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0 pointsacdha11mo ago0 comments

So far, they’re significantly negative on savings (the $140B they claim versus the $500B they’ve cost just at the IRS alone) and that’s taking the figures at face value when every sober review has found them wildly overstating the savings by doing things like taking credit for contracts closed during previous administrations, using the maximum possible amount on contracts which hadn’t spent anywhere near that much, or counting the same contract multiple times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-con...

Then you also have to factor in how much money they’re going to spend in lawsuits for all of the broken laws, not to mention the cost of paying people not to work for months while trying to bypass Congress and shut down legally mandated programs.

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xedrac11mo ago

That $140B is a very concrete number with documentation to back up all 7279 line items in great detail. Nearly 1000x more than this $200M Cybertruck inventory. So yes, peanuts compared to the waste and fraud they've found. Your somewhat unrelated claim about the IRS is from a pay-walled source, and one that is historically rather biased against conservatism I might add. Are they claiming that the reduction in force reduced audits or something which somehow equates to $500B? I'd like to see equally detailed evidence for their claim.

subsection1h11mo ago

> That $140B is a very concrete number with documentation to back up all 7279 line items in great detail.

What do you mean by "very concrete number"? And why do you consider DOGE's documentation to be substantiating evidence? I quickly searched through your comments and see that you're a Mormon. Do you likewise believe that the Book of Mormon is empirical evidence that substantiates Mormonism? If so, how do you decide which reading material is substantiating evidence and which isn't?

root_axis11mo ago

Elon is a proven liar, but there's no reason to bring this person's spiritual beliefs into the conversation.

insane_dreamer11mo ago

Many errors and exaggerations have been found in DOGE’s numbers. Enough to where I don’t trust a word they now say. The $140B could be real or complete BS, or somewhere in between. That’s what happens when you lose trust because you don’t act in a way that engenders trust.

asacrowflies11mo ago

Sources for this very concrete number ? Besides your ass

TFYS11mo ago

Even if that 140B is real, how does that make the corruption and waste that this kind of purchase would be acceptable? Do you think they'll stop the corruption and waste at that? Do you think they won't just replace waste that didn't benefit them with waste that does?

ttyprintk11mo ago

Prepare to be disappointed. Career journalists can certainly be too liberal or too conservative for you, but their job is to check receipts. Why is Kari Lake lying?

https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-government-waste-fra...

Are you comfortable tallying their $8 Billion -> $8 Million typo to count as savings?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-look-at-the-misleading-a...

They’re using DOGE to do something that avoids accountability.

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