DOGEsizing The Federal Government Superthread

[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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CNN —  The US State Department has frozen nearly all foreign assistance worldwide effective immediately days after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order Monday to put a hold on such assistance for 90 days.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable, seen by CNN, to all US diplomatic posts on Friday outlining the move, which threatens billions of dollars of funding from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for programs worldwide.

Foreign assistance has been the target of ire from Republicans in Congress and Trump administration officials, but the funding accounts for very little of the overall US budget. The scope of the executive order and subsequent cable has left humanitarian officials reeling.

The cable calls for immediate “stop work” orders on existing foreign assistance and pauses new aid. In the coming month, the cable said, the administration will develop standards for a review of whether the assistance is “aligned with President Trump’s foreign policy agenda.”

 

Read the rest here.

[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is pulling almost all U.S. Agency for International Development workers off the job and out of the field worldwide, moving to all but end a six-decade mission to shore up American security by fighting starvation, funding education and working to end epidemics.

The administration notified USAID workers in emails and a notice posted online, the latest in a sudden dismantling of the aid agency by returning political appointees from President Donald Trump’s first term and billionaire Elon Musk’s government-efficiency teams who call much of the spending on programs overseas wasteful.

The order takes effect just before midnight Friday and gives direct hires of the agency overseas — many of whom have been frantically packing up households in expectation of the announcement — 30 days to return home unless they are deemed essential. Contractors not determined to be essential also would be fired, the notice said.

 

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[Andy 116]

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Yosemite National Park is in trouble. Hamstrung by President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze, hundreds of rescinded job offers and the threat of coming layoffs, the park is poised to enter its busiest months of the year severely short-staffed. Not only that, but the park’s day-use reservation system — created to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience by reducing crowding — appears unlikely to return this year.

In addition, Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon is about to retire.

Worst of it all, say current and former National Park Service employees, nonprofit leaders and other Yosemite experts interviewed by SFGATE, is that decades of efforts to protect the park’s ecosystems for future generations are being derailed.

On lovely summer days, as many as 20,000 visitors show up to the park. “Catastrophic” is the word former Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher used to describe the looming staffing situation to SFGATE. 

I’ve never seen anything like this in my 55 years,” says Beth Pratt, a regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, who lives near Yosemite and is working on a book called “Yosemite Wildlife.” “Just to want to gut the Park Service? I don’t understand it.”

“This is honestly terrifying,” says Elisabeth Barton, a founding member of Echo Adventure Cooperative, a tour operator near the park. “We’re deeply concerned about the long-term health of Yosemite National Park under the current administration.”

A long, but important read that I feel like it won't make a difference anymore.

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[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is seeking access to troves of sensitive taxpayer data at the IRS, two people familiar with the inner workings of the plan who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly told The Associated Press on Monday. 

If successful, Musk and his group would have access to millions of tightly controlled files that include taxpayer information, bank records and other sensitive records. The people who spoke to the AP and requested anonymity said DOGE is specifically seeking to access the IRS’ Integrated Data Retrieval System, which enables employees “to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts,” according to the IRS website.

Advocates fear that the potential unlawful release of taxpayer records could be used to maliciously target Americans, violate their privacy and create other ramifications. 

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said in an emailed statement that “waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.”

 

Read the rest here

[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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The Internal Revenue Service, better-known as the IRS, is cutting more than 6,000 jobs in the middle of a busy tax season.

The cuts are part of a widespread downsizing throughout the federal government, being led by Elon Musk's deputies at the informal "Department of Government Efficiency." 

IRS employees were notified about the looming job cuts on Thursday. Most of the people affected are "probationary" workers who had been on the job for a limited time. 

Landing right in the middle of the tax season, the job cuts are expected to make it harder for taxpayers to get questions answered and for the government to collect all of the money it's owed.

 

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[Twin Tiers Living 558]

There's enough going on with this one subject matter to warrant a continuing thread. 

 

[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of weather forecasters and other federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees on probationary status were fired Thursday, lawmakers and weather experts said.

Federal workers who were not let go said the afternoon layoffs included meteorologists who do crucial local forecasts in National Weather Service offices across the country.

Cuts at NOAA appeared to be happening in two rounds, one of 500 and one of 800, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist who said he got the information from someone with first-hand knowledge. That’s about 10% of NOAA’s workforce.

 

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[Twin Tiers Living 558]

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The Social Security office in Big Flats is among the latest federal facilities targeted for closure by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts. The office, which leases space for $311,690 annually, was listed on DOGE’s website as a location where the lease will not be renewed.

Learn more here.

[KarenK 537]

$23K a month in rent.  It's my understanding that there are about 14 employees in there.  That right there is the kind of waste that DOGE is trying to clean up.  

Arnot Realty owns that property.  Gouging the government.

[MsKreed 1,689]

And there are almost certainly hundreds of other offices across the country paying even more unreasonable overhead.  And if 100 offices at that $311,690 are closed....then DOGE will be accused of cutting $31 million from "social security".

The implication will be that benefits are suffering from those cuts, when the truth is that's not touching a single SS check. And would, in fact, leave more money to have toward the benefits that are the actual purpose of the agency.  

[Adam 589]

i guess im waiting to see when they stop doing business with contractors that charge Fed 600 for a hammer or some other obviously inflated price, or the multiple failed financial audits of the Pentagon where billions of dollars cannot be accounted for, along with the upcoming budget being stripped of the billions in pork spending that normally gets crammed in...perhaps Y+THEN most of us will view DOGE as a serious effort

[MsKreed 1,689]

On 3/11/2025 at 2:00 PM, KarenK said:

$23K a month in rent.  It's my understanding that there are about 14 employees in there.  That right there is the kind of waste that DOGE is trying to clean up.  

Arnot Realty owns that property.  Gouging the government.

Yeah....$23k a month is whacked. There are commercial leases (like this) available all over the county. At 2,150 sf, they're asking $12.00/sf/yr. That's only $26k per year....and it's negotiable.  

3 hours ago, Adam said:

i guess im waiting to see when they stop doing business with contractors that charge Fed 600 for a hammer or some other obviously inflated price, or the multiple failed financial audits of the Pentagon where billions of dollars cannot be accounted for, along with the upcoming budget being stripped of the billions in pork spending that normally gets crammed in...perhaps Y+THEN most of us will view DOGE as a serious effort

Well I'd say, at a $23,000 a month lease for a cheesy little office space....telling Arnot Realty to $hit in their hats is on par with the cancelling the $600 hammer contracts.

Cutting the actual pork will be harder to get past Congress, but it's a good start to eliminate some of the stupidly inflated quotes for goods and services...that almost everyone should agree on. 

And I think we all grossly underestimate just how much those stupidly inflated (or completely unnessary) invoices can add up to.....

In the 15yrs I spent working for NYS, just what I witnessed at a handful of locations in a few agencies:

* buying RTU cleaning products instead of 10:1 concentrate because "it costs a little less". Unable to comprehend that one gallon of the "pricier" product equals 10 gallons of RTU.

*  laptops purchased with the chips already outdated and unable to support required OS updates. So they need to be replaced within a year...even though we paid an added $600 each for 5yr hardware "warranty".

* when employees leave service and their cell phones are "retired" the devices are wiped and disposed of.....but the number/service aren't removed from the agency's Verizon account for months (or years).

It's scary to think about scaling that up to the entire state....and then imagine how much more there is at the federal level.

[Ann 510]

10 hours ago, MsKreed said:

It's scary to think about scaling that up to the entire state....and then imagine how much more there is at the federal level.

Not to mention local municipalities.  When it came to my Dept.’s budget, if I didn’t need it I would not spend everything in my budget for supplies, equipment and things I could control.  
I still remember one situation where I needed a red marker.  I normally used black markers so I went to other Depts.  and asked if they’d trade a red marker for a black one.  There were lots of laughs and  I was told to order a box of 12.  I replied I only needed 1 for a one time project not 12.  I did get my trade.  I always knew my budget (while some came from revenue my Dept. generated) was taxpayer money not the local Government’s.