The end is here and they’re literally crying pic.twitter.com/PChhWBqU6c

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) February 16, 2025

SMDH

It all seems to add up to something big. On a daily, sometimes hourly, basis, Elon Musk claims that his team of fiscal commandos has found yet more government fraud, terminated another wasteful contract or even scrapped an entire agency. Mr Musk's supporters believe that, through tech wizardry and sheer willpower, he is slashing the federal deficit in a way that has eluded politicians for years. But this narrative has a glaring flaw: our review of official data shows that Mr Musk's efforts have scarcely made a dent in spending.

Every working day the Treasury publishes a statement detailing withdrawals of cash from its primary deposit account, providing the best high-frequency indicator of government spending. Since Donald Trump took office a little more than three weeks ago, outlays have averaged $30bn a day. Compare that with the same period last year under Joe Biden: federal spending back then came to about $26bn a day. Outflows from the Treasury have actually risen since January 28th, when Mr Musk first claimed his "Department of Government Efficiency", or DOGE, was saving the federal government $1bn a day. Looking at the bigger picture, the government's spending trajectory in the current fiscal year, which began in October, basically resembles that of the past two years.

!neolibs who could possibly have foreseen this????

835k for a two bedroom. Marvel at your tax dollars at work.

Eat the rich!

From Twitter instead

I’m feeling spunky. Let’s see who’s selling houses in DC.

1- Voter Participation Center, Deputy Director of Mail Programs and World Bank consultant pic.twitter.com/aGPvGZBX5N

— 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐧 ~🎙️🇺🇸 (@RogueLou18) February 15, 2025

!neolibs is this the ultimate neolib action movie?

!chudz will it be filled with drumpf references or will it be generically scrubbed of politik

!chuds !nonchuds genuinely what prompts even the most lefty leftoid to say shit like this.

edit test

Because sometimes you'll have to contact tech support. And they'll refer to you by your stated name. And you'll have to sign off your emails with your stated name. And in my case those emails are sent from a gmail account that proudly shows my real, actual name.

I'm just happy that I had the restraint to avoid naming myself Nate Higgers or the like.

The name I signed up with came from this meme which randomly popped in my mind when registering

First, it is simply false to say that treasury payments do not have a "payment categorization code". It is notable, by the way, that he uses this completely invented phrase rather than the actual phrase "Treasury Account Symbol" (TAS). Indeed, it's impossible to find another use of this phrase using an internet search engine in any context, let alone the Treasury context. The far more limited "deficiency" pointed out by the Government Accountability Office report Krause referenced is that information about individual government transactions were recorded in multiple different account entries separately by some government agencies and thus individual transactions could not be readily traced through to all the accounting ledgers they effected.

No chud, the government doesn't need to note where it's spending your money and it was definitely working on a system to fix that by 2028 possibly

On to Musk's next claim: the need for "rationales". The idea of putting a "rationale" for each and every individual payment (or payment file) makes little sense in the context of how the system works. Think of this in your own life: do you fill out a little form that provides your "rationale" for purchasing an item every time you swipe your credit card? If you were required to do so, you would react very negatively for the same reason you should react very negatively here: if you had to put a rationale then someone could reject your spending requests on the basis of providing the "wrong" rationale.

Imagine the right wing uproar when the possibility emerged of restricting purchases of meat through such a "rationale for transaction" system. This should be seen as no different. The "Treasury Account Symbol" (TAS) provides the only rationale that should matter which is that congress appropriated the spending. Of course, if you want to abrogate congressional spending then that is obviously not sufficient and, in fact, counterproductive.

No chud, the government doesn't need to note why it's spending your money

Imagine if the government were buying some groceries and the government's credit card was rejected at the checkout, chud, that would be terrible. What if the government imposed fascist restrictions on you, chud, how would you feel?

This all goes back to Musk's tendency to think that there is, can be or should be a "button" that determines all of this and its corrupt, inefficient bureaucrats preventing this from happening. He simply doesn't understand how complex these systems are or why they are the way they are. Take the Treasury Offset Program (TOP) for instance. It is a Bureau of the Fiscal Service system for collecting delinquent federal or state debts. One former Bureau of the Fiscal Service employee explained to me that there are rules that determine:

Actually, chud, the bureaucratic tumour is a good thing and hasn't metastasized enough

To include my own editorial comment for a moment, this is why it's so alarming to see him talk about updating this list "weekly, or even daily". This strongly suggests to me that he is talking about arbitrarily and rapidly expanding the list of people and entities on lists such as the Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) list without any due process to block them from government payments. As I discussed the Wednesday before last, the apparatuses for capriciously destroying the financial life of disfavored entities and people has been constructed over multiple decades with active Democratic participation and support. Now they are in the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Thus, again, Musk's comments hide a desire for unchecked power over others under a false narrative about governmental "inefficiency".

My sources are also very skeptical that any career Treasury employee told Elon Musk that half of the expenditures that constituted "entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN" were "unequivocal and obvious fraud". It's hard to say more without knowing the context. This is the difficult thing with government by the pronouncement of Elon Musk. He can say stuff without any corroboration much faster than anyone else can check facts or correct falsehoods.

There's no fraud chud, my sources are 'skeptical'

In the meantime, it is exhausting how much effort is required to deconstruct one Elon Musk tweet. He can lie about very complex and technical systems much faster than he can be answered, but nevertheless it's important to periodically critically assess what the richest man in the world is saying as he continually tries to justify chopping the government up and selling it for parts like this is a private equity takeover.

Actually Musk is just lying, chud

4chan: The internet's unwashed basement where anonymity breeds brilliance and degeneracy in equal measure. It's like a digital Lord of the Flies, but with more memes and fewer conch shells. Genius ideas drowned in a sea of edgelords—congrats on inventing half the internet's culture while staying a cesspool.

BlueSky: Twitter's awkward cousin who showed up late to the party with a "decentralized" buzzword and a dream. It's like someone saw Mastodon and thought, "Let's make it shinier and still somehow less relevant." Enjoy your echo chamber with better branding, I guess.

Groomercord: A g*mer's paradise turned into a labyrinth of crypto scams, furry roleplay, and "community" servers where the mods rule like petty dictators. It's Skype meets Lord of the Rings chatrooms, minus the charm and plus a billion notifications you'll never read.

Facebook: The boomer mothership where your aunt shares Minion memes and anti-vax conspiracies between FarmVille updates. It's a digital retirement home that somehow still knows what you shopped for last week. Zuck's watching, always.

Gab: Twitter for people who got banned from Twitter for being too Twitter. A libertarian fever dream where free speech means "say the quiet part loud" and the algorithm's just a megaphone for the fringes. Enjoy your edge, edgelords.

iFunny: A meme app for people who think Reddit's too intellectual. It's like a time capsule of 2012 humor—edgy enough to feel rebellious, tame enough to not scare the middle schoolers who still use it. Scroll, cringe, repeat.

Instagram: Where influencers sell you a lifestyle you can't afford, filtered through 17 layers of Photoshop and existential despair. It's a beauty pageant for avocado toast and gym selfies, judged by bots and thirsty simps. #Blessed.

Kick: Twitch's scrappy rival that's like, "We'll let you say slightly more slurs!" It's the Wild West of streaming, except the cowboys are 19-year-olds raging at Fortnite and begging for subs. Bold strategy, let's see if it pays off.

KiwiFarms: The internet's gossip rag meets stalker diary. It's a site dedicated to "documenting" weirdos with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the moral compass of a broken GPS. Drama so niche it's practically a PhD thesis in petty.

Lemmy: Mastodon's even nerdier sibling that's all about "federation" and "open-source." It's like Reddit for people who own too many Linux T-shirts and think upmarseying is a sacred duty. Decentralized boredom at its finest.

Mastodon: The hipster Twitter where everyone's smug about escaping the bird app, but it's just fractured echo chambers with worse UI. Toot your horn all you want; no one's listening outside your 12-person instance.

rDrama.net: A site so self-aware it's basically a parody of itself. It's Reddit's chaotic little brother, obsessed with stirring the pot and laughing at the mess. Drama for drama's sake—honestly, kinda respect the hustle.

Reddit: The hive mind where groupthink reigns supreme and every opinion's an upmarsey away from gospel. It's a cesspit of memes, mansplaining, and subreddits so niche you'll find 14 people arguing over vintage toaster coils. Karma's a heck of a drug.

Rumble: YouTube for people who think YouTube's too woke. It's a video platform where conspiracy theorists and "censored" talking heads thrive, all while pretending they're the underdog. Spoiler: You're still not Alex Jones famous.

scored.co: A right-wing Reddit clone that's so obsessed with "owning the libs" it forgot to build a personality. It's like Gab and X had a baby, but it only inherited the angry uncle vibes. Points for effort, I guess.

soyjak.party: A meme factory so deep in irony it's practically performance art. It's 4chan's weird nephew, churning out soyface edits for an audience of three people and a bot. Niche doesn't even begin to cover it.

Threads: Zuck's Twitter knockoff that's as exciting as a beige wall. It's Instagram's text-based midlife crisis, trying to capitalize on Elon's mess-ups but forgetting to bring any soul. Scroll, yawn, uninstall.

TikTok: Brain rot in 15-second bursts. It's a slot machine of dance trends, lip-syncs, and "hacks" that'll have you wondering how humanity survived this long. China's greatest export since gunpowder, and twice as addictive.

Tumblr: The pastel graveyard of 2010s fandoms, now a ghost town of aesthetic blogs and lingering SJWs. It's like walking through a digital thrift store—quirky, dated, and faintly sad. Still waiting for the Superwholock resurgence.

Twitch: Where charisma goes to scream at video games for 12 hours while chat spams "Poggers." It's a cult of personality meets digital busking, with hot tub streams and ban hammers keeping things spicy. Just don't ask about the ad revenue split.

watchpeopledie.tv: The internet's darkest corner, where curiosity meets morbidity in a way that'd make even 4chan blush. It's a grim reminder that some people's "entertainment" is others' nightmares. Proceed with caution, or better yet, don't.

X: Elon's playground, where free speech means chaos, bots, and blue-check clout chasers. It's a dumpster fire you can't look away from—half genius, half trainwreck. Still better than Threads, somehow.

YouTube: The video behemoth where cat clips, tutorials, and unhinged rants coexist under an algorithm that hates creators. It's the internet's TV, complete with ads you can't skip and comments you shouldn't read. Demonetized dreams live here.

Honestly, I kneel to papa musk, never thought that Grok 3 would be that impressive. . Did I miss any social media sites?

Top Drama

Relative Drama (takes into account the size of the subreddit)

autodrama: returning jobs to dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

You know what that means? Time... To... GOON!!!

I got a mild tummy ache but I'm still going to GOON because I'm too lazy to go take a shit but I'm not too lazy to GOON. Sheeit it's the weekend so I can GOON all night and then SLEEP all day on Sunday. If you're tryna GOON and you need some COOMpacks hit me up (Whatsapp only).

It turns out, I wasn't the first to think of this shit. And the lil GOONERS have perfected it. I can COOM easy knowing that this time honored tradition will be upheld by future generations.

Ready to GOON with no headphones.

Severance is mid

Landman is slopaganda

Anora is an gopnik incel fantasy

KNEECAP is the best film of the decade

No tax up to 12 lakhs, insanity.

Cannot believe jokers cosplaying as “middle class” have forced the government in such a corner that it felt it had to do this.

— Rishap Vats (@VatsRishap) February 1, 2025

Findom enjoyer genocide

Nah indirect taxes are better even at progressive taxation. Taxing income is stupid.

The middleclasscel will kiss his robber's feet for leaving him a little more and he will be happy.

Madarchod NRI I hope some wignat screwdrivers your fat gut.

They need to be hexed with 9001 Friedmans.

When Trump pulls this off, and the US is wildly, rich and wealthy again; unlike anything anyone alive has seen in over 100 years, it will be undeniable to even the most radical leftist that Trump's policies have been an overwhelming success for the United States, and he will earn his place on Mount Rushmore and as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

It sounds very reasonable but then some butthole who doesn't believe in Jesus/is a communist shows up.

don't get how it makes us rich. We import something like $3T of goods every year. Even if we somehow collected 100% of that, it wouldn't cover half of our spending

Mandatory spending was $3t in FY24, $2.1t was gibs for the elderly.

A king comes to the rescue explaining that daddy will be reducing waste

How do you not understand that Trump is going to cut all our wasteful spending and shrink the size of the government to historic lows?

If we cut the arms and legs off the old people we have a smaller volume of old people so can pay them less.

For those counting it would also take 12 years with zero spending to pay off the debt.

Or just abolish the IRS/completely strip funding, fire everyone.

This is called impoundment and was the subject of his first impeachment. Congress has the enumerated power to spend not POTUS, POTUS can't just decide he doesn't like what they want to spend on and reverse it.

Literally. Communism is 100% tax, I.e. 100% slave. We're about 50-60% of the way there.

Average effective rate is 16.4% but carry-on.

Don't forget property taxes. I'd like to see property taxes held at a certain rate that will not increase. People need to be able to budget their money without the government randomly raising taxes that could eventually force you out of your home.

Others paying for services for you sounds an awful lot like socialism to me.

We'll replace China as the number 1 exporter in both products AND oil/energy production and exports.

Also, it is as though the jeering lefties are unaware of the first hundred plus years of US history. NO income tax, tariffs galore, and they were a successful country.

I wonder what else lasted approximately a century?

Travis Kelce dyes his beard, proudly stolen from @autodrama.