re: DOGE now claiming that a total of 150B savings through FY26

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$150b is a shite ton of money. You're an idiot if you're throwing shade at elon

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Relative to the deficit, it’s essentially a rounding error.

For all the talk of massive cuts, up to $2t, this can’t really be seen as anything other than a total disappointment and letdown, and should make people wonder what else this administration is blustering and bluffing about.

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Of course this bothers you

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This is the adult board go take your 13 year old girl hot takes to the Political board.

Federal Spending

That's not an insignificant amount of money of course. But ultimately, it's about what you can possibly get to and what you probably can't that would make the difference.

"Mandatory Spending" accounts for about 60% of the federal budget. This includes programs required by law, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Those will be pretty much untouchable without a major revolt in this country. Yeah, maybe there are still some efficiencies to be gained in these programs, but it wouldn't be material and it's HIGHLY political.

Next up is "Discretionary Spending". Defense spending constitutes about 13.3% of the U.S. federal budget. The 2023 defense budget was $820.3 billion, and the 2024 request was $842 billion. Defense spending is a major part of discretionary spending in the federal budget. The prospects of significant reductions here are virtually nil.

The current U.S. federal debt stands at approximately $36.2 trillion. Musk's focus was to be reducing waste and streamlining operations, but ultimately, such efforts require collaboration with Congress and other government entities. And it looks like he's on the way out with Trump.

So, at the end of day, I don't ultimately suspect much change at all.

This amount closes the deficit by around 10% which is not as much as hoped but it is far from insignificant.

It does show that more hard work and pain is expected to get the deficit under control.

Regardless of what the amount saved, waste and fraud should never be accepted. Not in our personal budgets, not in business and certainly not in government, at any level.

Not surprising when Elon made a pretty reasonable assumption that they would be able to help witht he fraud in Medicaid, Medicare, and SS. The GAO estimates on the high end there is around $600 Billion in fraudulent payments between those three every year. Everyone had a come apart when DOGE showed where a lot of those issues are probably coming from.

So, if those programs can't even be touched, this number isn't surprising for what they've been able to find so far and able to actually cut. Not an insignificant number, but it sucks it isn't more.

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Elon and Trump both would serve themselves better if they could STFU sometimes. Had they just not made any wild initial claims and then came out with "We expect to save $150B, perception would be incredible. That is huge savings and meaningful. But when you claim you're going to do $2T and then "only" hit $150B it looks like peanuts, and it only looks that way because of what they said months ago.

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I think it’s a combination of the massive gap between what was promised and what is being delivered as well as the vitriol of his “supporters”. Every time some crazy “$1T in fraud!” claim was made, anyone who so much as said “…that seems high… can we see the data on that?” got absolutely raked by the Musk sycophants. When you do that, people are going to start drawing and fortifying battle lines, and overcoming the schadenfreude becomes progressively more difficult

LINK

I was a little off, looks like their high end was a little over $500B estimate. I have seen some social media talking heads the last couple days say they just released something that they admitted there was $621B per year that they actually found, not estimated. I’ve not been able to find any concrete link to that claim, so I don’t necessarily believe it as of now.

And this is just my opinion, but like most government reports, I suspect the number is actually higher

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Elon is the most full of shite human the world has ever spat out.

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No. Elon Musk will go down in history as one of the greatest Americans in this era. He is singlehandedly saving our country from financial ruin. You got to give Trump credit for bringing him in but Elon is making it happen.

Do you think congress was capable of pulling this off by themselves? Not even a Republican congress would have done it much less that sorry bunch you voted for.

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Elon is the most full of shite human the world has ever spat out.

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Sure, the richest man on earth that has changed multiple industries for good, is the most full of shite human in the world.

Tell me you know nothing without telling me you know nothing

if TLSA was $400 a share right now this place would think he's the best person to ever walk to face of the earth. fickle group here