Absolutely crazy the waste the government is spending. Bottom line we the American people should not have to pay thirty eight percent in taxes each week out of a payroll check and taxes on top of that for everything else bought. This is absurd.
Musk collects $8 million a day from the government grants and contracts! Yes $8 million a day! But he wants to fire thousands of people including veterans to save wasteful government spending. Organizations who were allocated money by Congress were held back and went as far as to physically take back money that Congress approved. But do you think any of Elon's money was held back?
Does moving fast and breaking things work anywhere?! Definitely not in the government. The Trump regime has broken so much that will not be repaired in our lifetimes. Look what we have to look forward to: higher costs for everything we consume, money lost from our retirement plans, unemployment, limited or no social security, Medicaid or SNAP benefits, bird flu and measles epidemics, no new vaccines for any diseases, rampant infections and reactions to unsafe food, vast corruption at all levels of government, more women dying in pregnancy and childbirth, people imprisoned for speaking out, public schools closing, and half the country's voters disenfranchised and ineligible to vote.
So much more is missing but we all get the point: Republicans are deliberately destroying our wealth, health, liberties and rights. And it hasn't even been 100 days.
Is anyone keeping track of how many new, renewed, or renegotiated contracts Musk has received since his arrival on the scene? $40 million alone in Cybertucks ! How many millions in new NASA contracts? Extorting the Ukraine for his satellite internet availability? Taking possession of the existing FAA contracts (was it Verizon that he stole them from?) What about the 1-point-something Billion (with a B) that OPM has been invoiced for his "help" redoing the software systems? On, and on - - Is ANYBODY keeping track?
I think the major discrepancy is in the premise that Musk's goal was to reduce the federal budget. The unspoken goals were to eliminate personnel who were not loyal to Putin's viceroy first and then to use the government concentrate wealth and power in our billionaires.
By firing people without cause and ignoring required procedures, we now have half empty offices of people who aren't sure of their job, and the other half not in the office on full pay because of the illegal firings, and the cost of all that litigation.
We also have reduced functionality of government data systems, and severely reduced data security, and an unknown amount of personal data in private hands.
The legal fees alone from defending against tens of thousands of wrongful termination suites will be staggering. Let alone the inevitable settlement, and the effort to replace them.
Musk is gonna cost us trillions by the time it's all done, sometime later 2030s.
Thanks for this article — it’s obvious your analytical repertoire extends far beyond elections alone. And yes: I do believe the ultimate goal isn’t to balance the ledger, but make life even easier for the rich and well-connected, while the rest of our lives get more nasty, brutish, and short.
Astonishing. To be fair, i’m curious about how much of this can be attributed to “start up costs” for a new government. Is it possible to compare 2025 numbers with 2021 numbers for the new Biden government, for instance? Thx.
Absolutely crazy the waste the government is spending. Bottom line we the American people should not have to pay thirty eight percent in taxes each week out of a payroll check and taxes on top of that for everything else bought. This is absurd.
Musk collects $8 million a day from the government grants and contracts! Yes $8 million a day! But he wants to fire thousands of people including veterans to save wasteful government spending. Organizations who were allocated money by Congress were held back and went as far as to physically take back money that Congress approved. But do you think any of Elon's money was held back?
Clearly, DOGE's performance would improve if only they would cut DOGE staff by 75%.
Does moving fast and breaking things work anywhere?! Definitely not in the government. The Trump regime has broken so much that will not be repaired in our lifetimes. Look what we have to look forward to: higher costs for everything we consume, money lost from our retirement plans, unemployment, limited or no social security, Medicaid or SNAP benefits, bird flu and measles epidemics, no new vaccines for any diseases, rampant infections and reactions to unsafe food, vast corruption at all levels of government, more women dying in pregnancy and childbirth, people imprisoned for speaking out, public schools closing, and half the country's voters disenfranchised and ineligible to vote.
So much more is missing but we all get the point: Republicans are deliberately destroying our wealth, health, liberties and rights. And it hasn't even been 100 days.
Is anyone keeping track of how many new, renewed, or renegotiated contracts Musk has received since his arrival on the scene? $40 million alone in Cybertucks ! How many millions in new NASA contracts? Extorting the Ukraine for his satellite internet availability? Taking possession of the existing FAA contracts (was it Verizon that he stole them from?) What about the 1-point-something Billion (with a B) that OPM has been invoiced for his "help" redoing the software systems? On, and on - - Is ANYBODY keeping track?
What an excellent question!
I think the major discrepancy is in the premise that Musk's goal was to reduce the federal budget. The unspoken goals were to eliminate personnel who were not loyal to Putin's viceroy first and then to use the government concentrate wealth and power in our billionaires.
By firing people without cause and ignoring required procedures, we now have half empty offices of people who aren't sure of their job, and the other half not in the office on full pay because of the illegal firings, and the cost of all that litigation.
We also have reduced functionality of government data systems, and severely reduced data security, and an unknown amount of personal data in private hands.
The legal fees alone from defending against tens of thousands of wrongful termination suites will be staggering. Let alone the inevitable settlement, and the effort to replace them.
Musk is gonna cost us trillions by the time it's all done, sometime later 2030s.
Thanks for this article — it’s obvious your analytical repertoire extends far beyond elections alone. And yes: I do believe the ultimate goal isn’t to balance the ledger, but make life even easier for the rich and well-connected, while the rest of our lives get more nasty, brutish, and short.
Thanks for this, GEM. Informative and useful. IOW a gem from GEM. 😉
Astonishing. To be fair, i’m curious about how much of this can be attributed to “start up costs” for a new government. Is it possible to compare 2025 numbers with 2021 numbers for the new Biden government, for instance? Thx.
Interesting theory. 2022 had some extra covid-19 stimulus that is hard to remove without the underlying data, but you can see the two yearly cumulative sums here: https://www.hamiltonproject.org/data/tracking-federal-expenditures-in-real-time/
I went to the link and added 2021 along with 2024 and 2025 on the year to date comparative cumulative sums.
April 9, 2025 $2243.222
April 9, 2024 $2087.34
April 9, 2021 $2395.267
April 10, 2025 $2258.697
April 10, 2024 $2136.434
April 10,2023 $2105.14
April 10, 2020 $1702.002
April 10, 2019 $1510.512
May 6, 2024 $2659.472
May 5,2023 $2674.326
May 6, 2020 $2610.135