IRS Predicts DOGE Lost Half a Trillion Dollars for the USA

Lost.
Not saved. Lost. Elon and the Musketeers lost this nation half a trillion dollars.
- So far.
- You're spinning it wrong. "With the doge cuts, we saved you half a trillion dollars in taxes"
  
  …that’s not what happened.
  This is like a fuck off huge gas turbine generator spinning at full chat and then just starting to take parts off of it and snipping fluid lines. One of the features of turbines is that they will continue to run for a bit even when they’re heading in the direction of catastrophic failure, since it’s all angular momentum and no reciprocation. But it IS going to catastrophically fail.
  This is the system just eating itself and money being - at best - siphoned into someone’s pockets, or more likely, just being outright wasted. The USAID cuts, for instance, basically locked an absolute shitload of consumables and perishables in warehouses to spoil. That’s what we’re talking about. And that’s only the most obvious example.
  
  I’m not sure where they expect the loss, but I’m sure it’s not regular people whose paychecks have taxes withheld, and who file their taxes without major fraud.
  They’ll lose money off people like the mango Mussolini whose corporate shell game is so complex that he used to brag the IRS couldn’t afford to hire enough people to audit his taxes
- And don't forget the 10 trillion in lost war plane sales due to "toning them down in case our allies turn on us', just like he has turned on Canada and Europe.
- Trump did say he's only just getting started.
  
  Well April 2nd is our supposed "national day of prosperity". Which analysts think means he is going to enact global tariffs as well as all the retaliatory tariffs he is planning.
- Another 4 months and they could have lost enough to forgive all student loans. :/
- No, the HAVE lost this nation half a trillion, and they are still losing more. Just "they lost" sounds like a past thing that's over now.

It should be blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that the "Department of Government Efficiency" isn't really about efficiency.
- Just like the "ministry of truth" isn't about the truth.
  
  And now the "environmental protection agency" is about extracting profit at the expense of the environment
- To their credit they're destroying government to pave the way for oligarchy very efficiently
  
  They are already an oligarchy, they are paving the way for an authoritarian dictatorship now.
- Remember, they're talking about efficiency all day long, but they're not mentioning effectivity with a single word.
  Efficiency is how fast/cheap/ressource-less you can get something done. Effectivity is if you're even doing the right thing at all.
  You can be super efficient, but still not be effective by doing something, so....
  
  I mean we can just say they aren't about efficiency because they don't research anything before they start making cuts it's simply I don't like USAID let's gut it, I don't like the SSA so let's gut it.
  They know what they're doing even if Trump somehow gets the boot we're looking at probably 50 years or more to get back our world position if they don't fuck our economy up so badly it's effectively impossible to comeback.
  
  Or efficacy
  
  Effectivity is if you’re even doing the right thing at all.
  Not exactly. It's more about whether or not you've accomplished the thing you set out to do, irrespective of resources and irrespective of "right" or "wrong".
  So in this case, if DOGE's actual goal is the dismantling of the administrative state (literally spelled out in Project 2025), then I would say that they've been very effective.
  They don't seem to care about the efficiency aspect.
  
  They just use the word efficiency because it sounds good. Its not like they actually care about any of what you said.
- It makes the government more efficient at increasing waste, fraud, and abuse perhaps.
  (Judging by the downvotes, it seems some people think DOGE actually decreases waste?)
- It's the TSA of efficiency

MAGA/DOGE were bragging about getting like 100 billion dollars over ten years from tariffs while the US gains ~1.5 trillion dollars every year in income tax revenue.
Everything is bad right now.
- Not for the rich, but that was the plan all along

From what I hear.....elon, thief and their cronies are specifically wrecking government to push a corporate takeover...jeeze. it's like robocop.
- And/or destabilizing the country's economy and political power worldwide so our enemies like Russia can do whatever they want without the US interfering. The complete destruction of US soft power via things like USAID and the blatant attempts to destroy any collaboration with our allies seems to point more in that direction.
  
  Different groups, different motivations, but they're headed in the same direction more or less so they're working together. Trump is working to install himself as a dictator under orders from Putin. He wants to be for the US what Lukashenko is for Belarus. Ultimately he'll be Putin's puppet but he'll largely have free reign within the US which is the only thing he cares about. He's destroying all the US soft power and doing everything he can to turn all the US allies against it. Domestically he's painting targets on the backs of as many minorities as he can in order to keep the useful idiots that elected him distracted.
  Musk meanwhile is working to establish an oligarchy and to steal or destroy as much of the US government as he can manage. Ultimately his goals are fairly transparent as he's motivated entirely by naked greed. Since his efforts hurt US foreign relations as much as the domestic situation he's a useful tool to Trump in his efforts to neuter the US for Putin.
  Then you've got the Christian nationalists in the GOP that don't really care about what's going on as long as they're allowed to trample all over the first amendment and declare Christianity as the official US religion with all the associated bigotry and discrimination. Since that plays to Trump's efforts to distract his supporters he's perfectly fine with it, but likely keeping a close eye on that group lest any of them think about usurping his crown, particularly when he still hasn't really gotten to go full dictator yet.
- Worse than RoboCop, we don't have a cool robot cop shooting dicks off to show for it
  
  Yet.
  
  Best I can do is cartwheels and handstands

- Not "lost" as in "misplaced", but "lost" as in "missed the opportunity to bring it in, in the future".
- You're trying to pressure the President to freeze the accounts of Donald Trump and Elon Musk? Have you checked on who the President currently is? I've got some bad news for you...

You gotta give it to Elmo, few people would have been able to pull off that feat. I mean, losing that much money takes hard work and dedication, and I'm not even kidding hete. It actually takes a certain skill set (extreme incompetency combined with an unending unearned confidence) to be able to lose that much money that quickly. I was impressed with the money he lost from Twitter, but that's peanuts now, that's a rounding error in comparison to what he's losing the US now.
- That money isn't lost, I think we all know who's going to divvy it up when all is said and done.
- Hey now, let's not demean little Donny two-scoops, who has an almost equally well honed ability to lose money where it should be impossible.

Imagine being so fucking dumb you use IRS data to go after immigrants who are paying taxes, thus ensuring no immigrant ever pays taxes again.

Let’s qualify this more accurately. It’s not lost. It’s “lost.”
Let’s all keep an eye out for the shiny new upgrades to putin’s war crimes in Ukraine.
- It’s not lost. The people who wanted to keep it for themselves got to keep it. They know exactly where it is.
  
  That’s my point.
- putin is probably straight up annexing what he already got of ukraine.

Wait till you see how much we loose from killing the Department of Education. Education is like the easiest ROI
- Just like in corporate america, the savings hit this quarter so bonuses all around. Then the CEO jumps ship and it's someone else's problem next quarter.
- It's not the quickest though. ROI timeline is 18 years minimum for tax from non-degree level jobs, 22/23 years for degree level, and 26 to 30 years for post doctoral.
  It's sad. The quarterly pressure to generate value is one of the worst economic forces of capitalism which drives enshitification, job-instability from the "fire bottom performing 10%" so that you can post more "profits" from cost cutting, and the general short-term thinking that pervades all aspects of the culture.
  It's the reason "nobody" builds things to last or metaphorically plants something now for the future: it's not profitable quick enough.
  
  Totally agree. Was talking to my brother who worked for the US Corps of Engineers. He said they have a decades long outlook for their projects. So if they want to remove a dam or something, studies are done to make sure that is the smartest move not just for the next few years, but the next several decades.
  So refreshing vs the typical "new CEO wants to fire x% of the workforce to generate 1% more profit this year (ignore the fact that customers will leave when it's that much shittier here... That's next year's (and next Ceo's) problem)".
  
  That's what is so sad to see - whole lotta young dumbasses with the same kind of short-term thinking dunking on "boomers" and things like Social Security. As well as unions, the post office, and public schools. Even worse when the framing of it is accompanied with some blather about "my generation" and so on, yadda yadda.
  They are probably so filled with Dunning-Kruger that it hasn't even occurred to them that prior "generations" were told the exact same hokum and that their "generation" is not magically any different....

Look at THAT Efficiency!

Anyone checked behind the couch cushions?
- while vance is vp? ew, no
  
  Dare I ask what you mean by that?

I think we should organize and go demand everyone working for DOGE... stop. And not demand like with funny signs and chants, but like with 2nd amendment arms.

The article doesn’t explain how, where the money went, or how the IRS knows this.
- Cutting staff thereby reducing the IRS's ability to find and go after wealthy tax cheats.
  
  Thanks! I wasn’t doubting the article, just wanted more info.
- The fourth sentence of the article explains it
  The Post reports today that the IRS’s internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax etc.
- For every dollar spent on IRS staffing, etc, it's estimated to be at least a 7x return. Any disruptions are going to cost a lot with that in mind. Also, I find it a little misguided to question the IRS, an agency that shows its work's opinion on DOGE, an "agency?" Which has failed to show its work and has been caught lying frequently.
- Yeah the article is just rehashing a wapo article that's linked, the original one is much clearer
  
  If only it weren't paywalled

Making big losses attracts investors. - Elon Musk

Henry Davis Thoreau smiles on us this day

They probably just funneled it directly to Russia, and we'll continue to do so until disassemble them and send them back to the factory

Oh so sad. Elect a clown expect a circus.
Install an unelected billionaire, expect theft.

So this sounds like a number they won't be able to easily cover up.
- You must be new here. They just say it didn't happen and poof it didn't happen
  
  And should you insist that it did, this gentleman from the Ministry of Love would like to talk to you about your apparent delusions.
- It all depends how you count saved and lost.
  If a govt program costs $1m to run but saves $1t in, say, mental health services, then you can just turn that off and save $1m right?

So much winning. Tired of winning yet?

I think DOGE should send out stimulas checks because of all the money that is going to be saved.
- This would be more than reasonable if they were actually doing what they said.
  In real life, they're costing the US an insane amount of money, and working class taxpayers will carry the burden of paying for it as usual.
  It could easily set a new record for largest transfer of wealth from the workers to the rich in human history.
  
  they're costing the US an insane amount of money
  How exactly does that work? Seriously don't think you're right about that.

I guess we will lives like Russian and drink cheap American alcohol to forget it all happened.

Much efficient.
- Very saved.

The stupid "doge" thing was never about balancing the budget anyway. That's all bullshit red meat for the dumbasses that voted for donvict.

Yes! Baby! We did it!
- By we, I mean like you know... They. They did it!
  We're number 1 at loosing 1 trillion!!!!

So much for "efficiency."

You mean "saved billionaires trillions" /s

So the government is collecting 500 billion less this year. They didn't lose anything because they never had it in the first place
- Incorrect. By law that money is owed to the government as taxes. Doge hasn't changed that. They have only ensured they don't have the staff to collect.
  
  What I mean to say is that the money has not been pissed away
- This is logic only a moron can understand. What are you even trying to say?
  
  He's saying the government didn't collect the money, so it never had it, so it could never lose it.
  Just pedantry that serves no useful purpose.
  
  What I mean to say is that the money has not been pissed away
- That's like saying if I don't pay my loan the bank hasn't lost any money.
- Aha! Just like my local food bank didn't lose funding - it just didn't receive its next funding installment! Good job on the useless pedantry, Batman!
- You are technically correct, the best kind of correct!