Dalewyn

Your logic would make perfect sense if you were talking about waste. If reducing or eliminating a given amount of waste incurs an expense larger than the waste concerned, that defeats the point of reducing expenses by reducing waste. We can certainly discuss how important reducing that waste further is at that point.

But we are talking about fraud. Fraud is deliberate misuse or theft of funds, which is made even worse because the funds are American tax dollars. This isn't a question of whether I agree with reducing fraud to zero at any cost, simple ethical logic dictates that any fraud especially of taxes is absolutely and unconditionally unacceptable because of its malicious nature.

If we are fine with excusing $1 of fraud because dealing with it is "too expensive", we might as well be fine with excusing trillions of dollars of fraud because it's the same thing: It is ultimately acceptable to misuse and steal taxpayer money. That is absolutely not a great society to live and participate in.

Even if an expense larger than the fraud is incurred the fraud must be eliminated, because the principle of the matter is much more important than the funds themselves.

>so what system do we use to resolve our differences?

Ideally, Congress should be auditing and prosecuting fraud themselves as stipulated by the Taxes and Spending Clause of the Constitution.

Obviously though, in reality they clearly haven't filled those shoes adequately, or the Executive Branch would not have to be rifling through the budget as we speak let alone all the complaints from the people about government waste and corruption.

Fraud is worse because it is both deliberate and malicious by its very nature, it is absolutely unacceptable.

The only reason you're defending fraud is because you hate Trump and Musk who are prosecuting it. Take a step back and understand what it is you're arguing for, you're throwing away even the simplest of ethics and duty to scream Orange Man and Rocket Man X are bad.

>There absolutely are justifiable reasons and those reasons have worked out very well for the U.S. in the past.

Apollo quickly lost funding and popular support once the Cold War in space was effectively over. Space Shuttle ran on its fumes, and it had to be designed partially as a warplane in order to get additional funds from USAF that NASA couldn't get otherwise. SLS is an extension of that.

Also, we're living in 2025, not 1965. The reasons of the past do not translate perfectly to today.

>And as to whether we have the money for it, the U.S. is the wealthiest it has ever been and certainly much wealthier than we were in the 60s.

We are also literally many trillions in debt. There are many things we should be doing and arguably none of that involves another Moon program just for the sake of it. Been there, done that; we don't have the money.

"I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

If we end up $2 million or $100 million less to eliminate fraud that's what we have to pay. Fraud is unacceptable, period. Defrauding people's taxes is heinous, shame on you for defending it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

I agree with that assessment, neither NASA nor the country has the money nor time to waste on another public Moon program. There is no justifiable reason for another Apollo.

Leave it to the commercial world, and if they can't figure out a sustainable business model then it simply isn't meant to be (yet?).

Some amount of waste is inevitable, but fraud? Hell no, fraud is unacceptable period. Fuck you for suggesting it's okay to defraud people's taxes if it's a Relatively Small Sum(tm), that attitude is part of if not the problem.

And it's also important to understand that laws only stipulate penalties for performing an act, a disincentive if you will. You can still do it if you're fine with the consequences; ink on paper can't stop someone from rifling through your garbage right here right now.

Anyone who cares to secure the privacy of his refuse should see to its thorough and irreversible destruction prior to disposal.

>firstly, that's not how the treasury works.

Firstly, that's how the Treasury works. It is literally the Department of the Treasury, headed by the Secretary of the Treasury who serves at the pleasure of the President.

President Trump can be his own Treasury Secretary if he were so inclined, he just doesn't have to.

>who's gonna stop them from touching social security?

Literally President Trump whom Elon Musk answers to and serves at the pleasure of. Trump made safeguarding Social Security, et al. a campaign promise and he is, by and large, a man of his word to a far greater degree than any other politician.

>He passed 100 EO's day one and couldn't add in a price control for eggs

If circumstances like the bird flu get too severe he might have to play hard ball, but in the interests of the free(er) market it probably is better to be less conspicuous.

Regardless, it's not even 1 month into a 4 year term. If Trump thinks that cleaning the government out is a more pressing matter than lowering grocery prices, I can't say I disagree, I voted for that policy too.

>can't take the time to make sure DOGE is appointed as usual?

He doesn't need to ask for Senate confirmations because the law doesn't say so.

>He could give a half a trillion grant to AI but also wants to "reduce spending"?

That $500 billion is private money coming from the companies who signed on to Project Stargate. I'm going to assume this was just simple naivety and wasn't deliberate mischaracterization.

>Well I'm glad you're accepting of World War 3.

Biden's policies brought us closer to World War 3 than ever before. Contrasting that to the only President in my lifetime who has not started a war of his own, I'll take this any day of the century over the prior status quo.

>I live on the West Coast

Me too. As a Japanese-American I share your sentiment that China is an enemy to be appropriately feared and respected.

I personally suspect Pax Sino is coming some time this century regardless of anything we do at this point, though. The ship already sailed out.

>The way our geography is basically means we need to defend all of North America at the bare minimum. defending a continent isn't cheap.

Our defense budget pays for significantly far more than just the United States of America, let alone the North American continent (this should be an equally shared responsibility between the US, Mexico, and Canada.)

Our defense budget pays for defending the entirety of NATO and all our other allies; we effectively defend the better part of the entire fucking globe. And yet our "allies" continue to whine, especially NATO. I'm tired of it, I'm sick of sending our servicemen to serve in other countries who don't even want them and seeing our tax dollars spent on countries who don't appreciate it.

Obama already declared we aren't the world police anymore, the world can fend for itself while we figure out our god damn finances. If that means accelerating Pax Sino, well, "I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

>It's fair to say that individual tools should have to justify their costs in terms of productivity improvements or time savings.

Indeed, and this is why it's often advised that people should buy their first set of tools at Harbor Freight (or any other store selling cheap tools, for the not-Americans).

If those cheap tools wear out or break from use, then you go out and buy the really good ones from Snap-on or Milwaukee and the like.

>Even during election night his approval rating was only 46%, the supposed peak of honeymoon.

I would advise you that pollsters have quite literally never managed to accurately measure him, so poll numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. One reason the Democrats lost is because they assumed the polls were usefully accurate.

>Well "take down the treasury" was defiitely not part of his campaign.

It is, broadly speaking. Trump is continuing his "Drain the swamp!" promise from 2016 in addition to pressing for efficiency in government which is all-encompassing. No part of the Executive Branch, of which the Treasury Department is a direct subordinate to the President, is off limits save for Social Security, et al. as mentioned.

If the House actually works together with Trump on this, then truly no part of government is safe except for Social Security, et al..

>He mostly focused on lowering grocery prices and ending inflation based on my conversations with everyman republicans

Indeed, that was the biggest reason for his victory and hopefully we will see all that brought to fruition soon along with all the other things.

>cutting defense spending (unthinkable)

The Pentagon apparently never passed a financial audit in recent history, which is patently indefensibly ridiculous. It should get investigated thoroughly and the defense budget appropriately slashed in due course. They are not (should not be) safe because the only things Trump promised to not touch were Social Security, et al..

If this leads to NATO and other "allies" whining something fierce, well I don't really care. I'm honestly tired of subsidizing other countries' defense budgets when they clearly don't appreciate it.

If the Military Industrial Complex whines, I really don't care.

>I would like a source please.

Sure. Off the top of my head from a previous conversation about aid(?) to Mozambique[1], that's $83.5 million.

That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.

>charges that are microscopic

Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small? Emphasis on relative. I really want to avoid attacking someone on that because it sounds so disingenuous, but it's increasingly hard to do so.

Tax dollars are a sacred resource, provided by the sweat (and possibly blood) of American taxpayers. As a taxpayer myself, I will not tolerate seeing my and our taxes spent so flippantly.

>None of that "efficiency" is coming to you and me

An efficient government means filing our tax returns wouldn't be anywhere as obnoxious as they are today, or any number of government paperwork we would or could need to do in our lives. Fewer expenses from an efficient government would also mean less justification for government revenue including high taxes and tariffs.

An efficient government (and I do not mean that in a "No True Scotsman" fashion) will be beneficial to everyone everywhere.

>I don't know your income level.

I'm squarely in the lower to middle part of the middle class, with our family business (which I work for) that is classified as a small business (it's an official legal term, for those who aren't aware) which make up the core of American businesses.

[1]: https://datarepublican.com/award_search/?keywords=RZ4NKR9DQN...

>focus on the big problems first and don't sweat the small fry.

The biggest line items which are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are off the table as promised during the campaign, for better or worse.

Everything else is fair game, though. That includes everything from the Pentagon (note: never passed an audit) to "foreign aid" and science grants and everything in-between.

>Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]".

He has revealed that literal millions and billions of our tax dollars (or loans, to make it even worse) are being wasted on questionable ventures at best. I want him and DOGE to dig even deeper so the House is forced to write a clean budget devoid of all this fucking garbage. American taxpayers deserve better.

>Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way.

I agree, which is why it's great that Musk and DOGE are looking into the details of where the sincere fuck our money is going. All these whiners are crying that we shouldn't look at the details, it's all fine! No, fuck them. I want all this out in public view, in bite size chunks consumable by the common man paying for all this, to be scrutinized; anything worth having should be able to withstand any and all scrutiny.

>None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.

I agree again; these steps are made for all of us from the rich to the poor and the progressives to the conservatives. Everyone benefits from a leaner and cleaner budget and a smaller and more efficient government.

>None of us voted for him.

I voted for Trump and his campaign was explicit that Musk would be part of the new government. I certainly voted for him and by extension Musk/DOGE, as did the majority of American voters, even if most of the people here obviously didn't.

>These for federal institutions that every citizen relies on.

If that were the case Trump and his policies would not have been voted in.

Also worth noting, the core of "institutions every citizen relies on" which is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are exempt (for now) from the cutting and slashing as promised during the campaign. That alleviates the vast majority of citizens' concerns about reducing the government.

I'm fine being simple. Finer approaches were refused by cries of "No! What about <pedantic_detail />!" time and time again. I am fine with being a simpleton.

My desire is small(er) government and a lean(er) budget with little to no waste and absolutely zero corruption/fraud. Trump and Musk's bigly sledgehammer will achieve this, screw the details because I don't care anymore.

That's why I also want House Republicans including Speaker Johnson to stick to the fucking Republican Party mantra of small government this time instead of yapping about it during election years and then suffering a sudden case of amnesia for 2 years.

Trump hates wars and his first term track record all but guarantees that we won't "spend big" on (more) wars as you've put it, so we likely won't have to worry about that at least.

>not a significant portion of the budget

These are my and our fucking tax dollars. I want every single fucking cent audited, I don't really care how big or small a portion this is of the whole budget. Americans get audited by the IRS down to their dirty laundry on a common basis, the government should face the same from the people.

>So far the American system has been for the government to fund basic research and private industry to commercialize it.

In that case SLS definitely needs to be cancelled.

We are well beyond "basic research" into how a Moon program could be executed, private companies are already doing it and the only question left is how to commercialize it.

It is important to remember that the Space Race was a front of the Cold War, the "Why do we need a Moon program?" question was squarely answered by "Because we are at war."

Today we are not at war, at least not one that concerns space or the Moon. China is in a fierce self-imposed race to land on the Moon and Do The Other Things because it (probably correctly) views the West as an enemy to overcome. The US has not reciprocated that sentient, we've just shut them out of our space programs and then left them be.

For the US government to fund another Moon program we definitely need an answer to the question of Why. So far we don't have one other than THE PRESTIGE and OUR SCIENCE GRANTS as evidenced by many other threads on similar subject matter here. That's not going to convince the taxpayers.

I wholeheartedly approve of the (potential) termination. The Senate Launch System has overstayed its welcome even by pork standards, and with DOGE going into the budget to slash it down to size there is no excuse for this program to survive.

>Where in the world is it 50g CO2 to send an email (or 62Wh if we convert it back)? What in the world makes you think that a paper ticket, which is literally several grams of carbon and oxygen, has less of an impact?

I agree with you that the provided example is stupid, but I think there is an argument to be made that going digital can lead to more waste.

Take for example digital signage. All those signs, billboards, advertisements, and more that used to be just cardstock paper in ye olde days are now bright, huge LCD screens. I don't want to be the guy signing off on the electric bill, nor consider the geopolitiecological side of where the screens came from.

The takeaway is that the Space Race was just another front of the Cold War and the Military Industrial Complex got a blank check so long as they could win it. The fact it also captivated peoples' imaginations was a nice side effect.

>no need for this degree of urgency

Midterms are coming up in less than 2 years, and the next general in less than 4. Time is of the essence to get shit done so the people can decide if they want more or a change in course.

>lasting damage is in prestige.

Pride is a deadly sin for a reason, screw pride. We make America great again by striving for greatness, not puffing ourselves up with pride.

Trump's tariffs if (when) enacted will adversely affect our family business, as will some of his other policies which I won't get into because of confidentiality.

I still voted for him.

Why? Because his policies are things the people have demanded for a very long time and they are things we need to do sooner or later for the better future of our country.

Even Musk admitted this will be painful in the short and possibly even mid term, but in the long term we will all be better off for it.

>tiny slivers

We have a saying in Japan that goes: "Even dust piled up will make a mountain."

Considering the monies concerned here are also tax dollars, I am wholly unsympathetic to the actual monetary sums. They could be 1 cent and my feelings on this matter wouldn't change: Audit every single line item and slash anything wasteful.

Collateral damage is unavoidable, and more importantly I don't care about collateral damage since we are finally getting the audits and cuts we the people demanded for way too long.

I think that kind of proves my point: These "budgets" are so damn convoluted that nobody actually understands them. Even the House Speaker is surprised at the shit DOGE is digging up, and he's the boss of the people who write and pass the budgets.

And even that aside, anyone who knows how the real world works can understand that what should happen and what does happen are not necessarily the same especially if corruption is involved.

The whole thing needs an audit.

I've conversed with marcan a few times (on completely unrelated and inconsequential things). As far as I know he's a decent man.

That said, I'm going to agree with Linus there: Cancel culture ("social media brigading") isn't the solution.

The House holds the power of the purse, but the President is the sole holder of Executive powers. That is to say, Congress legislates the budget but the actual execution of that budget is up to the President.

If Congress feels the President isn't executing the budget as legislated, Congress can impeach the President. As for the judiciary, SCOTUS already ruled that the President enjoys absolute immunity in the course of executing his Constitutional duties.

So far the House "applauds"[1] DOGE, so all is well.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCH5zUKKpdE

Your premise is flawed because the free market was corrupted by government-ordered shutdowns. PPP is compensation for that. You can't maintain entire payrolls with quite literally next to no revenue without external cash infusions.

In case you weren't aware, PPP stands for Paycheck Protection Program and the monies disbursed by it are only to compensate for payroll expenses during the specified timeframe. Forgiveness also requires resubmission of payroll and other financial documents at time of forgiveness application to prove the PPP money was used for payroll and noone was fired without cause.

PPP does not and could not make up for a fundamentally flawed business model, all it did was compensate for paycheck expenses that could have been impacted by top-down forced shutdowns, particularly since small businesses by their nature usually can't handle wholly unexpected adversities well.

Your overt mischaracterization of PPP is one of many things that made me vote for Trump, by the way. Fake news sensationalism can die in a fire.

Our budget, all of it, needs an audit, the people have complained about government waste and demanded an audit for ages. We are finally getting that long desired audit.

Spread the entire budget out, all expenses line by line for all to see, and may they survive or be culled based solely upon their merits in the eyes of the American people. If the NSF's expenses are justifiable, demonstrate it in witness of the American people like any other line item.

So to use some choice words from our Vice President: "I don't really care." I don't want my taxes wasted on bullshit and I think most Americans agree with me. And if you're against audits, I have to wonder what your motives actually are.

>and the people who really needed the help often got stiffed.

Just one anecdata, but we (family business) were "people who really needed the help" and got approved for PPP, both times. You needed to be fairly timely on applying because of the absurd demand, though.

We had to file paperwork including our payroll, income/loss sheets and more with our bank (not SBA) who actually did most of the groundwork because any PPP loan not forgiven is on the bank's dime.

The Republican Party's loyalty/obedience to Trump so far is unprecedented even in general terms, so it's reasonable to expect a lot of his requests will be reflected in the final budget.