XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.corruption, alt.politics.usa   
   XPost: talk.politics.usa   
   From: weberm@polaris.net   
      
   $50 to $100 billion a year, that is how much has already been identified by   
   the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency through a review of   
   Treasury payments as likely fraud. This amount is nothing more than   
   identifying how much is paid monthly to recipients who don’t have a Social   
   Security number or other government identification attached to their files.   
      
   In a world of cartels and other foreign government criminal enterprises, it   
   is not surprising that very smart, organized attacks have been made to steal   
   from the American taxpayer. After all, it is as simple as Willie Sutton’s   
   answer to the question of why he robbed banks, “because that’s where the   
   money is.”   
      
   DOGE head Elon Musk has already estimated, based upon work done to date, that   
   there is approximately $1 trillion in fraud, waste and abuse in the system   
   that can be identified and prevented. It took two weeks of analyzing the   
   government payment systems to make this incredible pronouncement.   
      
   It is surprising that the various systems that are in place to ostensibly   
   prevent fraud failed so spectacularly, and it is fair to wonder if some of   
   those in charge of them were part of the steal? After all, the question of   
   valid identification in our election systems has been a hot button issue for   
   at least a decade, it never occurred to those outside of government that the   
   payment system did not require valid identification to receive government   
   benefits. Who decided to not worry about requiring ID to receive a government   
   check?   
      
   And as recent Democrat-led lawsuits have shown, these systems are run by   
   long-time career bureaucrats who apparently have not been doing their jobs   
   very well. The fact lawsuit after lawsuit is being filed to prevent employees   
   of the White House directly appointed by the President access to the payment   
   systems reveals the lack of accountability which the nameless, faceless and   
   highly compensated federal bureaucrats have traditionally enjoyed.   
      
   However, it is fair to ask what the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations   
   Committees have been doing over the past twenty years? Where was their   
   spending oversight? Why have they not forced these systems to be opened up   
   for public review so they could dig deep into the spending on authorized   
   programs to determine whether they are being administered properly and that   
   the taxpayer has been getting their monies worth.   
      
   In short, why didn’t Congress tell us about all of the wasteful spending that   
   only now the Treasury’s payment systems’ data is now revealing?   
      
   The answer may be as simple as they messed up by trusting those entrusted   
   with protecting the treasure of the United States, and the hired guards let   
   them down. But another aspect is that Congress does not have access to this   
   information simply because they never passed a law making public access all   
   of the layers of government spending mandatory.   
      
   This isn’t about whether various programs that are riddled with fraud should   
   exist, but whether they should cost what the taxpayer is being charged? And   
   the answer is clearly no, not even close.   
      
   This doesn’t even count the misuse of USAID funds, Ukraine spending, the   
   breadth of Medicaid spending or big ticket Department of Defense items that   
   are subject to political debate and determination. Those should have a full   
   political review by both Congress and the White House. What is being revealed   
   by DOGE is plain and simple theft of taxpayer dollars.   
      
   As someone who has been advocating for limited government for my entire   
   professional life, I always instinctively knew that there was some level of   
   graft and corruption, but the level being revealed in just a short amount of   
   time and the elaborate networks to hide it are absolutely stunning. Having   
   confirmed the worst suspicions of those who have railed against the cost of   
   government for years, the question is what can be done about it?   
      
   First and foremost, Congress needs to increase financial auditors and   
   investigators in its employ to ask the right questions and demand answers   
   prior to appropriating the taxpayer’s dollars. Rather than operating off of a   
   budgeting platform that assumes the current level as the baseline, they need   
   to force every administration to justify every dollar spent on a program   
   rather than signing a virtual blank check — and pass laws mandating more of   
   this information be posted publicly.   
      
   This is more than a DOGE committee designed to get headlines but with no   
   power to fix anything. It is a real reform where Congress grows up to its   
   21st century responsibility to oversee a $7 trillion operation with real   
   financial oversight.   
      
   Elon Musk, for his part, has described a series of systems that are designed   
   to be unaccountable to those reviewing the spending without artificial   
   intelligence to connect the disparate dots. Congress needs to work with the   
   U.S. DOGE Service to ensure that new systems are put into place which creates   
   transparency in federal government spending — for good.   
      
   A system that cannot easily be dismantled by a future president who might   
   instead prefer and be expert at creating complex, impossible to untangle   
   money laundering schemes for example.   
      
   Based upon the USAID spending, which has been revealed to be largely used to   
   buy media and fund Non-Government Organizations with politically powerful   
   sponsors and board’s, it is obvious why unraveling the hundreds of billions   
   of dollars squandered is under legal attack by the left in an attempt to   
   thwart federal government spending transparency.   
      
   After the political weaponization of government by the Obama and then Biden   
   administrations, concerns about politically appointed government employees   
   (and all DOGE employees are government employees) accessing personal data are   
   valid. It would have been nice if they showed the same concern when just   
   removed USAID head Samantha Power, when she was UN Ambassador in Jan. 2017,   
   unmasked hundreds of her political foes in the waning days of the Obama   
   administration. Or if they had stepped up and joined Republicans in decrying   
   the IRS and other government agency attacks on people involved in the tea   
   party movement.  Or if they had spoken up when Marco Rubio had his tax   
      
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