Latest news with #DOGE-inspired
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Hits GOP With Frantic New Threat in Truth Social Post
Donald Trump warned Republicans that they would not receive his endorsement should they retaliate and oppose his cuts to PBS and NPR. The president's threat Thursday night on Truth Social came as the Senate approaches a deadline of July 18 to approve $9.4 billion in DOGE-inspired cuts included in a rescissions package, which the House approved in June. Not only is the congressionally-established Corporation for Public Broadcasting targeted, but so are USAID and the U.S. Institute of Peace, which are effectively shuttered. 'It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together,' Trump demanded, referring to MSNBC. 'Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.' But not everyone in the Senate appears to have fallen in line. South Dakota's Mike Rounds has said he's wary of cuts to public broadcasting services in rural areas. 'There's a specific group of Native American tribes that have a public radio system set up, and really the vast majority of the funding for it comes from one source, and that's within the rescission package,' Rounds told reporters, CBS reported. 'What we're trying to do is to work with [the Office of Management and Budget] to find a path forward where the funding for those radio stations would be left alone.' Montana Sen. Steve Daines, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski voiced similar concerns, with Murkowski calling public broadcasting a 'lifeline.' As for other proposed cuts in the package, Maine Sen. Susan Collins has objected to the targeting of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). 'I do not support the rescission for PEPFAR and global health programs,' Collins told reporters last month, per The Hill. Rounds, Daines, Capito and Collins are all up for reelection next year, while Murkowski's term expires in 2028. Murkowski did not receive Trump's endorsement in 2022—nor did she need it, since she would go on to win a fourth term.
Express Tribune
29-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Elon Musk leaves Trump administration after criticizing ‘big beautiful bill' over spending concerns
Elon Musk has stepped down from his advisory role in the Trump administration after criticizing the president's key legislative proposal. The billionaire entrepreneur cited growing concerns over federal spending and inefficiencies. Musk, who served as a Special Government Employee, announced his departure on X. 'As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump,' Musk wrote. He added that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would continue to promote fiscal reform. His resignation comes shortly after expressing disappointment with Trump's flagship legislative effort, dubbed the 'big beautiful bill.' In an interview with CBS, Musk described the measure as a 'massive spending bill' that contradicts DOGE's mission and increases the federal deficit. As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025 Despite Musk's exit, the White House confirmed plans to continue DOGE-inspired spending cuts, including rescinding $1.1 billion from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and $8.3 billion in foreign aid. Some Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Johnson and Sen. Mike Lee, echoed Musk's concerns and pushed for more aggressive fiscal reforms. The bill, which includes tax cuts and immigration enforcement measures, has passed the House and is currently under Senate review. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would add $3.8 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, with only $1 trillion in cuts to social programs. Musk said he would now refocus on his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, and step back from political donations. Reflecting on his government stint, he admitted: 'The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized.'
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DOGE Goon Wages War Against the Interior Department
A staffing meltdown inside the Bureau of Land Management has erupted into open rebellion, with career officials defying orders from a top Interior Department official tied to Elon Musk's notorious DOGE operation. Stephanie Holmes, a former member of the now-absent Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, and current acting chief human capital officer at the Interior Department, issued a memo ordering staff to stop temporarily filling the hundreds of vacant roles—a move workers say would cripple the agency following the DOGE-inspired mass departures. BLM Deputy Director Michael Nedd, a 30-year veteran of the department, hit reply all, telling his staff to 'ignore the email from HR,' according to multiple sources who spoke to Politico. 'The work is too important,' he is reported to have said. The BLM is responsible for managing 245 million acres of federal land in the U.S., plus all the timber, minerals, oil, and gas resources within them. It has traditionally been the arm of government conserving natural, historical, and cultural resources. However, in April, BLM Secretary Doug Burgum handed control of the Interior to DOGE assistant Tyler Hassan, a former oil executive. Since then, approximately 2,300 employees have been made redundant and offices have been shut down across the country. At the same time, conservation focuses have been scrapped and renewed efforts for fossil fuel extraction have been made. The latest showdown highlights the rising tensions between experienced government staff and the DOGE team, who have infiltrated numerous administrative bodies across the government. So far, the department has executed thousands of layoffs, rid the government of highly valued institutional knowledge, and scrambled to rehire some of its brazenly, and mistakenly, axed employees. The young team, most of whom are in their early to mid-twenties, have drawn outrage for gaining access to sensitive government systems and even crashing the Social Security website in a failed AI-led overhaul. One DOGE acolyte, a 19-year-old influencer known as 'Big Balls,' is reportedly using Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, to implement DOGE 'efficiencies.' The current chaos presiding over the Interior Department is a direct consequence of this laissez-faire approach to government bureaucracy. With buyouts and retirements bleeding the department dry, it's difficult to see how the BLM will be able to enact Trump's policy to accelerate fossil fuel development on public lands. Still, Burgum has defended the cuts this week, claiming the goal is to 'streamline' the agency. 'We're running out of people,' said one exhausted staffer who wasn't buying it. 'It's a battle of HR versus [Deputy Director] Mike Nedd.'
Sydney Morning Herald
01-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Dutton should not be our prime minister. But the Albanese government needs to be so much better
As the election campaign draws to a close, Australians are faced with the dispiriting choice of a government that has struggled to define its purpose and an opposition that has failed to prove it is anywhere near ready to take over. Who deserves to win on Saturday? The truth is neither Labor nor the Coalition have done much to inspire. For the past five weeks, voters have been subjected to a political tussle devoid of a compelling vision for the future – it is an indictment of the major parties at a time of great domestic and global challenges. The return of Donald Trump to the White House defines the uncertainty in the world right now. The US president is upending trading and security alliances, demonstrating total disregard for the rule of law, siding with war criminals such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and threatening to unleash a global recession. At a time of such uncertainty and upheaval, Australia needs Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to be much better than he was in this campaign. Australia needs Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to be much better than he is in government. After three years in power, Labor's policy machine should be in overdrive. Instead, it is barely getting out of first gear. It has no appetite for much-needed taxation reform beyond a tax cut of up to $5 a week from July next year. Negative gearing discussion? Forget it. GST reform? Too-hard basket. Brave new measures to boost Australia's flagging productivity or bring down debt? Nowhere to be seen. Labor has perhaps been granted something of a get-out-of-jail-free card on big-picture thinking because its opponents are even worse. Despite the pleadings of Liberal Party elders such as John Howard to spend its three years in the political wilderness focused on an ambitious suite of new policy proposals, the Coalition has proven itself incapable of crafting and selling a plan for government. Indeed, much of the policy outlined during the campaign is confused and contradictory. While many voters may support an east coast gas reservation policy amid skyrocketing electricity prices, the Coalition's proposal lacks crucial detail and could ultimately be struck down in the High Court as unconstitutional. Its pledge to build seven nuclear plants in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia defies economic and engineering logic. It has so many holes and such little support that Dutton has barely talked about it for the past six months. The opposition's migration policy contains figures and assumptions seemingly plucked out of thin air. The DOGE-inspired vow to get public servants back to the office spectacularly backfired with voters, triggering one of the more remarkable campaign backdowns in recent memory. And the admirable pledge to lift defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 and 3 per cent by the middle of the 2030s was unveiled with a lack of detail about how the money would be spent and how it would be paid for. Dutton's key achievement of the past three years has been bringing unity to the Coalition team. This was not guaranteed after such a crushing loss in 2022. But it is a political achievement rather than a win for the public. Indeed, this discipline has been built on two little-recognised factors: that Dutton has no obvious leadership rival, and that the quest for unity has stifled much-needed debate within the Liberal and National party rooms over policy.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maryland leads 25 states in suit to block Trump administration efforts ‘gutting' AmeriCorps
An AmeriCorps member paints a wall in a Philadelphia neighborhood in this 2014 file photo. (Photo courtesy AmeriCorps) Maryland was one of the lead states in a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia that sued the Trump administration Tuesday in an effort to block its push to 'dismantle' AmeriCorps, the domestic volunteer service agency. The suit said that within the past two weeks, agency officials, at the direction of Elon Musk's DOGE Service, put 85% of the administrative staff on leave as well as all of the members of the National Civilian Conservation Corp, who were told their service would be terminated. Last Thursday, the agency began sending reduction-in-force notices to all the administrative staffers who were on leave, the lawsuit said, and after hours on Friday it began notifying states that nearly $400 million in AmeriCorps programs operating in their states was being immediately terminated. That cut would affect more than 1,000 AmeriCorps programs nationwide, according to a statement Tuesday from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. He said that in Maryland, Brown said, AmeriCorps had 4,949 members and provided more than $21 million last year in federal funding and education awards last year, supporting 4,949 members serving across the state. He said the Governor's Commission on Service and Volunteerism funded 25 service programs through Americorps for everything from working with refugees or elderly residents to being in Teach for America. 'In Maryland alone, programs that educate children, care for the elderly, and rebuild homes are being wiped out overnight. I will fight this brazen abuse of power in court and do everything in my power to restore these life-changing services,' Brown said in a prepared statement on the filing of the lawsuit. As Trump hits 100 days, Brown among attorneys general battling him at every turn AmeriCorps has its roots in the Great Society programs of the 1960s and took its current form in 1993, as the Corporation for National and Community Service. It is a public-private partnership, in which volunteers typically spend a year of service, during which they are paid a stipend to cover basic living expenses and can receive scholarship funding at the end of their service. Until the cuts began earlier this month, CNCS had a staff of 700 and supported more than 200,000 members, the lawsuit said. The suit said the White House does not have the authority to eliminate the AmeriCorps program, which was authorized and funded by Congress and can only be undone by lawmakers. The sudden, DOGE-inspired cuts were unlawful, arbitrary and capricious, failed to provide sufficient public notice, and exceeded presidential powers to intrude on congressional authority, the suit said. 'The Administration is free to ask Congress to abolish AmeriCorps, but it cannot simply terminate the agency's functions by fiat or defund the agency in defiance of administrative procedures, Congressional appropriations, and the Constitutional separation of powers,' the suit said. 'Accordingly, the Defendants' actions should be declared unlawful and vacated.' Those charges were echoed in an April 23 letter to President Donald Trump, led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and signed by 147 other members of Congress, including both of Maryland's senators and four of its eigth House members: Democratic Reps. Johnny Olszewski Jr., Sarah Elfreth, Kweisi Mfume and Jamie Raskin. The cuts to the program will 'prevent the agency from continuing to deliver critical services, which include supporting veterans, fighting wildfires, tutoring in schools, combatting the fentanyl epidemic, and much more,' the letter said. That was echoed by Gov. Wes Moore (D), who said in a statement Tuesday that the state 'strongly supports the litigation to be filed by Attorney General Brown today to stand up for AmeriCorps.' 'If the federal administration wants to strengthen our country's resolve, bridge divides, and usher in our next era of greatness, it should be expanding opportunities for Americans to serve one another,' Moore's statement said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The lawsuit is just the most recent of dozens filed by Democratic attorneys general against the Trump administration's lightning-fast and deep cuts to federal programs and funding, many of which have been successful at reversing or stalling those cuts. Brown has joined more than two dozen such suits, on education cuts, worker firings, transgender rights and more, and this is the second on which he has been one of the lead plaintiffs. The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Maryland by Brown and the attorneys general of California, Colorado and Delaware. Also joining the suit were the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, the District of Colombia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
