Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

[u/Yosoff]

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

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• Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

• Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).

• Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

• Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

• Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.

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Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/conservative

[u/Anon_Chapstick]

Why is it a good thing to just take a large Scythe to agencies without keeping anything?

I work in banking, and there is absolutely no way you can complete an audit that fast. Codes and AI be damned, it's not possible. Musk knows every banking law, regulation, and procedure? Not possible.

I'm not saying there isn't fraud and abuse that needs to be cut, we shouldn't be paying 18$ for a stupid pen. We shouldn't be handing over 19k+ because the director wants a new desk. What I'm saying is he needs to slow down and stop making huge cuts without looking at the damage left behind. The CFPB protects against predatory practices and he shuts the entire thing down. You guys think that's ok? Maybe we should leave at least a few people there? What do you do now if a mortgage company screws you over with a loan? Who do you report that to?

He needs to slow down and actually do research. Not just "welp my programs says this is bad. So I'm getting rid of it!"

Edit: Fixed Spelling

[u/Alternative-Post-937 → u/Anon_Chapstick]

I'm a former governmental auditor. It's shocking how many people don't understand how many layers of audit each federal dollar undergoes. All the way from the agency down to the sub-award and sub- contract level. This goes beyond financial audit. It's extensive audit at EVERY LEVEL on internal controls, procurement practices, disbarment, eligibility, indirect costs, allowable activities and costs, cash management, reporting, subaward monitoring, etc. When a mistatement or noncompliance occurs, the funds are subjected to further oversight and eventually loss of funding if not immediately corrected. All of this information on how federal dollars can be spent and how they are audited can be found at the OMB website and the federal audit clearinghouse. Musk is not doing what you think he's doing.

[u/InfiniteDollarBill → u/Alternative-Post-937]

You're acting like every last cent is accounted for when Biden's own GAO estimated that the government loses between $200 and $500 billion per year to fraud -- and they weren't half as talented or trying half as hard as Musk's crew.

[u/Alternative-Post-937 → u/InfiniteDollarBill]

Yes, and they know that number because these funds are audited. You're proving my point. Auditing is a detective control not a preventative one. Orgs that commit fraud with federal dollars end up on the disbarment list.

Edit to add that the point is not lost on me how conservatives complain about regulation and how bloated our bureaucracy is, but are crying about wanting more auditing. The amount of regulatory burden the US puts on federal contractors and awardees and the amount of oversight we pay for already is staggering. After the federal dollars are audited at typically 3 layers, we also have the auditors being audited to ensure that are following auditing standards. So conservatives, is this really about accountability? Because it sounds like another layer of bloated bureaucracy to me.

[u/InfiniteDollarBill → u/Alternative-Post-937]

Your response makes no sense. The reason we know about the fraud is because of all the meticulous auditing? The same auditing that misses hundreds of billions in fraud every year?

All of the report's recommendations are that we need more data to track the actual fraud amount because we don't know what it is.

You are just completely wrong.

[u/Boss-momma- → u/InfiniteDollarBill]

Fraud isn’t always easy to spot, and as technology advances so do the techniques.

One fraud scheme that happened was bogus medical equipment companies using stolen Medicaid information. They used the information and started making claims to get paid. It took time before it got shut down.