The sole purpose of DOGE was to scrape data from the IRS, Social Security, Census, and other federal agencies. This data will now be plugged into Palatir and other AI-driven surveillance databases to monitor us. It will also be used, along with DOJ data received from State Election Bureaus, to hyper-target us with social media posts from AI-driven chatbots in upcoming elections with pro-authoritarianism messages. To say DOGE did anything effective or "efficient" misses the point. You don't put a tech-bro billionaire in charge of an ad-hoc group with access to the Private Personal Identification (PPI) of 350 million Americans if you don't plan to use that data to manipulate the masses. And you certainly don't let it leak out, unless you plan to collude with other nefarious actors.

We did raise taxes, via tariffs.

“Congress says we need” 😂

> DOGE did not find any major waste fraud or abuse

Musk was employed for 130 days. For a government outsider to find at least tens of billions of dollars in savings in a bit over 4 months was a pretty substantial start. With a longer lasting effort by somebody who understands government better, I'm sure they could do more.

>  the trillions of savings promised just are not there.

Over a longer time period, with more experience understanding the federal bureaucracy and streamlining things, I don't think that's impossible to amass trillions in savings. Part of it lies in streamlining how government functions, which can't really be done in 4 months. 4 months is just enough time to cut a few programs.

> It turns out the government was already reasonably efficient 

Only somebody with a boner for government actually believes this.

> the government is spending money on things Congress says we need.

Yeah, but Congress is wrong. Is everything that they say necessary actually necessary?

> Despite congressional, judicial and presidential control, conservatives are unable to find sufficient spending cuts and deficits are out of control.

Part of it is lacking the will for a fight. The minor amount of government employees they axed and the controversies over the handful of mistakes that DOGE made was something they weren't willing to touch. They're not willing to risk the political fights to, for example, cut all foreign aid immediately which a financially struggling nation should instantly do.

> How can there be any more argument? Taxes must be raised. It makes sense to tax the rich because they have benefited the most under the current system.

It makes sense to disproportionately tax the rich, to a point. But you eventually kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If you tax them the way some people want, they'll fuck off to somewhere else that won't tax them.

It turns out the government was already reasonably efficient

seriously? anyone who looks at the US Military can see how bloated and really 20th Century the Government is, 1000 dollar Cup holders? clearly wildly inflated prices like that are a signature of corruption or at least waste and inefficiency (or maybe the US just dosen't have an Industrial base so making anything physical is expensive)

but more seriously, why is the US building aircraft carriers or fighter jets, awarding Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Contracts, in the age of drones, the whole F-35 program and whatnot, when especially the war in Ukraine has shown how badly a conventional surface navy and manned aircraft is against drones, and that's against Ukraine, nevermind a foe like China with many times more industrial capacity and they already host drone shows for fun, the Cynical argument is that boeing or lockheed marten lobbies for this because they need this to survive (you probably need entirely new companies for drones since it's so different just as space-X, not NASA or Boeing unlocked reusability, so in this case, where's the American DJI?), but sure those decades-old connections do generate a lot of waste, and this waste is the kind that could lead to catastrophic consequences

that's just the US Military, on the general beuroracy, well a lot of the government waits could be a lot shorter, and a lot of websites could be much better, the reason is an awful lot of the Bureaucracy is paperized that could be digitized, for a country with Silicon Valley, the entire bureaucratic apparatus does seem awfully behind when countries like Estonia or Singapore or really just all of East Asia Exists

How can there be any more argument? Taxes must be raised. It makes sense to tax the rich because they have benefited the most under the current system.

the thing I really dislike when people talk about "taxing the rich" is you really just need an Ideology or social contract to justify that, base humanitarianism is just not it because the US government is for Americans, not Humanity, and given how America and the West has been portrayed in the last 50 years, of course the Elites are offshoring and hiding their money at the Cayman Islands, and doing Enshitification, Companies not doing nice things, Politicians backing their Billionaire Friends through Lobbying rather than listening to their voters, and Law can only do so much because laws are enforced from people in that society, and if you force them too much, they'll just free, that's just the truth, and it's not the 1950s where they have nowhere to flee either (the rest of the world outside the West is either Communist or too Poor)

so might I ask, what is America teaching it's own People and especially it's elites, especially about itself in the last 50 years? everyone knows the answer to this, and while some just like to dismiss it, I would argue this whole culture war bullshit including the very right of the Culture to exist is beginning to have very real, practical effects on social cohesion and state legitimacy, and keep in mind THAT is the difference between Sweden and Pakistan so this is very important

okay, Western Billionaires paid 90% taxes in the 1950s, partially because they have nowhere to flee, but it was also a very patriotic era coming off the World wars when social cohesion is high

Scandinavians pay much higher in taxes and they get better welfare and public transit, but on polls they rank highly on willingness for conscription against Russia and it's a country where being fat is downright shameful and offensive, the latter part is also true in Japan and Europe in general

there's a contract to everything if you want functional institutions, and no, "disengaging from the System because it's a Ponzi Scheme" is not a long-term solution because that's not how civilization works and you'll get crushed by the Chinese, but all I'm seeing here is that it's all about the Billionaires as if there isn't a deeper issue here

and the two aren't incompatible, it would just be a lot nicer if the US Government actually worked much more efficiently, how much Jeff Bezos is being taxed should matter less should matter less than what the Government is getting done, and if you convinces him to pay 90% taxes? okay, but besides, some very fundamental changes really need to made in the government

I think OP is suggesting we increases taxes on the wealthy, not the middle and lower classes.  

military military military

Imagine spending less.

Maybe if my taxes blew up less brown kids overseas and locked up less poor people in the domestic prison industrial complex that'd be something I'd be excited about. Instead, we've invested billions into ICE and their hiring/weapons stockpile while simultaneously denying teachers, arguably the most important job in America, a wage increase for over two decades.

So fuck em. What the fuck good have my tax dollars done besides give the average Israeli free healthcare and robust social welfare programs?

Tax the rich. But for fucks sake start using our tax dollars more appropriately.

When are the Doge savings checks being mailed out?

The waste is there they just weren't effective in cutting it. Congress can fuck off. They're already taking way too much of my money.

Is the demand for less spending stronger than ever?

Biden ran on not raising taxes on 98% of the population.

Americans want Nordic benefits while not paying the same rates.

It’s both funny and sad.

No. There is no way in hell the government is efficient. DOGE was a joke. This does not even get into the issue of what is constitutional. I would argue that most of what the FedGov does is not.

That said, I wish that, instead of endlessly printing money, we actually had to raise taxes to do all the stupid shit we do at the Federal level. Most people would not accept it, I would guess, because the true tax rate would be much, much higher.

Funny how the DOGE believers are moving the goalposts and claiming that the “real savings” won’t be found until months or years later.

That wasn’t the original premise. Musk thought he could find $2T, sorry, $1T in savings in a very short time period. He knew what that time period was, as it was clear to the public. He was under the impression that he could simply hack off significant chunks of government like he did to Twitter.

After months of very underwhelming results, he gets the heck out of dodge and tries to get the public to forget about his original promises. Which, lucky for him, was easy to do as Trump continued dominating the news cycle with his firehose of chaos.

But make no mistake. DOGE was an absolute failure. But then again, why should we have expected anything more from a department that is named after a literal Internet meme? It was a joke from the get go, and stupid people fell for it.

DOGE was always a joke. These guys rolled in without any clear understanding of the problem and accomplished little to nothing.

There is LOTS of inefficiency, but it isn’t quick and easy to unwind, and much of there unwinding requires care and a solid plan for how to make sure balls don’t get dropped along the way.

And the focus on personnel was intensely stupid - if you eliminated the entire federal workforce you’ve only saved a few percentage points. The programmatic spending and enforcement regimes and antiquated systems are where the inefficiency lies.

Only if you’re the type of person who likes to take a wounded animal that’s recovering and kick it.

Deficits aren’t truly out of control as long as there is demand for the debt being issued to cover the difference between taxes collected and what is actually being spent. That’s not an argument for the current spending to continue unabated, just an indicator of medium-well vs well done. Trusting the legislative branch to fix a problem, in the shadow of the recent shutdown antics, by going after the class of taxpayer that can afford better accountants and lobbyists to avoid new taxes probably isn’t the viable solution that it sounds like.

the raid to your personal sensitive data was a success.

I think the argument for reigniting in spending is a better one still.

Raising taxes would also curb inflation

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those boots must be real delicious jfc

I think you’re overlooking the actual math here. You literally cannot tax your way out of this deficit. Even if you confiscated 100% of the wealth of every billionaire in the US, it would fund the federal government for less than a year. We have a structural spending problem, not a revenue problem.

Also, believing Congress only spends on things we "need" is pretty naive. They spend on pork projects, special interests, and whatever secures re-election. Just because a budget item is authorized doesn't mean it’s actually necessary for the country.

As for efficiency, the idea that the government is currently "reasonably efficient" ignores decades of GAO reports. Between "use it or lose it" budget incentives that force agencies to burn cash and massive improper payments, the waste is baked into the mechanics of how the money moves.

Raising taxes and the capitalists will find ways to dodge those taxes even harder(through their armies of lawyers) or, even better, they'll find a way to funnel those taxes into their companies. No, what's needed is an economy for and by the workers.

The savings were under the DoD, where DOGE kiddies were not allowed to go.

Increased on the billionaires? YES.

Anyone else? NO.

The government is plenty inefficient. DOGE was uniquely ill-suited to finding waste and areas for improvements. Every office is nuanced and has weird amounts of institutional knowledge, I.e. no one remembers why we use process X but the manual says it’s important. Outdated software that requires 3rd party contracts, a resistance to cutting jobs even if they are outdated, finding solutions that were pro-ten and have become calcified, even just a standard efficiency study or looking for under-performing managers. This is what you do. You don’t have 20 year olds who have literally never worked anywhere just run AI and fire people. Some people might look at what actually happened and see something… adversarial. Like straight out of any intel agency handbook on how to sow confusion and weaken institutions.

You already have your increased taxes... In the form of tariffs

To bad however that the tariffs will drive down purchasing caused by price increases which inherently adds to inflation making things still less affordable leading to lost jobs because no one will be making anything anymore. Leading to less income received from tariffs.

It's like marginal tax rates that increase the rate of tax the more you make and actually leaves the money in the pockets of those least able to afford 'stuff' without incurring the same inflationary pressure on the economy isn't somehow better?

Edit: I'm not addressing this to OP, but to those who believe tariffs are better for the economy than marginal income tax rates.

It's become obvious that the SYSTEM is too corrupted and complicated to be limited, audited, or curtailed in any way.

All you can do is hope to grab your share of the rapidly disappearing pie.

DOGE was the biggest waste of time and resources.

It turns out the government was already reasonably efficient

lol everyone who handles with government knows this is absolutely not true. the problem is that to restore that it’s extremely difficult as it’s one big ball of spaghetti.

But EVERYONE that works directly or indirectly for the government knows how much it wastes.

It’s only the context where they will admit it or not.

Among friends in a bar: yes

Publicly: 100% for sure no, as this risks their own comfy jobs

Why would you raise taxes? To tank the economy further? Just cut spending.

Cut spending!!!!