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Comment by nobankai | Hacker News Reader

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> Give me one (1) good reason to assume Elon's appointees are acting in the interests of American taxpayers.

Because they are American taxpayers.

That doesn't feel like a very convincing argument if you already believe that Elon, Donald, etc don't have the interests of the American taxpayers in mind... Given that they are also American taxpayers.

Let's be honest, if someone hates Elon/Donald/etc. then there is no argument that will convince them that everything they do isn't the worth thing to ever happen to America.

I don't passionately hate either, I just can't follow your logic. If these men are working to make six-figure salaries more profitable, then they could absolutely fuck over the majority of Americans while lining their own pockets and that of their employers.

How are the real taxpaying Americans supposed to hold them accountable? Where is the oversight board looking to ensure essential social services stay available? It all seems like a recipe for disaster - love them or hate them, Elon and Trump have obvious conflicts of interest that make this process disturbing.

Democracy not good enough fer ya? I'll explain: Because Elon was appointed by Trump who was appointed by the will of the American taxpayer? It should be commutative.

I don't understand why people think this means he should be given unilateral goodwill and authority. Honestly I don't think any of the people saying it really believes that. If they did, the same logic would apply to Biden and Obama and anyone questioning them would be questioning democracy. Yet somehow this 'will of the people so it must be good' only showed up when Trump was elected.

Is he given that tho? Delegation is not infinite indulgence

Bypassing the normal security procedures to ram a random person with a very shady background into our security apparatus seems like quite a lot of indulgence to me. I definitely don't believe Obama would have been granted the same.

The line between infinite appointments augmented by a presidental pardon and infinite indulgence is pretty thin.

Oligarchs are technically American taxpayers

Most them pay less than the average dentist.

They get a % of the amount they save.

Bullshit. That would create the most perverse incentive structure Ive seen. Possibly ever.

One good reason? Look at the financial state of the country. We’ve been running trillion-dollar deficits, ballooning debt, and unsustainable spending for years. If Musk’s appointees are doing the opposite of what got us here—cutting waste, streamlining bureaucracy, and questioning sacred cows—that’s at least some indication they might be acting in taxpayers’ interests. The real question isn’t why assume they are—it’s why assume the status quo was working in the first place.

I'd feel better about this effort if they just benched the kid and replaced him with someone else. DOGE of all people should know that people are replaceable. Why did they put him specifically, with all that baggage, inside a cybersecurity agency? This doesn't feel right.

>>> why assume the status quo was working in the first place.

Spending has been "unsustainable" for 40+ years, ever since Reagan gave up on trying to get his own party to reduce it. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that the status quo was working well enough.

Pretty sure the US had a surplus in the 90's!

So the problem is the reason to assume goodwill from the people tasked with fixing it?

Again, this is so easily disproven. How are you buying this at all?

Musk and Trump are not concerned about debt or spending. If they were, Trump and Republicans wouldn't be rushing a billionaire tax cut bill that will add tens of trillions of dollars to the national debt.

If Trump cared about debt he wouldn't have run up $8 trillion in debt his last term with PPP helicopter money and more billionaire tax cuts.

There is a cult that believes every word their demagogue says, even if they are contradictory to each other or his actions.

Or proposing a bill to add Trump to Mount Rushmore.

Or proposing to create a PIF-like Sovereign Wealth Fund while gutting USAID, an organization with approved budget for many many years that actually provides assistance efforts globally.

Or proposing to invest $500B on AI development, which, coincidentally, just so happens to be the amount Sam Altman asked for to develop Stargate.

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