janhoglundMay 31, 2025
“Musk vowed that his “Department of Government Efficiency” would cut $2 trillion from the U.S. budget, but he quickly backed off on those numbers. …its cuts may well end up costing money. Max Stier, who heads the Partnership for Public Service, suggests DOGE cuts could cost U.S. taxpayers $135 billion because agencies will need to train and hire replacements for the workers DOGE fired. Stier called DOGE’s actions “arson of a public asset.””
—Heather Cox Richardson, May 30, 2025
#musk #doge
Show threadAndreas KMay 31, 2025
@janhoglund Funny, our conservative-rightwing ÖVP-FPÖ coalition vowed that their merging of our social insurances (you know these things that basically manage "universal healthcare" in Austria) from 27 into 3 big ones would save a billion € in administrative costs. Now a couple of years afterwards, somehow these cost savings have not materialized, BUT the costs of the merge somehow stayed. And naturally, somehow the employer side now has vote parity with the employee side.
Show threadAndreas K
(These "social insurances" that provide health coverage by statute, are actually not run by the state, but by the "interest groups", funny, the actual word for "gesetzliche Interessensvertretung" aka "lawfully mandated advocacy group" does not even exist in Engflish, but it's kind of the economic shadow government here around since WWII, and in the "social security sector" traditionally the employee side had the majority, but funny, after this reorganisation, it's 50:50. Funny coincidences.)
May 31, 2025 at 8:05pmElk
Show threadAndreas KMay 31, 2025
About as coincidental as that #DOGE razed especially the federal agencies that #Naziboy had a beef with.