Tag: abuse
 Joni Ernst

The Fast Rise -- And Humiliating Crash -- Of House 'DOGE Caucus'

Just like the so-called Department of Government Efficiency it was named after, the House Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus has delivered little more than chaos and waste.

Started by Republicans Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida, the DOGE caucus pledged to help multibillionaire Elon Musk scour the federal government to find trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse.

Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Greg Landsman of Ohio were the first Democrats to join the committee, arguing that if Republicans are truly interested in government efficiency and oversight, Democrats should be at the table. While the move drew some criticism, it effectively called Republicans’ bluff.

“The DOGE caucus is dead. It’s defunct. We haven’t met in months. We only had two total meetings in five months. And we weren’t involved at all in anything [happening at DOGE], which Elon was in charge of. Zero. Zilch. Nada. [Musk] did it all on his own,” Moskowitz told Politico.

He added that “DOGE was a complete failure. Complete failure. Nothing has been made more efficient. Ask the people in Newark [Liberty International Airport, which has suffered delays and cancellations] how efficiency is going.”

And that failure starts at the top. Musk’s clashes with the Trump administration and DOGE’s failure to deliver any real savings—or even spot one example of waste or fraud—have led him to retreat from the government spotlight. Meanwhile, sales of his Tesla vehicles have plummeted, and so has the public’s opinion of him.

The other DOGE byproduct, the House Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee, chaired by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has fared no better. Its ranking Democrat, Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, and fellow lawmakers have repeatedly highlighted the farcical nature of the proceedings. During a recent hearing, Greene wasted time on her ignorant obsession with transgender athletes in sports.

If these DOGE offshoots have succeeded at anything, it's toeing the Trump administration line: Musk is somehow both in charge of everything DOGE does and completely blameless for its failures.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Waste, Fraud And Abuse In Musk's Department Of Gross Errors

Waste, Fraud And Abuse In Musk's Department Of Gross Errors

A deplorable level of waste, abuse and fraud persists in the federal government, as well as in local and state governments run by both parties and in major corporations, too. At the moment, however, America's most prolific source of fraud and waste appears to be the ironically named Department of Government Efficiency.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course. When Donald Trump returned to the presidency, he vowed — as he had done many times before — to crack down on all the loafers, crooks and spendthrifts on the government payroll. He would balance the budget, cut taxes, and protect Social Security and Medicare. With a flourish he appointed the obscenely rich Elon Musk, who needs no further introduction, to lead DOGE and its cost-cutting crusade.

Having promised initially to cut $2 trillion — or nearly a third of what the United States government spends annually — Musk quickly backed away from that inflated target. The host of engineers, lawyers and right-wing political hacks that he imposed on federal agencies under the aegis of DOGE soon alarmed everyone by demanding access to confidential data and classified information, at great jeopardy to national and personal security.

Leaving aside the dangers posed by DOGE's bumbling invasion, the sum total of its cost-cutting campaign falls far short of the extravagant claims promoted by Musk and Trump. Over the weekend, the DOGE list of budget-slashing achievements was revised sharply downward for the second time in less than a week.

Nearly every day, the billionaire and his aides have cited millions and even billions allegedly recovered by eliminating federal programs, agencies, services and research, often with seemingly ludicrous examples of wasteful spending. Trump echoed many of them in his State of the Union speech, including an alleged study of "transgender mice." That was one of many mistakes served up by Trump and Musk — in that instance, the valuable research they were mocking involved "transgenic" mice, used to assess cancer and chronic illness treatments.

Much of what DOGE has served up so far is misinformation and disinformation of equally dismal quality. Its name should be changed to the Department of Gross Errors. Debunking the howlers tossed out by Musk's arrogant yet plainly incompetent crew is now a regular beat for many news outlets, as the billions in supposed savings routinely shrink by factors of a thousand or more — to an infinitesimal fraction of what the grandiose Musk has asserted.

ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative reporting outlet, found that the cuts imposed on the IRS by DOGE are likely to cost the United States billions of dollars over the coming years. As every tax expert knows, the salaries of the auditors and experts dismissed by the DOGE geniuses are earned back many times over as they claw back taxes owed by wealthy miscreants. Firing these experienced auditors means squandering an investment that would have paid huge dividends for decades. Musk may not like what IRS auditors do — which billionaire does? — but that saves money for people like him, not the honest taxpayers.

And according to a front-page analysis published by the Wall Street Journal — an impeccably right-wing newspaper owned by Fox News boss Rupert Murdoch — DOGE's "wall of receipts" doesn't quite add up either. Musk has boasted about his outfit cutting $55 billion in waste so far, but the canceled contracts posted on its website only came to $9 billion. And the Journal's reporting shows that at least half of those cancellations saved no money at all — which means the real cuts represent less than 10 percent of the advertised amount.

On March 3, the New York Times confirmed confirmed that DOGE's computer geniuses don't know how to do high-school math: "From its start, the list has been full of errors: claims that confused billions with millions, triple-counted the same cancellation, or claimed credit for contracts that had ended years or even decades before."

Shall we call that "fraud," or is it qualify as "abuse"? Considering the time and money spent on DOGE, including its pointless distraction of federal employees who do real work with threats and demands that they draw up lists of their achievements, it is certainly an enormous waste.

Meanwhile, Musk's minions keep busy spreading faked figures about one federal agency after another, as does their billionaire boss.

Evidently, they all harbor deep hostility toward the nation's most popular government program, Social Security — which is why they have accused the Social Security Administration of paying out billions of dollars to people who have been dead for hundreds of years. Trump made a fool of himself with his dramatic repetition of that obviously false indictment before Congress, only to have Musk "apologize" and promise to do better.

But he assuredly will not do better, because his true purpose is not to "reform" the government or conserve its assets. Musk and Trump are waging ideological warfare against the idea and practice of democratic government that is of, by and for the people. They are creating an autocratic administration that extends control by would-be tyrants — and, to judge from the Kremlin's admiring reviews, by tyrants who are already in power.

Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. He is the author of several books, including The Raw Deal: How The Bush Republicans Plan To Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.


Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

By Gil Lebreton, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TNS)

Considering that he has amassed career earnings of $150 million and that his supermodel wife Gisele banked $47 million herself just this past year, it’s probably ludicrous to think that Tom Brady lies awake these nights, worrying about Roger Goodell.

But it’s a good thing that his lawyers are, at least.

Sue Goodell. Sue his pants off, Tom.

Please spare me your righteous indignation about NFL integrity and the New England Patriots’ rap sheet and coach Bill Belichick’s tendency to fondle the loopholes.

We are talking about the air in footballs here, not knocking out spouses or switching a child until he bleeds. Did you even know there was a rule about air pressure before Deflategate?

When we were growing up, the kid down the street always liked to use his ball — the one he got for Christmas with the stripes on it, college style — when he quarterbacked our touch football games.

We preferred our old scuffed football. No problem. Both sides could use what they want.

How the Patriots’ interpretation of this time-honored sandlot protocol grew into a national scandal would be funny, if Goodell hadn’t gone all medieval on the thing.

An original two-game suspension for Ray Rice, but a four-game suspension for Brady?

Sue Goodell’s pants off, Tom.

Clearly the commissioner, emboldened by hoodwinking the players’ union into handing him deity-like powers, is making up punishments as he goes along. His handling of the New Orleans Saints’ imaginary Bountygate scandal was only the first hint.

This time he waited for “independent” investigator Ted Wells’ 243-page report, which concluded that the Patriots’ deflating was “more probable than not.”

Goodell’s sword was swift. Brady was suspended four games without pay for the 2015 season — which will include a road game against the Dallas Cowboys on October 11. The Patriots were also fined one million dollars, plus ordered to forfeit their No. 1 draft pick in 2016 and No. 4 in 2017.

Brady’s lawyer filed an immediate appeal on his behalf. Cowboys fans may want to follow the progress of that appeal.

The NFL Players Association, meanwhile, is trying to get Goodell dismissed from hearing the appeal of the case since the Patriots intend to call him as a witness.

Director DeMaurice Smith and the players’ union brought this upon themselves by treating Goodell’s magic-wand powers as a bargaining chip in the last contract negotiations.

Now the union finds itself pulling the rope, trying to drag ashore lost leverage while unpopularly defending the likes of Rice, Greg Hardy, and Adrian Peterson.

Brady? Oh, he’ll be fine. He remains adored by many, even beyond New England. And he still gets to keep the $47 million girl.

His legacy tarnished? Oh, please. For using a football that felt slightly more comfortable in his hand?

And if his suspension isn’t reduced on appeal, consider the trade-off. There isn’t a coach in the league who wouldn’t trade a four-game suspension for four Lombardi trophies.

In the end, despite his arrogant facade and $44 million annual salary, Goodell will take the biggest hit. It’s one thing for a rogue owner like Jerry Jones to profess his loyalty for the commissioner. It’s quite another that Goodell has angered Bob Kraft, the powerful Patriots owner who was once his ally.

Despite what Goodell says, Deflategate has never been about integrity and fairness. Nobody hacked into any Seattle Seahawks computers here.

From the beginning, this has been much ado about nothing. It’s been about NFL fans’ disdain for Belichick and their jealousy of Brady, the luckiest football player alive.

Goodell had to do something, and now he’s got half of America again questioning his integrity and job performance.

No objections here, your honor.

Sue his pants off.

Photo: Keith Allison via Flickr

Q & A: How The Great Recession Affected Children

Q & A: How The Great Recession Affected Children

By Teresa Wiltz, Stateline.org (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Five years after the Great Recession ended, many Americans are still reeling from its effects. Perhaps no group was harmed more by the downturn than children.

Roughly two million more children live in poverty today than at the start of the recession, according to a new study by First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy group, and PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The study analyzes four areas affecting children’s well-being: health, hunger, housing, abuse, and neglect. In most ways, children are worse off than they were in 2007, the beginning of the economic contraction. As of 2013, for example, 14.7 million children were living in poverty, compared with 12.8 million at the start of the recession.

Q: In which area were children hit hardest by the recession?

A: Food security. As of 2013, 15.7 million children lived in households where at least one family member didn’t get enough to eat on a regular basis. That’s 3.3 million more than at the onset of the recession. But the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government’s largest anti-hunger program (commonly known as food stamps), helped ease the situation. The number of SNAP beneficiaries rose by 21 million between 2007 and 2013 to 46.5 million, resulting in about one in three kids receiving some form of nutrition assistance.

Still, it’s difficult to tell if SNAP and other food assistance programs are meeting the needs of impoverished families. The study also found that many states tightened eligibility standards for food assistance. During the recession, SNAP was enhanced with federal stimulus funding, but that money has dried up.

“Food insecurity increased dramatically,” said Rachel Meadows, a communications and policy associate with PolicyLab. “It showed us a lot of families were really struggling even technically after the Great Recession had ended.”

Q: How did foreclosures affect children?

A: More than two million children lost their homes as a result of foreclosures, and up to six million children continue to be at risk of losing them. According to the latest data, 46 percent of all households with children in 2011 faced issues of housing affordability, physically inadequate housing, or overcrowding. In 2012, 40.9 million households — more than a third of U.S. households — were considered “cost burdened” because they spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

The study found that more than 1.6 million children were homeless during each year of the recession, and 40 percent of those kids were under age six. The report also found that the supply of affordable housing is inadequate to meet demand. But federal data are conflicting. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that rates of homelessness are going down. But the U.S. Department of Education reports that for kids, particularly students, the number is increasing.

Q: Did children experience more abuse and neglect during the recession?

A: The data are mixed. Federal statistics suggests overall rates of child abuse decreased during the recession. But rates of reported neglect increased 21.6 percent between 2007 and 2009, from 436,944 cases to 543,035 cases. Between 2009 and 2012, reported neglect cases decreased two percent, to 531,241 cases. (Abuse, which can be physical, mental, emotional, or sexual, requires intent on the part of the abuser to do harm, while neglect occurs when a parent or caretaker fails to attend to a child’s needs.)

Meanwhile, during the downturn hospitals reported an increase in injuries consistent with abuse, including an increase in the number of reported brain and head traumas.

Federal spending on child abuse prevention programs remained about the same during the recession while spending at the state level varied widely. About half the states spent more, and half spent less.

Overall, state and local spending declined by $349 per child between 2008 and 2011, as states slashed spending on social services to close budget gaps.

“Recovery takes several years,” Meadows said. “Strong safety net programs worked. But if you cut the safety nets too quickly or too much, you could stall or reverse the recovery that’s still going on.”

Q: Is there any area in which children’s lives improved during the recession?

A: Millions of jobs were lost during the recession, and millions of children lost health insurance through their parents’ employer-covered plans. Despite this, the uninsured rate among children is lower today than when the recession began, according to Ed Walz, vice president of communications for First Focus.

Investments in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), along with CHIP eligibility expansions, played a big role in lowering the rates of uninsured children.

During the depths of the recession, 2007 to 2009, the number of uninsured children shrank by 600,000 while the number of adults without health insurance increased by 6.3 million.

CHIP, which provides free or low-cost insurance to families that make too much to qualify for Medicaid, is a federal-state partnership. States are required by federal law to provide CHIP coverage, but they have the flexibility to determine the extent of benefits and can tailor their programs to meet the needs of their populations. BadgerCare in Wisconsin, for example, looks different from PeachCare in Georgia.

The federal government didn’t require states to expand coverage during the recession, but states weren’t allowed to shrink it — and they didn’t. Between 2008 and 2012, 12 states loosened eligibility requirements to include children from slightly higher-income households. The report found that states tried to limit out-of-pocket health care costs for low-income families.

“Kids didn’t lose any ground. It was success and continues to be a success,” said Kathleen Noonan, co-director of PolicyLab.

After the recession, the number of uninsured children continued to drop each year. But under the Affordable Care Act, federal funding for CHIP will expire in October unless Congress extends it.

Photo: U.S. Department Of Agriculture via Flickr

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