Summary

Vivek Ramaswamy, recently appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has proposed defunding federal programs that lack current congressional authorization.

This could affect programs like veterans’ healthcare, NASA, and early education initiatives, which still receive funding despite expired authorizations.

Ramaswamy argues that cutting these programs could save billions, and he’s committed to targeting expenditures that “don’t advance the interests of American citizens.”

DOGE, co-led by Elon Musk, aims to curb government spending, with Musk estimating potential cuts of up to $2 trillion.

  • @[email protected]
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    27 months ago

    If Fuckface 45 and his cronies actually take office on Jan 20, then this country as we know it is gone. It’s over. It’s cooked.

    They need to be jailed for their crimes before getting into office.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      Days after the election, I was talking to coworkers who literally said that was just propaganda and he’s not actually going to do it. Because he said that.

      Turns out all people needed was a little bit of plausible deniability…

  • @[email protected]
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    197 months ago

    I expected NASA to get screwed by DOGE. What I didn’t expect was that it’s at the behest of Ramaswamy instead of Elmo. 2024 is defying expectations yet again.

    • valaramech
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      117 months ago

      NASA gives SpaceX fat government paychecks. He doesn’t want anything to happen to them.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        Are you guys for real?? They will literally just cut out the middleman and give all the work to SpaceX instead. Jesus Christ people, read a history book about fascism.

        Man, so many people are in for a rude awakening come January, when they realize that their understanding of the previous world order is completely obsolete.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        Not necessarily. He wouldn’t want anything to happen to the funding that ends up going to himself. He would likely be thrilled if their funding for designing and building their own rockets dried up, though.

        It’s right in line with the purpose of DOGE and an easy sell to anybody that doesn’t immediately see the conflict of interest: “Why are we spending $100 million annually to play catch-up with the private sector? Reallocate $80 million to get rockets that work today and save the taxpayers $20 million while doing it.”

      • @[email protected]
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        77 months ago

        I dunno I disagree. I think he’d like nothing more than if NASA just completely disappeared. I’ve thought that since the second they started talking about him guiding fiduciary spending. Once NASA is out of the picture, it’s all SpaceX all the time. Trump is already most of the way there anyway. “His rocket company is the only reason we can now send American astronauts into space.”

        This is part of the plan I suspect.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 months ago

          Yep he doesn’t want NASA to steal his thunder with the first manned moon landing since the Apollo program. NASA’s Orion is competing directly with SpaceX

          • @[email protected]
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            7 months ago

            I don’t think he actually cares much about achieving anything spaceflight related. The guy has been hyping up his companies by holding big events for technologies ready in “X years” and consistently failing to deliver on either deadlines, tangible progress, quality, or sometimes all three of those.

            I’m under the impression that E-con Musk sees a golden opportunity to use his undeserved status as a competent inventor and businessman as an opportunity to redirect government funds into his own pocket.

  • @[email protected]
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    57 months ago

    This next two years of “FO” realizations for the FA crowd will bring me no pleasure. Unfortunately we’re past the point of return now in participative democracy due to a menially literate population that has had the capacity for rational and forethought drowned out for 3+ generations.

    Time, yet again history, to teach people lessons the same, hard way. 😔

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      The problem is that it appears as though there are tens of millions of Americans who are literally unable to FO. Or they FO, but are entirely unable (or perhaps unwilling at this point) to connect it to all the FA they’ve been doing.

    • 🖖USS-Ethernet
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      57 months ago

      Agreed. They must have gotten better in the last decade too, because I don’t see the horrible things that people have said about the VA. Yes there are long wait times for appointments, but that’s happening in private care now as well.

  • @[email protected]
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    17 months ago

    Elon musk being like “all that money we’re spending on vets could be going into my pockets.”

  • @[email protected]
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    37 months ago

    Do it. Cut tricare too. I don’t want those things gone, but holy hell yes please eliminate the willingness of the military to aid you against the constitution. Defund barrack improvements and force married troops to bring their spouses into the barracks while you’re at it.

    Crash and burn and let us rebuild America with an understanding it wasn’t immigrants or trans people that did this, it was rich people and fascists.

  • @[email protected]
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    07 months ago

    This will piss off every single veteran, active service member, and their relatives. I don’t just want this shit to fail, I want people to remember just how little fucks these people give about anyone other than themselves.

    • @[email protected]
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      07 months ago

      I want to see these fucks do this then ask for the military to keep them in office when they violate the constitution

      • @[email protected]
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        17 months ago

        I kinda have lost faith in most of humanity. At this point I think they will follow orders without question while fully knowing that they will be thrown aside like a moldy bag of garbage as soon as their usefulness is done.

    • _cryptagion [he/him]
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      17 months ago

      Republicans have been cutting vet benefits for years, and it hasn’t stopped them from voting red yet.

  • Flying Squid
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    17 months ago

    Could you picture that little runt Ramaswami in basic training? He’d wash out on the first day.

  • @[email protected]
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    7 months ago

    Touching NASA very well might be the thing that finally pushes me to actual violence.

    Scientific endeavors, but specifically research and exploration of space are pretty much the only things in life I really have a passion for.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      7 months ago

      Back in the day they funded NASA because they were worried about being eclipsed by the USSR. Now they may worry about belong eclipsed by China. But yes they might move a shit ton to spacex.

    • WashedOver
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      167 months ago

      The last conservative government silenced the government scientists from discussing climate change and destroyed decades of research as they didn’t believe in it and it didn’t fit their Alberta oil jobs first objectives.

      We are looking at another Conservative government coming our way again in the next year and it’s going to be a super shit storm when our Cons and the US Cons are firing on all cylinders destroy everything they don’t like or believe in. I fear it’s going to take decades again to come back on the science again.

  • @[email protected]
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    67 months ago

    Part of me, as an outsider looking in with abject horror, wants to see this happen just because I still hold out hope that it might finally wake up a not-insignificant part of rural and rust-belt America that live off these benefits (or ‘handouts’ according to the GOP) out of their political stupor.

    But on the other hand, I know that once it’s gone, it’s very unlikely to be brought back in the immediate future by the current crop of Dems, who seemingly would rather keep dangling it as a carrot (along with restoring ablation access) in order to entice voter turnout.

  • @[email protected]
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    57 months ago

    “This bloated liberal socialist program is inefficient and doesn’t work. Because it’s liberal and socialist. So we’re going to get rid of it. We’re planing to plan a replacement plan, but we haven’t planned on when to plan it. But we’ll blame the libs for that too, even though we have essentially captured all branches of the government at this point.”