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President Trump's Executive Actions (orders, proclamations, etc.)




“In an informational document about the executive order, shared with the Washington Post, White House officials referred to ‘so called independent agencies,’ citing the FTC, FCC and SEC as examples of agencies over which Trump is seeking to exert more control. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the objectives of the new executive order said it aims to reign in ‘rogue agencies’.

“These agencies issue rules and regulations that cost billions of dollars and implicate some of the most controversial policy matters, and they do so without the review of the democratically elected President”

“They also spend American tax dollars and set priorities without consulting the President, while setting their own performance standards.”
 
Yep. When promoted, they start the higher level job on probation too. This is a real cluster ****.
Here is an example of a probationary government worker who already had 16 years of service. She was a Trump supporter too:

 
If you are interested in seeing them yourselves rather than relying on what the reporters, articles and "influencers" say about them, here you go:


You can form your own opinions on which ones are consequential or not consequential, good, bad or indifferent.

The most recent one always goes to the top of the first page, so if you're looking for his first ones you need to go to the last page.
 
Bullshit. He didn't promise to do what DOGE is doing and his MAGA supporters in government sure as hell didn't expect to be axed without cause.
A true MAGA supporter asked for him to make things right. He is. Zero more commentary from there.

This very MAGA supporter (like damn near any human) wouldn't think that they are a part of the problem. BUT admitting that you very well may be a part of it, may not be anything to do with you yourself, or your effort or even your accomplishments. You (they) may be 100% very capable, successful and be making a difference. But all of those things are an inward, totally personal assessment of the situation. ME ME ME ME ME! Not the overall "company"
Maybe they were hired for nefarious reasons, to a department that really didn't need them, or maybe that entire department wasn't actually needed. Or a million other reason that, at no reason of their own, that they are not needed and part of the problem.
If these MAGA supporters (I'm not even sure HTF that make any difference) are in a non needed position, possibly for a non needed effort. It's not a personal attack, it's a simple fact.
I really think there is a very good correlation here to "Er'body gotta plan till they get smacked in the mouth", Or "When I said get rid of the bad I didn't mean MEEEEEEE" !

If they are good, engaged employees, they will make it more than fine in the private sector. We need good people in private and a MUCH smaller public sector.

But as a real Republican, you already know this.

**edited for grammar about 7 times.
 
A true MAGA supporter asked for him to make things right. He is. Zero more commentary from there.

This very MAGA supporter (like damn near any human) wouldn't think that they are a part of the problem. BUT admitting that you very well may be a part of it, may not be anything to do with you yourself, or your effort or even your accomplishments. You (they) may be 100% very capable, successful and be making a difference. But all of those things are an inward, totally personal assessment of the situation. ME ME ME ME ME! Not the overall "company"
Maybe they were hired for nefarious reasons, to a department that really didn't need them, or maybe that entire department wasn't actually needed. Or a million other reason that, at no reason of their own, that they are not needed and part of the problem.
If these MAGA supporters (I'm not even sure HTF that make any difference) are in a non needed position, possibly for a non needed effort. It's not a personal attack, it's a simple fact.
I really think there is a very good correlation here to "Er'body gotta plan till they get smacked in the mouth", Or "When I said get rid of the bad I didn't mean MEEEEEEE" !

If they are good, engaged employees, they will make it more than fine in the private sector. We need good people in private and a MUCH smaller public sector.

But as a real Republican, you already know this.

**edited for grammar about 7 times.
They’re good hard working people accomplishing an important mission they believed in. They aren’t differentiating between good effective people and those that aren’t so good, or between needed positions and not needed. There will be embarrassing mission failures soon. Bet on it.
 
They’re good hard working people accomplishing an important mission they believed in. They aren’t differentiating between good effective people and those that aren’t so good, or between needed positions and not needed. There will be embarrassing mission failures soon. Bet on it.
Not to be confused with the normal embarrassing mission failures? We all get it Aloha, but you are floundering on all of this. You simply are. Go get some super hot wings and re-calibrate brother.
 
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A true MAGA supporter asked for him to make things right. He is. Zero more commentary from there.

This very MAGA supporter (like damn near any human) wouldn't think that they are a part of the problem. BUT admitting that you very well may be a part of it, may not be anything to do with you yourself, or your effort or even your accomplishments. You (they) may be 100% very capable, successful and be making a difference. But all of those things are an inward, totally personal assessment of the situation. ME ME ME ME ME! Not the overall "company"
Maybe they were hired for nefarious reasons, to a department that really didn't need them, or maybe that entire department wasn't actually needed. Or a million other reason that, at no reason of their own, that they are not needed and part of the problem.
If these MAGA supporters (I'm not even sure HTF that make any difference) are in a non needed position, possibly for a non needed effort. It's not a personal attack, it's a simple fact.
I really think there is a very good correlation here to "Er'body gotta plan till they get smacked in the mouth", Or "When I said get rid of the bad I didn't mean MEEEEEEE" !

If they are good, engaged employees, they will make it more than fine in the private sector. We need good people in private and a MUCH smaller public sector.

But as a real Republican, you already know this.

**edited for grammar about 7 times.


Sen McCarthy couldn't have said it better.
 
If you are interested in seeing them yourselves rather than relying on what the reporters, articles and "influencers" say about them, here you go:


You can form your own opinions on which ones are consequential or not consequential, good, bad or indifferent.

The most recent one always goes to the top of the first page, so if you're looking for his first ones you need to go to the last page.
 
Less than $400 billion is spent on the entire federal civilian workforce. Whatever is cut there will be a tiny fraction of a trillion bucks. It’s a very safe bet that DOGE won’t find a trillion in cuts.

A safe bet? How about a guaranteed bet?

The entire Federal budget is like $1.7T.

I'll go back to the CRS statement....

'As a percentage of GDP, discretionary spending in FY2024 is projected to be 6.3%, near its historical low since data were first collected in FY1962, and
down from 7.6% in FY2020 and 9.1% in FY2010.'
 
A safe bet? How about a guaranteed bet?

The entire Federal budget is like $1.7T.

I'll go back to the CRS statement....

'As a percentage of GDP, discretionary spending in FY2024 is projected to be 6.3%, near its historical low since data were first collected in FY1962, and
down from 7.6% in FY2020 and 9.1% in FY2010.'
The only way they get to a trillion is by touching entitlements. I won't be as nice as Aloha. Some of these guys need to lay down the kool-aid and actually go out and look at the budget. The only way to cut that much without touching OASDI, Medicare, and Welfare is to have a government that only does some level of defense and then acts as a wealth transfer mechanism.
 
A safe bet? How about a guaranteed bet?

The entire Federal budget is like $1.7T.

I'll go back to the CRS statement....

'As a percentage of GDP, discretionary spending in FY2024 is projected to be 6.3%, near its historical low since data were first collected in FY1962, and
down from 7.6% in FY2020 and 9.1% in FY2010.'
DOGE is looking at SS, Medicare and Medicaid fraud so not sure why you keep harkening back to this like transfer payments are being evaluated.

Continuing to cut Medicaid in this upcoming and future budgets should help as well.
 
Such as?

They've only been looking at the DOD for what..., 2 or 3 days?

If the mission package is so fragile that losing a couple of first year probationary civilian employees will wreck it then I'd have to suggest that someone didn't do a very good job of setting it up...

Cross-training redundancy is usually the key for most successful mission structures... If it wasn't set it up well enough to survive a little reduction in force (at the lowest levels) then the mission either isn't really that important or the leadership is severely lacking... (or perhaps both)...
And you think it is smart for outsiders to be making the cuts when they have no idea who is actually expendable. Asking for an email of what people did that week isn't enough to make a determination.
 
There is a responsible way of doing that and there is what Elon and orange dog are doing.

As much as I’d prefer the way you’re talking about, it’s never happened…which makes me skeptical it ever would.

The closest we came was sequestration in 2013 - and it led to minimal cuts that were eventually restored, anyway.

It was used as a cudgel for Obama and Boehner to get a budget deal. They didn’t, and sequestration kicked in. I was quite happy that it did, but everybody in Washington acted like they’d just seen a ghost.

I’ve always thought that “do what you’ve always done…and you’ll get what you’ve always got” was a really good maxim.
 
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As much as I’d prefer the way you’re talking about, it’s never happened…which makes me skeptical it ever would.

The closest we came was sequestration in 2013 - and it led to minimal cuts that were eventually restored, anyway.

It was used as a cudgel for Obama and Boehner to get a budget deal. They didn’t, and sequestration kicked in. I was quite happy that it did, but everybody in Washington acted like they’d just seen a ghost.

I’ve always thought that “do what you’ve always done…and you’ll get what you’ve always got” was a really good maxim.
I don't see that as an excuse.

What I think we will find out is there isnt as much waste in goverment employee salaries as some were led to believe and even this hatchet job wont find much savings
 
As much as I’d prefer the way you’re talking about, it’s never happened…which makes me skeptical it ever would.

The closest we came was sequestration in 2013 - and it led to minimal cuts that were eventually restored, anyway.

It was used as a cudgel for Obama and Boehner to get a budget deal. They didn’t, and sequestration kicked in. I was quite happy that it did, but everybody in Washington acted like they’d just seen a ghost.

I’ve always thought that “do what you’ve always done…and you’ll get what you’ve always got” was a really good maxim.
There is a right way for reducing the size of government:

 
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There is a right way for reducing the size of government:


Virtually all federal cost paring in the 90s had to do with one thing: the peace dividend.

Here's defense spending from 1985-2000. Defense spending peaked in 1986 (6.81% GDP) and then declined until 9/11 (3.46%).

Screenshot-2025-02-28-092230.png


So that's a 3.35% reduction in annual defense spending -- almost half. In today's GDP, 3.35% would be almost $1T per year. Virtually everything else was roughly flat during the decade...which resulted in total government spending going down - from 20.8% in 1990 to 17.58% in 2000.

Screenshot-2025-02-28-092035.png


That piece doesn't say how many of the headcount reductions were DOD. But I'd bet it was a lot.

Second, did you see where they talked about hiring contractors to pick up the slack? The reason they had to do that, I would assume, is that the scope of government didn't change. And, from the looks of what we're seeing now, I don't think they did enough technology adoption to streamline operations.

Lastly, I agree that what DOGE is doing is not the ideal way to pare government. But I've thrown in the towel on Congress being responsible enough to deal with this problem. Given that, if the right people can't do it the right way, then I'm fine with the wrong people doing it the wrong way.
 
Virtually all federal cost paring in the 90s had to do with one thing: the peace dividend.

Here's defense spending from 1985-2000. Defense spending peaked in 1986 (6.81% GDP) and then declined until 9/11 (3.46%).

Screenshot-2025-02-28-092230.png


So that's a 3.35% reduction in annual defense spending -- almost half. In today's GDP, 3.35% would be almost $1T per year. Virtually everything else was roughly flat during the decade...which resulted in total government spending going down - from 20.8% in 1990 to 17.58% in 2000.

Screenshot-2025-02-28-092035.png


That piece doesn't say how many of the headcount reductions were DOD. But I'd bet it was a lot.

Second, did you see where they talked about hiring contractors to pick up the slack? The reason they had to do that, I would assume, is that the scope of government didn't change. And, from the looks of what we're seeing now, I don't think they did enough technology adoption to streamline operations.

Lastly, I agree that what DOGE is doing is not the ideal way to pare government. But I've thrown in the towel on Congress being responsible enough to deal with this problem. Given that, if the right people can't do it the right way, then I'm fine with the wrong people doing it the wrong way.
I was specifically talking about the federal workforce. Replacing the federal workers that are deemed to be providing necessary services with contractors to do the same is ultimately much cheaper for the government. They don't get federal benefits (health, TSP matching, etc.) while working or retirement benefits.

Went to a casual military retirement event at a local bar just off base yesterday and most of the people there were federal workers and they're very close to mission incapable because of the madness of these meat cleaver actions. They're fighting the good fight to not lose some key positions which would make that happen. These are nearly 100 percent Republicans and former military, and again, they're pissed because this is not an intelligent way to reduce the size of the federal workforce, which I think has unanimous support in that group. They didn't vote for Trump thinking this was going to happen. I predict a big loss for the Republicans in the mid-terms.
 
DOGE is looking at SS, Medicare and Medicaid fraud so not sure why you keep harkening back to this like transfer payments are being evaluated.

And they won't do shit. It's off limits per many of Trump's EOs. Estimating Medicare fraud is done all the time. Actually doing anything about it would require political capital that Trump refuses to use.

Continuing to cut Medicaid in this upcoming and future budgets should help as well.

And that's got what to do with Doge and Musk? Seems like that's just normal Congressional action. They need CBO approved spending cuts to get a reconciliation bill through to cut taxes. Then the next Congress will immediately pause/delay/cancel the cuts before they actually hit. Story old as time.
 
I was specifically talking about the federal workforce. Replacing the federal workers that are deemed to be providing necessary services with contractors to do the same is ultimately much cheaper for the government. They don't get federal benefits (health, TSP matching, etc.) while working or retirement benefits.

I have zero knowledge about the cost comparison between federal employees and contractors. But I will say that the piece you linked claims that contractors are more expensive.

Contractors cost between two and three times as much as federal employees to do the same work, POGO found.​

I always take these kinds of "findings" with a huge grain of salt. Because so many of these sorts of studies are done with an agenda behind them. As such, they typically start with a desired conclusion and are then supported by whatever data they can find which serves it. I'm sure the people with interest in contractors would claim the opposite, and would have their own data to demonstrate that.

So I'm not saying this is correct -- just that it was claimed.

Went to a casual military retirement event at a local bar just off base yesterday and most of the people there were federal workers and they're very close to mission incapable because of the madness of these meat cleaver actions. They're fighting the good fight to not lose some key positions which would make that happen. These are nearly 100 percent Republicans and former military, and again, they're pissed because this is not an intelligent way to reduce the size of the federal workforce, which I think has unanimous support in that group. They didn't vote for Trump thinking this was going to happen. I predict a big loss for the Republicans in the mid-terms.

Yeah, I know a DOD guy who is sweating his job right now, too.

But, honestly, would they be any more sanguine about it if job cuts were happening the way Clinton did them? At the end of the day, isn't it more about the job itself than what method is used to eliminate it?
 
It's a fallacy from the start. This entire discussion is a complete farce. It's like having cancer and spending time at the derm doc trying to clear up your psoriasis
I understand why you're saying that. You know that I'm well aware that the source of the fiscal bleeding is entitlement growth.

But, ultimately, I disagree with your criticisms of this. Because (a) we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good...general government could use a haircut, too, and (b) anything will help.

This effort isn't nearly enough. But it's not nothing.

And, to his credit, Musk is saying things I agree 100% with. Like this...

 
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