Day: February 28, 2025

How To End Congressional Corruption

In the past several congressional elites have been caught with their hands in the pockets of the wealthy and it has been rumored to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

This has been a problem for many years but how can we end this cycle of corruption?

Clueless leader of Doge, Elmo, has the perfect plan…..

Elon Musk, the billionaire appointed by President Donald Trump to slash the size of the US government, suggested Thursday that members of Congress should get salary increases as a way to discourage corruption.

Although the tech billionaire is officially only an advisor, Trump has bestowed him with enormous power to cut federal spending and bureaucracy, as part of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“It might make sense to increase compensation for Congress and senior government employees to reduce the forcing function for corruption, as the latter might be as much as 1000 times more expensive to the public,” Musk posted on his social media platform X.

Lawmakers in both parties are typically wary of the optics of large pay rises but acknowledge that competitive salaries are the best way of ensuring that the less well-off can serve.

The first draft of a short-term government funding bill that Musk helped defeat in December would have allowed for a modest salary increase by reenacting an automatic cost-of-living adjustment for lawmakers.

Congress has been blocking the adjustments every year since 2009.

(tag24.com)

This is a dumb idea.

Congress people get free travel, free healthcare, free postage, free security and access to insider information that makes them millions and somehow a pay raise will change their propensity to take bribes.

Sorry do not see it.

Greed will prevail no matter the paycheck.

The American people do not see the Congress as a non-corrupt entity…

There’s no doubt that Congress has an ethics problem. Its members have undermined public confidence with stock trades and other activities that create the appearance of abusing their positions for private gain. The Justice Department prosecuted former Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) for insider trading he committed at the White House, and last year a court sentenced him to 26 months in prison before President Donald Trump pardoned him.

Stock trades by other members of Congress and their spouses drew public ire in recent years, though the Justice Department found no grounds for charges. The spouse of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) bought stock worth millions in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, shortly before the House of Representatives announced milder-than-expected action against big tech companies. Before the public knew the extent of the threat COVID-19 posed, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and former Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) collectively dumped millions of dollars’ worth of stock in companies likely to be affected by the pandemic. More recent reporting has raised questions as to whether Senator Burr shared nonpublic information with his brother-in-law, and whether his brother-in-law made trades based on that information. In one Senate term, former Senator David Perdue (R-GA) engaged in 2,596 trades, some involving companies potentially affected by the activities of committees on which he served. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) did not disclose his spouse’s February 26, 2020, purchase of drug manufacturer stock for over a year. Insider reported last month that, this year alone, 43 members of Congress — including Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Representative Susie Lee (D-NV), among others — failed to comply with disclosure requirements for stock trades.

These are only a few examples of a broader pattern of conduct that has undermined public confidence in Congress. Transformative change is overdue.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/american-voters-say-corruption-is-a-concern-congress-should-heed-the-message

No doubt POGO will be targeted by the GOP, DOGE and Trump…..silence the critics of corruption….and soon.

This corruption is not a new phenom…..no it has been with us for a long time…..a history lesson those interested….

https://www.cato.org/blog/long-history-corruption-congress

Why give them a raise for they barely work to earn their paycheck at all.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Fox Guarding The Hen House

Everyone by now has an opinion about the DOGE fiasco playing out in the first month of the Trump Administration…..but did know the head of the agency is a parasite on the government money?

Elmo has made billions thanx to lucrative contracts with the government….

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, owes much of his wealth to government funding, even as he pledges to slash billions with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

A new Washington Post report found that the tech mogul/fascism enthusiast built his fortune from $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits going back more than 20 years. Musk’s companies received at least $6.3 billion in commitments from state and local governments in 2024 alone, and this is likely an undercount.

The total amount of government funding that Musk has received is likely much higher, given that federal funding related to defense and intelligence projects is often classified. For example, Musk’s company SpaceX has a contract to build spy satellites from the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency tasked with building satellites for national defense. That contract is reportedly worth $1.8 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Post, Musk’s companies have close to a dozen other local grants, tax credits, and reimbursements whose costs are not publicly known. Musk also has 52 ongoing contracts with seven government agencies—including the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and NASA—that could pay his companies $11.8 billion in the next few years.

Tesla has been a major beneficiary of federal and state government funding, receiving $11.4 billion in regulatory credits meant to boost electric cars. Tesla sales have been helped by a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles too.

https://newrepublic.com/post/192001/elon-musk-government-funding-wealth

I would wager that none of his very lucrative contracts are on the chopping block.

How about you?

This is how you make sure your business interests are protected.

Word is the the contracts that have been terminated by DOGE may not be the cash cow they are said to be….

News accounts continue to challenge Elon Musk’s claims of major savings thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency he runs. On Monday, DOGE published an updated “wall of receipts” list of about 2,300 contracts that have been terminated across the federal government. The problem? The AP reports that nearly 800 of those cancellations won’t yield any savings whatsoever because the money already has been committed.

  • “It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” says Charles Tiefer, an expert on government contracting law. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”
  • As a story at Axios explains, the only way to get truly meaningful savings would be to cut defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which collectively make up 86% of the budget. President Trump, however, has promised not to touch any of them.
  • “When you consider where federal money really goes, most DOGE oddities and outrages amount to rounding errors in a sea of government obligations,” write Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.
  • A defense: The AP quotes an anonymous administration official who says the canceled contracts are still important for the message they send about efficiency. And the Axios piece cites a Harris Poll survey showing that 72% of registered voters back the idea of an agency focused on the issue. “So Trump and his aides correctly calculate that both the cuts and the tales of government insanity are popular with the vast majority of Americans,” the outlet notes.

I think that this agency will be no more effective than the last Trump administration.

But that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”