4 ms·

DOGE isn't really cutting things to fund others. Many of their cuts are going to be net revenue negative. Many will cost taxpayers more of their money. It's ab

DOGE isn't really cutting things to fund others. Many of their cuts are going to be net revenue negative. Many will cost taxpayers more of their money. It's about gutting the civil service and staffing them with loyalists that will do what Trump or Musk want, despite what the law says. It's consolidation of power and corruption. Musk is also crippling many of the agencies that enforce regulations on his businesses.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
The most obvious case is the CFPB, which returns roughly twice its cost to taxpayers. I would argue that's honestly very inefficient, I'd like to see the CFPB returning a multiple of its cost to taxpayers... but nonetheless it is obvious shutting it down will cost taxpayers more.
- TomK32 2y ago
  We only see what it's directly returning to customers, not the damage it prevents to happen in the first place by a) forcing companies to change their behaviour and b) possibly influencing legislation and policy making.
- SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
  Your point is spot on, but I think it actually does have better returns for consumers on paper than that. IIRC, it saves consumers 10s of billions for < 1 billion of expenses.
  - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
    The CFPB claims to have recovered $19 billion for consumers, total, since 2011. Which is 14 years ago. So maybe it recovers 1.4 billion a year. It's budget is around 600 million a year. So yeah, it probably recovers a little over double what it costs to operate. That sounds okay, but bear in mind the recovered funds are... taxpayer dollars that we unfairly paid. And when you factor in the cost in taxes we pay for CFPB, that means... we're only getting a little more than half our money back. That's certainly better than not getting anything back, but I'd hesitate to call it "efficient".
    - SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
      Ah ok, I didn't realize that 19 billion was since 2011. Thanks
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      The challenge is that this doesn’t take into account harm prevented. How many companies changed their policies as a result of CFPB enforcement / to avoid CFPB involvement?
      - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
        Based on the hijinks we have still been seeing day to day, I am not sure I think the CFPB has been scaring companies into good behavior on any significant scale. I am sure there's some, but I think the penalties are clearly too low if half of the recovery amount is operational costs for the CFPB itself.
        vlovich123 2y ago
        > based on murders we have still been seeing day to day, I’m not sure prosecutors have been scaring criminals into good behavior on any significant scale. If the benchmark is perfection, no one can meet that standard. On top of the 20B in recovered consumer relief, they’ve levied another 5B in fines. It’s also important to look at their progress [1] where they’ve taken > 350 enforcement actions since they started. They were on track to be quite successful at enforcement actions until Trump’s first term when he started trying to cripple them. Same with penalty relief btw. Most of the dollars returned were under Democratic presidents. No agency within the government can do well when the administration is purposefully trying to cripple you in the first place. > https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/enforcement-by-the-numbers/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/enforcement-by-t...
        shakes_mcjunkie 2y ago
        Anecdotally, I work for a very large tech company and the CFPB is mentioned frequently as an important regulator. It has (had) an outsized impact where it regulated and definitely caused companies to change their behavior or at least be more continuous.
wruza 2y ago
Why doesn’t anyone do anything? They risk ending up as the rest of the world according to this, and everything they do is talking 1k+ threads. If everything people say here is true, US is in its own version of Perestroika.
- immibis 2y ago
  Why did nobody stop any of the other historical atrocities?
- ratsbane 2y ago
  Your question contains a clue to the answer: "Why doesn't anyone do anything". Specifically, what? I've been asking myself this since at least 2016 and I'm sure many other people have too. I've made phone calls, donated money, volunteered for campaigns and gone door-to-door. None of that has made any difference. The problem is in figuring out WHAT to do.
  - anon7725 2y ago
    In 2018 the Democrats retook the house, which threw a spanner in the works of the second half of Trump’s first term. I’m guessing that’s about as much as we can hope for in the current term.
- rob74 2y ago
  Let's take the other two branches that could theoretically stop the executive from doing what it does: - the legislative (Congress): both chambers have a Republican majority, and all Trump critics in the Republican party have long since been eliminated or have retired. Democrats are currently debating whether they should use the upcoming funding bill to force the Republicans to make concessions via inducing a government shutdown (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/democrats-congress-federal-shutdown-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/democrats-co...), but many fear this could backfire (e.g. Trump could say something along the lines of "these bad Democrats are forcing me to fire even more people because I can't pay them anymore"). - the judicial: some courts have ruled against some of the actions of DOGE (as well as other executive orders), but Trump is mostly ignoring them. It remains to be seen how the supreme court (with its 6-3 conservative majority) will decide when these cases (eventually) bubble up to them.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago

The most obvious case is the CFPB, which returns roughly twice its cost to taxpayers. I would argue that's honestly very inefficient, I'd like to see the CFPB returning a multiple of its cost to taxpayers... but nonetheless it is obvious shutting it down will cost taxpayers more.

TomK32 2y ago
We only see what it's directly returning to customers, not the damage it prevents to happen in the first place by a) forcing companies to change their behaviour and b) possibly influencing legislation and policy making.
SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
Your point is spot on, but I think it actually does have better returns for consumers on paper than that. IIRC, it saves consumers 10s of billions for < 1 billion of expenses.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  The CFPB claims to have recovered $19 billion for consumers, total, since 2011. Which is 14 years ago. So maybe it recovers 1.4 billion a year. It's budget is around 600 million a year. So yeah, it probably recovers a little over double what it costs to operate. That sounds okay, but bear in mind the recovered funds are... taxpayer dollars that we unfairly paid. And when you factor in the cost in taxes we pay for CFPB, that means... we're only getting a little more than half our money back. That's certainly better than not getting anything back, but I'd hesitate to call it "efficient".
  - SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
    Ah ok, I didn't realize that 19 billion was since 2011. Thanks
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    The challenge is that this doesn’t take into account harm prevented. How many companies changed their policies as a result of CFPB enforcement / to avoid CFPB involvement?
    - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
      Based on the hijinks we have still been seeing day to day, I am not sure I think the CFPB has been scaring companies into good behavior on any significant scale. I am sure there's some, but I think the penalties are clearly too low if half of the recovery amount is operational costs for the CFPB itself.
      - vlovich123 2y ago
        > based on murders we have still been seeing day to day, I’m not sure prosecutors have been scaring criminals into good behavior on any significant scale. If the benchmark is perfection, no one can meet that standard. On top of the 20B in recovered consumer relief, they’ve levied another 5B in fines. It’s also important to look at their progress [1] where they’ve taken > 350 enforcement actions since they started. They were on track to be quite successful at enforcement actions until Trump’s first term when he started trying to cripple them. Same with penalty relief btw. Most of the dollars returned were under Democratic presidents. No agency within the government can do well when the administration is purposefully trying to cripple you in the first place. > https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/enforcement-by-the-numbers/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/enforcement-by-t...
      - shakes_mcjunkie 2y ago
        Anecdotally, I work for a very large tech company and the CFPB is mentioned frequently as an important regulator. It has (had) an outsized impact where it regulated and definitely caused companies to change their behavior or at least be more continuous.

wruza 2y ago

Why doesn’t anyone do anything? They risk ending up as the rest of the world according to this, and everything they do is talking 1k+ threads. If everything people say here is true, US is in its own version of Perestroika.

immibis 2y ago
Why did nobody stop any of the other historical atrocities?
ratsbane 2y ago
Your question contains a clue to the answer: "Why doesn't anyone do anything". Specifically, what? I've been asking myself this since at least 2016 and I'm sure many other people have too. I've made phone calls, donated money, volunteered for campaigns and gone door-to-door. None of that has made any difference. The problem is in figuring out WHAT to do.
- anon7725 2y ago
  In 2018 the Democrats retook the house, which threw a spanner in the works of the second half of Trump’s first term. I’m guessing that’s about as much as we can hope for in the current term.
rob74 2y ago
Let's take the other two branches that could theoretically stop the executive from doing what it does: - the legislative (Congress): both chambers have a Republican majority, and all Trump critics in the Republican party have long since been eliminated or have retired. Democrats are currently debating whether they should use the upcoming funding bill to force the Republicans to make concessions via inducing a government shutdown (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/democrats-congress-federal-shutdown-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/democrats-co...), but many fear this could backfire (e.g. Trump could say something along the lines of "these bad Democrats are forcing me to fire even more people because I can't pay them anymore"). - the judicial: some courts have ruled against some of the actions of DOGE (as well as other executive orders), but Trump is mostly ignoring them. It remains to be seen how the supreme court (with its 6-3 conservative majority) will decide when these cases (eventually) bubble up to them.