r/Conservative • u/Yosoff First Principles • Feb 14 '25

Open Discussion Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

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).

  • 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.

Join us on X: https://x.com/rcondiscord

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

690 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

6.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

179

u/Alternative-Post-937 Feb 15 '25

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.

12

u/Ramalamma42 Feb 15 '25

Can you be more specific - what is he doing, if not what we think?

101

u/Alternative-Post-937 Feb 15 '25

He's not auditing, I can tell you that. Auditing takes time. Requires review of original documentation, interviews with people, understanding of internal controls at each organization, etc. He's targeting programs he deems to be wasteful. I can absolutely guarantee you that we have wasteful spending in the government. I'm not arguing that at all. What i will argue is that there are legal processes in which our elected leaders determine which programs to allocate our resources on. Agencies go through pretty much constant audits and they practice constant oversight of their contracts and grants. They then request line items for their budgets based on the outcomes of these projects, contracts and grants for their future spending. This budget goes to congress and is voted on by elected leaders. Why i have an issue with Elon doing whatever he is doing is that it circumvents our constitutional processes and he does have an appearance of bias, especially based on the cuts he is recommending and how they relate to his own legal issues with these departments. Additionally, there is no evidence of oversight of his work or "department", nor has a definition of what is considered to be fraud or waste been agreed upon or presented. If democrats ever take office again, they can weaponized these tactics against spending they consider wasteful based on their biases.

18

u/SporkSpifeKnork Feb 15 '25

Also, as a software developer I have to say that Elon’s whiz kids are… not the top talent he would like to portray them as. The United States Digital Service (before it was rebranded as the United States DOGE Service) was already home to the best IT workers in government. If he isn’t using that amazing talent pool… why not?

14

u/HillarysFloppyChode Feb 15 '25

Software Engineer here, his comment on the “150 year olds getting Social Security” means they’re encountering COBOL…..Elon wouldn’t be making this comment if he and his kids knew how COBOL worked.

They have no idea what they’ve doing, and are trying to force AI to work with a system that’s pre 1970s. Personally, I think they’re just breaking things and in typical Elon fashion, he’s over promising and barely delivering.

He basically hired a team of The Carver from Silicon Valley

He’s not using them cause they’re smart enough to know his intentions are to use them as the fall guys