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by John Bossange
A friend of mine sent me a posting from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which listed fifteen monetary gifts to foreign countries funding a variety of causes and projects. In total, there was 729 million dollars previously gifted and then recently cancelled that was intended for nations like Mozambique, Cambodia, Serbia, Moldavia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Liberia, and Mali.
By comparison, in 2022, the US government has gifted fossil fuel companies 20 billion dollars per year (including loan guarantees), as reported by the International Monetary Fund. 30 billion dollars of our taxpayer money should be considered a huge amount of waste, especially when company profits are not used to lower our gas and oil prices. We know these subsidies are not just for research and exploration. Instead, those profits are mostly returned to other wealthy shareholders who are the ones who can afford to invest in such profitable shares of stock.
Most of us are too busy trying to balance our checkbooks day to day and don’t have funds to invest in the market. Where is DOGE on this abuse of our taxpayer money funding these fossil fuel subsidies?
Want another example of government waste for DOGE to challenge? How about all those selfish multi-millionaires and billionaires who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. You and I cover their greed by paying what we should and can. Bezos, Musk, Bloomberg, Ichan, Soros, Buffet, Gates, Murdock, Zuckerberg, are among the twenty-five richest Americans who collectively made over 401 billion dollars back in 2018, but paid only 13.6 billion in taxes by gaming the system. That’s a tax rate of 3.4%. Even if these wealthy individuals paid 15%, the average tax bracket for working Americans, that could have been used to cut the deficit by 60 billion dollars!
Why is DOGE not going after this money where it can really make a difference in cutting government spending? Why are they going after the small fish like the 15 nations and 729 million dollars listed in their latest report that has a minimal impact on government efficiency and spending?
The real money to be captured is with the IRS, which did not receive 606 billion dollars from individuals (74%), corporations (7%) and employers (18%) who under-reported, overstated credits, or took a variety of deductions. You can bet those individual billionaires took advantage of the tax codes and the underfunded and short-staffed IRS enforcement department to put their profits before their country.
Does that make them “smart,” as Trump bragged during his 2015 debate? Selfishness and unpatriotic greed best describe that behavior. DOGE needs to be all over this abuse and recover those missing funds as a substitute for budget cuts, especially those proposed for our Social Security and Medicare.
In 2024, tax breaks alone totaled 1.9 billion dollars in lost revenue and that’s more than any other individual government-spending program including Social Security (1.4 billion), Medicare (875 billion), and Defense (874 billion). Further, those 2024 tax breaks of unpaid 1.9 billion dollars were greater than last year’s record-breaking deficit of 1.8 billion dollars.
Do you think that troubles billionaires like Musk and Trump? Do they even care? And that question raises the most important question of all. Just what is the true end game of the Trump-Musk DOGE initiative?
I’m all for DOGE making our Federal government more efficient, for thinning our “entitled” civil service positions wherever possible, for reorganizing some federal agencies, and for reducing our nation’s debt. But if the sledgehammer approach is to be used only on selected political targets, it’s a pathway to nowhere. I believe that’s exactly where DOGE is headed.
Their call for government efficiency is just a ruse. The real purpose of the massive reductions is to assault and eventually destroy our government, not to make it less expensive to operate. DOGE has been designed as a cover for the Trump administration who understand their real endgame; political and financial anarchy so their oligarchy can assume more control of America.
If DOGE was serious about true government efficiency, they would go after the cuts that would really make a difference, and not spend time eliminating programs by using fake fraud and waste numbers to decimate entire departments and agencies just to show they can fulfill campaign promises as they hide their true goal of taking down our government.
Most of us are not wealthy enough to live in gated communities like the President, Musk and their billionaire friends. We are struggling to make ends meet. We need a vibrant and responsive government that can deliver essential services so we can enjoy our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as we live outside their gated communities.
We can’t let DOGE allow the tax cheaters and tax breaks for the wealthiest to continue. But most of all, we cannot allow DOGE to purposely sledgehammer its way through the essential services of our federal government, all the while covering up their real goal of making our government smaller and easier for them to control.
The President, Musk and their MAGA advisors need to realize the rest of us are on to their game. It’s time they feel the sledgehammer of our resistance.
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Categories: Commentary, National News
When you look outside the propaganda bubble you find other things going on….
https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2025/03/03/mind-blowing-just-7000-leftist-politically-connected-ngos-are-hoarding-90-of-all-taxpayer-money-meant-for-nonprofits-roughly-300-billion-in-government-money-flows-to-nonprofits-every-year/
I’m of a conservative bent but this ‘Federal Employees are Evil’ rhetoric that MAGAs are embracing is just plain bad. Almost everyone I know is being indirectly and negatively impacted by the DOGE cuts and this is going to have massively negative indirect economic consequences.
Of course Musk/Trump know this. They need unemployed fodder for the war machine.
The Doge cuts are largely optional as employees are given the choice to accept a compensation package to leave or they can stay. This is far more than what was offered to federal employees and contractors who refused to take an experimental injection. Those employees received nothing, no severance package that I clicked 7-8 months of pay and other benefits. My husband was forced to retire, and I was threatened with termination even though legally I met the exemption criteria. This requirement touched everyone I knew, but no one cared. I call this hypocrisy.
Christine. This is totally different then the Vax nonsense. The Doge cuts affect everyone.
Cheering for layoffs is bad Karma and it’s gonna hit us all….conservatives and liberals alike.
War machine? Isn’t he trying and looking like successfully going to stop two wars within the first two months of offfice? You mean that president?
Doge is not cutting near enough, when people find out how much freeloading is going on there will be a national divorce, just like in any abusive, leach like relationship. Elon has mentioned public ally if he released all that he knows he would be killed by those in the borg, that are stealing, it’s massive.powerful criminals don’t like it when you cut off their billions of free tax payer grift, they can’t justify the need to the general public, just the opposite, the other grifters (msm) have to run cover for them and themselves. We don’t need a chainsaw, we need a feller buncher!
Alex, I did not cheer for layoffs. I said nothing of the sort. All I did was make a comparison, nothing more. I respectfully disagree with you.
Didn’t accuse you of doing so. Was speaking in general. Be well.
Federal Government should be lean and mean, not fat or bloated, as we have all knew it was happening and did nothing, and now we are seeing it first hand and it’s a disgusting waste of our tax dollars and this is just the tip of what’s to come !!
I don’t care what agency is listed, waste is waste and fraud is fraud, and if you’re running or employed by a said agency you should be gone post-haste.
And any elected official that balks at DOGE, they need to be turfed out as soon as possible, and that includes Vermonts three stooges in DC, they are so pathetic with
there canned rhetoric, but never mentiond when Biden, or whom ever was in charge spending money like a drunken sailor !! ” No disrespect to our sailors ”
So you may not like the process or who’s doing DOGE, but let’s see what they can find, and so far it’s pretty disheartening, as the nation is close to $37T in debt, and we now see a few reasons why ??
Politicans need to understand they are the stewardship of said funds, and should be held accountable for any waste & fraud, as we already know there is no efficiency !!
Wake up people, think of the debt your leaving your kids & grandkids !!
Bossange – Please go to Doge.gov and make your suggestions known.
Susan, with all due respect do you really think Bossange would go to the DOGE web site and see where all our money was sent to Soros controlled foundations to be spread around to all their Commiecrat projects all over the world.
“In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty”. – Bob Marley
Freedom of speech again? NONSENSE. Pandering to Communists and radicals & to the leftist trying to overthrow the USA is ALL this is.
I can read & hear leftist trash & lies on the major networks, PBS, (on MY dime, no less) ALL the print journals in this state, etc. etc. – I do NOT need to be exposed to more of it on supposedly “conservative” VDC.
There IS a difference between right and wrong, between good and bad. Therefore?
Don’t need this. Don’t want this. Don’t read this. Don’t give mental illness and hatred the time of day. But those who feel compelled to chronically demonstrate how “fair” & “tolerant” they are in the futile hope that this very disturbed and disordered political party might learn to do the same one day? NO.
PROVERBS 6:16 – There are six things the Lord Himself HATES, no seven things He Finds Abominations: Haughty Eyes, A Lying Tongue, Hands That Kill the Innocent, a Heart that Devises Wicked Schemes, Feet that Rush into Evil, A False Witness That Pours Out Lies, And Those who Stir Up Conflict in the Community.
I.E.: The Lies Democrats Spew as Fact, Abortion, Soros (a Nazi Sympathizer & Affiliate) & the aligning DNC & their plot to overthrow a Nation Founded in God & Judeo-Christianity, The Conformists who Blindly Follow & Revere Obvious Evils, False Witnesses such as Soros/Klaus Schwab, etc. & those who reject the Lord & follow Them, and the players in VT such as Clark, Sanders, Sara George and Bossange who destroy the fabric of America, endanger the citizenry & STIR UP CONFLICT with every breath they take.
NOT. LISTENING. EVER.
I remember when the State of Vermont closed Brandon Training School and initiated “reduction-in-force” within the State bureaucracy in all departments. More recently, Culling-19 mandates sent many people into early retirement or forced termination of their employment. Mind you, only because they had the gall to protect their own health over forced innoculation with a USA funded, lab cooked stew bioweapon. Oddly enough, wasn’t it federal employees and Congress who got a pass on the jab? Gee, I wonder why they were exempt?
Nothing lasts forever – sorry to see people lose their jobs, but there are thousands upon thousands who have lost their jobs since 2020. Those fed employees screeching now did not stand up for anyone else when businesses were shuttered, jabs forced upon the military, unvaxed illegals pouring in from every corner of the planet, and people being terminated without notice every single day. The great reset is hitting all sectors now. It will get a whole lot worse before people actually wake up to reality. No honor among thieves.
This piece is satire, right? I hope?
I think if we’re being honest with each other, we would all admit that, wherever it is that we happen to work, each of us could easily name 10% (at least) of the workforce that aren’t pulling their weight. Many of us would say that by eliminating that 10%, everyone’s jobs would become easier.
As a case study, let’s look at Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. He went in, cut 80%… 80%(!)… of the workforce and rebranded Twitter as X. Let me ask you, is X a better platform now than Twitter ever was? Enough said.
So please, let’s stop with the fear porn fallacy that government is going to collapse if we cut the dead weight from it. Trust me, we’ll all get by. We’ll do just fine. The only people who won’t are the grifters, be they politicians, illegal aliens, cartels, foreign dictators, or anything in between. Their government trough is drying up.
Mr Bossange made the following claim: ” Bezos, Musk, Bloomberg, Ichan, Soros, Buffet, Gates, Murdock, Zuckerberg, are among the twenty-five richest Americans who collectively made over 401 billion dollars back in 2018, but paid only 13.6 billion in taxes by gaming the system. That’s a tax rate of 3.4%.”. First of all, some of these things are not like the others, can we agree? The only Republicans on this list are Ichan and Murdoch. Bezos waffles as benefits himself. So you’ve named 70% Demonrats in your list. It would b interesting to see what percentage *just* the Demonrats on your list paid. Not how I’d make my point, but whatever. You do you. Figures may lie, but liars *always* manipulate figures.
Finally, the numbers quoted are from 2018. In politics, that’s ancient history. I was always taught to use current data in making an argument. Regardless, you wish they’d paid 15%. Let’s call that five times 3.4%. So you’re complaining that they paid $13.6b instead of $68b? A difference of less that $55b? You know what $55b is to the government? A rounding error. DOGE is finding that sum (and far more) under every rock they turn over.
I compliment VDC for publishing this piece. The only way we can work our way out of the mess we’re in is by being exposed to views outside of our respective echo chambers.
I read both the VDC and VT Digger everyday. If you read both sides’ “facts”, an individual actually looking for a solution may be able to put the two pieces together and come up with a well reasoned opinion, not just a recitation of ideology. Challenging one’s own opinions is much more important than just blindly following the “party line.” The “my way or the highway” mindset on both sides of the political spectrum does nothing but make finding a workable compromise impossible.
I know there are people who see compromise as a bad word and as an abandonment one’s core convictions. Maybe if more people actually listened to what others who have differing opinions are saying before rejecting them out of hand, they may find that they have more in common than they realize.
I have friends on all sides of the spectrum. We don’t agree on every tactic but we mostly agree that getting a good education for our children, for example, is important. Randomly condemning the right or the left doesn’t fix anything. Just like every aspect of life, give and take produces the best outcomes. To quote the philosopher Mick Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want but if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.”
Why was my post removed? I guess another year I won’t be sending a $1000 anonymous donation to VDC.
Hello VermontVermonter – we’re asking all commenters to use their real, full names. I’ve announced it, sent emails, but maybe you missed it. Email me if you want.
Oh sorry, using my real name is not compatible with the world of cancel culture for me and my endeavors. Subject matter here is highly controversial. I respect VDC’s right to conduct their forums the way they choose, and I appreciate what you guys are doing. Everyone using their real names are much braver than I am. I wish you all luck! Fight fight fight!
And where can we find the Vermont Republicans tax cutting and spending cutting Manifesto?
Where’s the plan?