The entertainment business understands they need to give the people what they want. This is the attention economy, after all. And want do people want the most? Money! So even if a particular MSM entity doesn't like the new administration they still have to report on something like this. If money is what captures people's attention then attention is what's needed to capture money.
I'd say D.O.G.E. is a mixed bag at this point. It is pretty wild seeing a random government agency pop up and tap into financial backdoors of other agencies and projects with the technical ability to immediately cut funding. Ironically DOGE seem to be a rugpull machine, but instead of rugging crypto it's rugging the government itself. This has led many to believe... how in the world can this be legal? There does seem to be some debate.
DOGE has drawn widespread controversy and criticism as Musk—who has been unofficially leading the agency—and his team have been quickly working to reduce costs through cancelling grants and contracts and reducing the federal workforce. DOGE has received blowback for its seemingly unrestricted access to sensitive federal data across departments including the Treasury Department and Education Department.
It’s not clear what authority DOGE has to be handling sensitive data, and the agency and Musk are facing a number of lawsuits seeking to answer that and restrict access. DOGE was created by executive order on Trump’s first day back in office last month, and the order declared its purpose was “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Well I saw a rumor on Twitter that Musk, using the power of autistic 22 year-old tech-gurus, was able to tap into backdoors that were created as far back as the Obama Administration. Not only do these pathways make it easy to access all this stuff from a centralized locale, but also the backdoors themselves are approved and legal, making it very difficult for the courts to shut them down... try as they might. No idea if this is true but it would explain a lot of how everything has gone down up until this moment.
An official website of the United States government.
Good thing it has that label because you'd never know it otherwise! https://doge.gov posts their own social media feed to a government website for status updates... which is just... wild.
Here's fun little metric that shows us that most of the rules we have to follow, especially in the world of finance, are all just made up by the executive branch by way of unelected bureaucrats in three-letter agencies, rather than congress like it's supposed to be. I'd be lying if the SEC didn't come to mind immediately after taking one look at this bar graph. Of course this would probably be fine if there wasn't blatant corruption and gross conflict of interest, but apparently this is too much to ask.
It's also a bit ironic that the DOGE website puts something like this out there because they... are one of those unelected agencies running around doing crazy shit. I mean let's be real this is 10x crazier than anything other agency has to offer. Or rather it is very loud, very public, and very sensationalist. I guess there's not as much shock and awe for little things like the NSA illegally spying on every American 24/7 and legally declaring everyone's dick pics to be their property.
What I find especially funny is that many democrats who oppose what DOGE is doing here are trying to act like they actually care about following rules and regulations and that boundaries are being overstepped. Yeah no I don't buy that for a second. If it was your team doing the thing you wouldn't be saying a damn thing.
There's almost zero credibility or good faith left. The same people who told me "mostly peaceful riots are a good thing" and "get this experimental injection or we take away your job and your health insurance"... these are the people suddenly worried about rules, regulations, and protocol? Get fucked. Pick a lane, hypocrites; I'm over it.
The proposal calls for 20% of DOGE’s targeted $2 trillion in savings to be returned to “the ~79 million tax-paying households,” which Fishback said would result in about a $5,000 return per household.
Even just verbalizing that every taxpayer in America has simply a chance to get $5000 creates an immense amount of support for DOGE. Why is that? Because people are greedy and self-serving. Anyone who was on the fence regarding this situation will immediately jump over to the "yeah I like money" side. It's almost like a reverse-bribe. Instead of paying a politician to get support for a thing the politician is paying you to support it. Very weird.
Trump has already stated many times he wants easy money and a weak dollar to stimulate the economy. Something like this would be the easiest way to get dollars directly into the consumers hands to do just that. And the money itself doesn't actually come from DOGE. They could just as easily lie and act like they hit that $2T target and do the $5000 stimmy regardless. This money, if it comes, really has nothing to do with DOGE but they might as well attach it to something they want the public to support anyway.
The pronouncement came on the same day as reporting from USA TODAY showed that DOGE's website published misleading information on the amount of money it has claimed to save, including a nearly $8 billion error.
There has been no indication that DOGE will issue a stimulus check as a result of cost-cutting measures. Any form of stimulus payment issued by the U.S. government would have to be approved by Congress.
Budget experts warn that such a rebate program would require congressional approval, and lawmakers may prefer to use that money in other ways.
Imagine the sheer hubris of congress trying to pad bloated spending packages inside of a DOGE refund to taxpayers. That's a classic popcorn moment right there. May the odds be ever in your favor.
People like money, and will more often than not support anything they believe could personally benefit them in this way. Is it a trick? Maybe, but it's also in line with what the administration wants to do anyway, and kicking it off with a bang like this could drum up a lot of unlikely support from unexpected sources.
$5000 is a lot of money to dangle in front of people, especially this day in age when the economy and citizens are struggling as much as they are. Could something like this be the beginning of a more insidious UBI program? Probably not but it's fun to speculate.
