so with a credit card. Like, you do understand that all purchases on a CC are inherently digital and thus logged by default?
- jpcom 2y ago[flagged]
- throwway120385 2y ago> Like 290 year olds getting social security benefits. Please do share what you're referring to here.
- jpcom 2y agohttps://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076
- subjectsigma 2y agoYou have yet to explain how this is an attempt to improve accountability in any way, shape, or form. All your comments in this thread are smug, vague nods to unrelated issues or platitudes. Neither you nor DOGE has presented anything resembling a coherent, logical plan. From your comment history it’s clear you have the mental capacity of a can of beans and I’m fucking appalled I (probably) have to live in a country where your votes influence policy decisions which affect my life.
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago[dead]
- ryandrake 2y agoIt’s almost as if, instead of “rooting out waste and corruption,” they are really just griefing workers, doing all sorts of big and small things to make their lives uncertain and miserable… If they were really attacking waste, why haven’t they so much as made a peep about military spending?
- mzarate06 2y agoWe are in fact seeing press attention regarding military budget cuts the Trump Administration's looking to enact: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/hegseth-military-major-budget-cuts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/hegseth-military-maj...
- vacuity 2y agoIndeed. It's moreso the case that they view everything as "waste and corruption" and are making everyone miserable, but if you look at the (currently) top thread[1], it's a deliberate move at that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43120677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43120677
- ryandrake 2y agoYour article points out that that's a rare topic where there is a disconnect among the Administration. Not everyone in Trump/Elon's orbit seems to be aligned on what to do about military spending. DOGE has so far steered clear of it. They are definitely not as laser focused on that as they are on nickling and diming workers and removing database columns that deal with diversity and inclusion.
- Balgair 2y agoThis is why in the debate of : Are they fascists or idiots? I tend to come down on idiots. Fascist can be idiots, of course, but they tend to glorify the military (per Eco). And thus far, these guys have shown that they are mostly going to just bumble around and be gloryhounds. Sure Donny like the pomp, but real fascists wouldn't be gutting the NNSA or the DoD. They'd be building it up and expanding it, even at this early stage. The only 'but' I can think of is that they are going to gut the military, then build it back up with fellow nutters. Something that many admins (and countries!) have tried to do to the Pentagon, and have all failed at. Still, assume stupidity, not conspiracy, per Hanlon's razor.
- amelius 2y agoThis whole situation makes me think of a child who says "If I were president for a day, I would ..."
- physhster 2y agoAnybody would do a better jobs than these clowns.
- morkalork 2y agoNah, that is like saying a child could make a Jackson Pollock or Basquait painting. It looks like random chaos but it is most definitely intentional.
- amelius 2y agoExcept Pollock didn't behave like a child.
- Lennie 2y agoI think they are doing really well (by their own standards), the job is to destroy the government. They want to get rid of taxes and rules and regulations that prevent them from keeping their money and doing whatever they want.
- alabastervlog 2y agoTrump's platform the first time he ran was practically "what do bumpkins in country diners say the government should do?" Those of us with connections to those kinds of people and places recognized shit like "build the wall!" because we'd been hearing "they ought to just build a wall" for decades from our dumber associates. (though half the time this took the form of "they should just place landmines the whole length of the border" and at least he didn't pick that part up) This did have the interesting effect of making some of his positions cross-party populist, like his neoliberalism- and free-trade-skepticism. Normal republican voters hate that stuff and will tell you so, as do lots of left-wingers, but both parties (from about 1980 to 2016) loved all of it. He also talked some weirdly leftist talk, a few times, about healthcare, but with no specifics or clear plan, and that wasn't something he ended up taking action on. Same reason, though: Republicans have been told to hate "Obamacare", so they do, but lots of them also hate our existing healthcare system and insurance companies especially. Another gap between the voters and what their own party's officials were delivering, for him to exploit. They'd 100% eat up universal healthcare if a Republican promoted it, it's all in the letter next to the name. It's why I figured he'd at least get the R nomination, if not win the whole thing, well before most folks considered him anything but a joke candidate.
- koch 2y agoI'm reminded of the story of the Air Force designing cockpits for the "average" pilot, only to find that > out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions [0] Surely, there are so many employees in general that probationary employees aren't needed. And surely, most government employees don't need to purchase things on a daily basis, so we can inhibit their credit card use. And most contracts about XYZ aren't crucial, so we can cancel them. But, my goodness, there is so much nuance and breadth to the things a government does, let alone the government that is responsible for the largest military and that props up a big part of the world economy, that compounding these rash decisions will have far-reaching and serious blowback. I'm all about efficiency, but why be stupid about it? The plane that we're all on is being dismantled midair, the engines have been turned off, and we're just gliding now. Gliding or falling, anyway [0] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages/article_e3231734-e5da-5bf5-9496-a34e52d60bd9.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...
- UncleMeat 2y agoBecause this isn't about efficiency. The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. They haven't been especially subtle about it in their writing. The ideal outcome is not the same government outcomes but at 70% of the cost. The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms.
- euroderf 2y ago> The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms. This is, of course, the model for Russian oligarchs.
- WesolyKubeczek 2y agoIs the US going the way the aftermath of which is described in Neuromancer, or is it going to be Snow Crash, complete with visas to every city state, and the "US" part that's left deluded that they are in control?
- avelis 2y agoOk. So for Musk I would like to cap the money borrowed against his stock portfolio to also be $1.
- azan_ 2y agoI wonder what effect DOGE will have on attracting talent to government jobs. It was already challenging to recruit qualified individuals to government positions; with these changes, I believe the situation will worsen significantly.
- MattPalmer1086 2y agoThe intended one I imagine. They said they want to create trauma for government workers.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/books/review/administrative-state-trump-bannon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/books/review/administrati...
- threeseed 2y agoThere is a podcast from New York Times with interviews from government workers [1]. From all accounts the firing was incompletely indiscriminate and so many people who you would think would never be fired were e.g. US Army Corp of Engineers working on flood prevention. And so I can't imagine anyone wanting to join the government when there is a strong chance you will be fired in the medium term with no notice and with no reason. All after you've physically moved you/family to Washington because remote work is no longer available. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/podcasts/the-daily/trump-ederal-workers-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/podcasts/the-daily/trump-...
- lenerdenator 2y ago> I wonder what effect DOGE will have on attracting talent to government jobs. It was already challenging to recruit qualified individuals to government positions; with these changes, I believe the situation will worsen significantly. The idea is to replace these government positions with private positions. Remember feudalism? Some guy with all of the capital - which, in those days, meant arable land - basically got to dictate how things worked, because he had the stuff you, as a peasant, needed to live. He was called the king. If you didn't do what he wanted, your life got cut short. Government was just one guy's ideas enforced by his brute squad. In many ways, it was a sole proprietorship. Eventually, nobility was required to administer the land, and that nobility eventually turned into a structure that could keep the king somewhat in check, lest they carry out a coup. They became the administrative state. Today, we have legislative, judicial and executive bodies that - at least ostensibly - need to win election in order to do the same thing, thus replacing the nobility. That's the ultimate goal here: the dismantling of the administrative state. The administrative state carries out laws made by a body - in this case, Congress - that, at least in theory, puts society's desires at the center. A number of these laws directly impact the ability of capital holders to generate more capital. Since the people holding this capital think that the only reason humans do anything is to create more capital, they go to any lengths to keep society's "unprofitable" desires at bay. Since the accumulation of capital can result in monopoly, you will, at some point, have someone controlling all of the capital again. This is a return to feudalism. You won't be swinging a scythe in a field in a toque and tunic, but the structure will be the same.
- yongjik 2y agoIf any Silicon valley company did this HN will have a party roasting it. These days I'm convinced that the usual "The government can't do anything right!" pro-Trump guys are not saying it as a warning or complaint: it's an aspirational quote for them.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoEveryone here has had management with overly tight 'you must track your time' and 'you can only work on XYZ tasks' (normally where XYZ is capitalizable or billable) requirements and we all know how that turns out.
- averageRoyalty 2y agoI'm not American, but it seems this has been going for weeks now. Are these changes/this access to various things actually impacting normal Americans at all? I understand the impact on government workers, but I'm curious if this is actually changing peoples lives in any way. We were barraged for 6 months about how Twitter would fall over the next day when Elon took over there and took a radical stance, and it just didn't. I'm curious if this will be similar.
- jarsin 2y agoThe average American rarely deals directly with the federal government.
- iAMkenough 2y agoBut the effects cascade down to other levels of government, service providers and businesses in their area.
- throwway120385 2y agoThe average American files their tax return with the IRS once a year. The IRS just lost 15,000 employees. This tax season is going to make 2020 look smooth and efficient and fast.
- LorenDB 2y agohttps://archive.ph/k1EdO https://archive.ph/k1EdO
- adamredwoods 2y agoGuess what? You can see all this information, because of government transparency (not DOGE): https://smartpay.gsa.gov/about/statistics/ https://smartpay.gsa.gov/about/statistics/ >> GSA SmartPay statistics for fiscal year 2024: $39.7 billion in total program spend. $506 million in refunds earned by agencies/organizations. $441 was spent on average for each transaction.
- FollowingTheDao 2y agoThis is yet another thing that will help bring on a recession/depression. First they create unemployment and lower spending from the layoffs. Now anyone left cannot spend money. What effect do they think that will have on the economy?
- johnnyanmac 2y agoPretty clear at this point that Trump is not about creating jobs. And that DOGE isn't about government efficiency. I mean, he declared himself king. This is just a direct attack on America as we know it.
- jarsin 2y agoThey want the 10 year down to zero again. The only way it goes there is to force a recession. There is no other way to do it fast enough to blame the recession on previous administration than to up the unemployment rate fast.
- energy123 2y agoWhy would you force a recession to escape interest payments totalling 4% of GDP? It makes more sense to preserve a strong real economy to help fund those interest payments.
- FollowingTheDao 2y agoA recession does not hurt the wealthy, it helps them. They buy everything the poor sell to stay alive. "You will own nothing and be happy" was a command.
- jarsin 2y agoThe interest payments are greater than the defense budget. It will bankrupt the US. > In 2024, the U.S. government paid $1.2 trillion in interest on its debt, which was a record high. This was the second largest federal expenditure, after Social Security.
- brink 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- threeseed 2y agoa) Based on polling, only 3/10 Americans support DOGE [1]. b) There is widespread (almost unanimous you would imagine) support for reducing waste, corruption etc in government. The issue is how you do it and whether you are negatively impacting people for little gain. c) And from what we've seen to date, DOGE has not found anything that wasn't already known long ago by the Inspectors Generals. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5105472-donald-trump-doge-support-survey/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5105472-donald-t...
- flutas 2y ago> a) Based on polling, only 3/10 Americans support DOGE [1]. and yet, here's an article that says the almost all of their focus group supports doge[0], saying explicitly: > "These swing voters are delighted by Musk's Trump-endorsed government housecleaning," Got any sources for your "c" claim? [0]: https://www.axios.com/2025/02/14/arizona-voters-trump-elon-musk-executive-orders https://www.axios.com/2025/02/14/arizona-voters-trump-elon-m...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Izkata 2y ago> by Filip Timotija - 01/24/25 3:04 PM ET Got anything more recent? Such as, after they started doing stuff? Even supporters were wary of creating a new department for this, because of the risk of it just lingering around without doing much and expanding the federal government, before seeing how they went about it.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoCare to elaborate on your point? What's the "averqge' American as of now?
- readthenotes1 2y ago"so-called DOGE" The article is paywalled, but I would be willing to bet that there's not much discussion were those credit card transactions were made.
- mtmail 2y agohttps://archive.ph/k1EdO https://archive.ph/k1EdO
- readthenotes1 2y agoThanks My guess was true. No mention of strip clubs or casinos. https://time.com/4472824/pentagon-spending-strip-club-casino/ https://time.com/4472824/pentagon-spending-strip-club-casino...
- f154hfds 2y ago[flagged]
- alaithea 2y agoIf your bank wanted to downsize, how would you feel about them doing it by allowing a rogue team of 20-something software developers access to all its most sensitive IT systems?
- tredre3 2y ago> The real critique in my opinion is lack of professionalism but this gets somewhat subjective. I think that's the point here, the overt pettiness from Musk/Trump. If they feel like employees shouldn't have company cards, then fine, just take them away! Surely it would be cheaper to cancel the cards than to keep track of all (now effectively useless) active cards?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoThe card is not a "perk". It's not there to make expenses that benefit you. For travel expenses, it gives the company more control/monitoring and a tiny percentage benefit because they get the equivalent of cashback/points, not you (for you, the advantage is that you aren't required to front the company the money). For non-travel expenses, it means you can spend company money on tools without wasting hours over $20 in shitty bureaucratic spending processes meant for much bigger purchases. If you need a specific adapter for work, and your manager approves that, you can buy it from Amazon or your local retailer, rather than filing a request to add a vendor to your purchasing system so this $20 item can hopefully be delivered in two months. The alternatives are either you paying the $20 out of pocket because you don't want to deal with the hassle (i.e. essentially the business blackmailing you into donating money to them with the threat that your work would really suck otherwise), or you literally telling your boss, for months, that that urgent project is still waiting on that adapter, which is waiting on the approval that typically comes within 2-3 months.
- bayareabadboy 2y ago[flagged]
- TomBombadildoze 2y agoUnpopular because it's so flagrantly ignorant. How much do you know about the "egregious" expenditures by rank-and-file federal employees just doing their jobs?
- ushuz 2y agoMaybe $2T too much?
- ianburrell 2y ago$2 trillion is all of the discretionary spending including defense. Are you saying the whole federal government except for entitlements should be eliminated? Anyone who worries about spending without talking about taxes is not serious or being deceptive. The cause of the current deficit is mostly Trump tax cuts. Plus all of the temporary spending to get out of the pandemic recession. The solution is to remove the Trump tax cuts.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tombert 2y agoMaybe it is, but also maybe it's actually really expensive to run a country as big as the United States, and maybe people offering simple truisms and simple solutions to complicated problems are just full of shit. Just maybe.
- sf_rob 2y agoUSA government spending as a percent of GDP is on the lower side of developed nations (high 30s depending on the source). Our peers are Luxembourg and Norway, and we’re well below France and Germany. Granted that we are one of the few developed nations that don’t provide universal healthcare which biases us lower. While I’d share your concerns about fiscal sustainability, we’re an outlier on tax receipts not spending.
- asah 2y agowhat about gas cards for postal workers and other delivery people? https://www.google.com/search?q=gas+charge+cards+postal+workers https://www.google.com/search?q=gas+charge+cards+postal+work...
- merillecuz56 2y ago[dead]
- lapcat 2y agoThe cruelty is the point. Never forget that simple but sharp observation. The point is to make an example of federal workers. They are the scapegoats now. Every power grab needs scapegoats to justify the power grab. The more the scapegoats suffer hardships, the better. It has to be public humiliation.
- e40 2y agoThis a million times. The architects of this have been telling us for decades what they want. They want to drown government in the proverbial bathtub. On mobile so I can get a link to the quote from decades ago.
- e40 2y agoHere's the quote: "I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist#Views_on_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist#Views_on_gover...
- neuroelectron 2y agoEveryone griping about red tape don't understand that the red tape is the point. If your expense is important enough to go through the paperwork then it can be addressed and petty cash increased. Otherwise, what do you think is better in the long term for effectiveness. Cutting the limit on thousands or hundreds of thousands spending accounts and going through the exceptions or letting them spend without oversight forever while you try to comb the queue looking for fraud, trying to get people to answer the phone and playing email tag?
- righthand 2y agoWhere does it say there was no oversight in spending? That is a part of the lie. Locking up cards because “something could happen” is just a useless defense. The funds could get approved, the limit raised and then something could happen. Terrorists aren’t going to drain the Fed through government employee spending cards. So now instead the red tape is causing inefficiency in an area that was already efficient as applicable to the risk.
- teucris 2y agoUnless the red tape is expensive. The trick is to be smart at striking the balance between reining in spending while not having a paperwork system that costs even more. Setting the limit to $1 doesn’t seem like striking any kind of balance.
- donmcc 2y agoIt's already standard in many agencies for employee credit cards (IBAa or individually billed accounts) to have their spending limit set to $1 when the employee is not traveling. When travel is approved, the spending limit is temporarily raised based on the estimated travel costs. These cards are mainly used for hotel and rental car charges; federal employees are given a per-diem reimbursement when traveling to cover meals and incidentals, which they pay out of their own pocket. You can see per diem rates at https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates . This move seems like something that makes a great sound bite but isn't actually a problem.
- qwerpy 2y agoThat sound bite successfully spawned hundreds of outraged comments even on this “intellectual” discussion forum.
- digitaltrees 2y agoA highly competent government in America has been a massive contributor to our success. The conservative opposition with shrinking government and making it ineffective is profound error that will make it harder to start and grow businesses, invest in innovation and compete on the world stage. We should be working to have the best government in the world not the smallest.
- toephu2 2y ago> A highly competent government in America has been a massive contributor to our success. I doubt this. Do you really think the government is the reason Silicon Valley has been so successful? Sure the government created the internet, but after that many tech companies flourished in Silicon Valley with very little regulation. I think that's why America has been so successful. If you look at anything the government gets its hands in, costs sky rocket (education, healthcare, etc).
- bdcravens 2y agoMany of those SV success stories received funding from VC firms and eventually IPO'ed, systems that are SEC-regulated.
- filoeleven 2y agoNot to mention NSF, DARPA, and other grants from federal agencies. That’s how we got Google.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoThe whole point is a highly competent government is one the does have an appropriate level of regulation. Regulation like disallowing non-competes. I think that there is plenty of good evidence that the whole reason Silicon Valley is in California is their long (and historically unusual stance among US states) history of disallowing non-competes. This is why all this DOGE shit is so frustrating to a lot of people. I don't disagree that there is government waste, or that there are regulations that should be scrapped. But people don't realize how much success in this country is due to having largely fair and functioning institutions. That's all getting chucked out the window now.
- ChicagoDave 2y agoImagine all those people overseas trying to unwind their foreign work/life. Oops. No credit! Not to mention the bazillion other legit reasons for expenses.
- nabla9 2y agoIt's easy to go crazy when you can break any federal law without consequences. 1. The president has immunity for official acts, 2. The president can pardon anyone who does his bidding, and 3. 2/3rd of the Senate is needed to convict and remove the president and there is loyal thrid. No matter how much Trump, or his henchmen screw up, they know they can walk away after 4 years and nothing can touch them.
- andrewflnr 2y agoHaving used a government credit card as a federal employee, I can tell you this: If you actually cared about government efficiency, you would make those credit cards easier to use, not harder. I guess I was relatively sheltered, but for the time I was involved with it, doing the paperwork for that goddamn credit card was by far the most frustrating part of my job, and I didn't even use it that much.
- vasco 2y agoSo how many SaaS subscriptions to support minor but perhaps part of critical chains that aren't expensive enough and get put on credit cards will break next month?
- throwaway519 2y ago[flagged]
- janalsncm 2y agoHonestly, if the Chinese had hacked into all of our government systems I don’t think they could do as much damage as the Destruction of Government Efficiently. I am still waiting for my tax refund.
- ChoGGi 2y agoAt least now I know what happens when you take Homer's makeup shotgun to the US government.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoDOGE may not be doing much to actually benefit the American people, but it's sure providing great entertainment value; reports read like Onion articles. If this was a movie script it would be rejected with "wildly unrealistic".
- insane_dreamer 2y agoStep 1. Cut gov payroll by 30%. Save $X per year. Claim victory. Praise Trump! Step 2. Hire consulting companies like Bain to provide services previously provided by the gov, at a higher price. Spend $X * 1.5 (if you're lucky) per year. But by then, the public has moved on to some headline-grabbing news (invading Canada, or Greenland, etc.), and the budget increase is buried on page 4. Scamming the American public.
- 9283409232 2y agoThere is a part of me that occasionally checks in to see if people are realizing they are getting conned yet. Musk is trying to sell critical government functions to his buddies in the Founder's Fund and a16z by literally making the government more inefficient. Burying the government in paperwork has been the Republican dream for decades.
- dashundchen 2y agoThey don't seem to be yet. Two people with cult followers willing to contort themselves to the dear leader's position at any moment.
- tway223 2y agoWhat DOGE is doing has happened in China 10 years ago. Instead of “fighting corruption” they claim “government efficiency”, but the ultimate goal is to silence and destroy any opposition. Because bureaucracy is inherently universally corrupted, to some extent, and the US has tons of laws at the DOJ’s disposal. That is Xi’s playbook to solidify his power and I am afraid Trump may be using the same one. I certainly hope we won’t be going down that road but to be honest I am not bery optimistic.
- physicles 2y agoI noticed this parallel too. At least the US has the option for some sort of change in two and then four years.
- xracy 2y agoIt's hard for me to imagine that the software built around this isn't just going to start crashing with enough of these changes. You've given a handful of (generously) junior engineers access to decade+ old software and they've just started changing things willy nilly. There will be downstream effects of this that software stops they're putting in place just stop working. I wouldn't be surprised if someone changes this accidentally in a way that a limit like this is by-passable with minimal effort in the coming weeks (if not already).
- beachy 2y agoIf a piece of software crashes in the forest, and no-one is around to hear it, did it really crash at all?
- rfrey 2y agoI'm sorry for the chaos you're going through in America, but as a Canadian, every day of internal chaos is one fewer day I have to worry about your soldiers killing my children.
- theossuary 2y agoThe likelihood of Trump sending troops across the border is pretty low right now. The chance of Trump trying to destroy Canada economically with America's weight is relatively high. Please continue to disentangle Canada's economics from the US; it's much more likely your kids starve then are shot.
- rfrey 2y agoThe odds might be low, but they are substantially larger than zero. Most people I know are preparing in some way by offshoring what money they have, researching places of refuge, etc. The path to violence is: * imposition of punitive tariffs by Trump * Retaliation which escalates to energy export tariffs. * At some point Canada shuts off electricity transfer to the US and restricts water transfer, which shuts down the eastern seaboard. Trump declares this an act of war.
- maeil 2y ago> At some point Canada shuts off electricity transfer to the US and restricts water transfer This is what won't happen. People are far, far too comfortable for that, you'd need to see 30%+ unemployment rates for that to change.
- rfrey 2y agoI'll be delighted to be wrong. It's a low-probability, high impact event, but America has elected a Mad King, and many of us are preparing.
- int_19h 2y agoUS doesn't need to invade Canada in response to tariffs etc. Given the relative sizes of the economies and their interdependency, it's much, much easier for US to hurt Canada than for Canada to hurt US economically.
- smeeger 2y agoi think of it as federal autophagy. probably even many federal employees are glad for the chance to rebuild something simpler and more efficient
- afinlayson 2y agoThis will waste money. People’s time is worth more than 1 dollar.
- charlie0 2y agoI always find it fascinating to see people rage against the current regime without any hint of self awareness that the alternative would have been just as bad, if not worse.
- nooyurrsdey 2y agoAbsurd. The opposition had none of this in their platform. You can enumerate the failures of Dems if you'd like but casting both sides as the same is utter nonsense. And your little dig of "without any hint of self awareness" makes me think that you think you know better.
- shipscode 2y agoSeems like a great thing to try and see what breaks what with all the employee card fraud going around these days.
- bongodongobob 2y agoThese obviously popular and important posts getting buried is sad. I think this site should be called Silicon Valley Greed News instead. Fuck all of you libertarian Musk worshippers downvoting these posts. Our government is being taken over. Hackers used to make useful things for people for free, for the love of the craft, not suck as much money out of the system as possible.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- phendrenad2 2y agoOkay steelman this for me. What are some concrete examples of someone needing a government credit card? FBI agents replenishing bullets after a firefight with a UFO?
- phendrenad2 2y agoTech has become a profoundly anti-intellectual discipline. People are happy to learn all about the intricacies of the Java standard library, but they aren't interested in discussing anything outside of their field. To you, dear downvoter of my above post, anything outside of your field is so simple and one-sided, you simply need to consume your beliefs from your chosen news organization. No need to analyze. After all, it's not like politics or economics or government policy could be a fraction as complex as the Java standard library, which you've undoubtedly memorized, and feel quite smug about.
- Cipater 2y agoTravel Expenses - Airfare, hotels, meals, transportation, conference fees Goods & Services Purchases - Office supplies, equipment, and materials. Contractor payments (for purchases below the micro-purchase threshold). Software licenses and IT-related purchases. Repairs and maintenance services for government property. Training and educational materials for employees. Fleet and Transportation - Fuel and maintenance expenses for government-owned vehicles.
- mindcrash 2y agoI thought and was somewhat hopeful they could make a difference way back in 2016, not unlike Obama's rise to power, but after that shitshow and very much noticing something very, very wrong (IQ ~110+1/2SD and a real knack for deduction and pattern recognition combined with a strong interest in psychology and the human condition) I tried to warn my Trump supporting American friends to no avail. Devastated to see a once great nation (and with that I mean 80s/90s United States, _not_ current United States) rapidly falling apart as fast as my own.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y agoWhy do government employees have credit cards? When i was in the Air Force, we had GPC cards but honestly it was easier to just pay out of pocket and get reimbursed when i had to travel for training. The Air force took care of flights and i just had to pay for hotels and food and they gave me X per day based on location. Seems like a smart move to just remove the GPC program in general. you can spend up to 10K with literally no competition requirements... Seems like there is alot of room for fraud, waste and abuse there. Better to reduce red tape for procurement and have a more centralized purchasing manager coordinate like every company does.