1mo ago

Ramaswamy wants to defund unauthorized government programs - like veteran healthcare

www.independent.co.uk Ramaswamy wants to defund unauthorized government programs - like veteran healthcare

In 2024, the Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996 accounted for nearly $120 million in government funds despite its appropriations being authorized through 1998

Summary

Vivek Ramaswamy, recently appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has proposed defunding federal programs that lack current congressional authorization.

This could affect programs like veterans’ healthcare, NASA, and early education initiatives, which still receive funding despite expired authorizations.

Ramaswamy argues that cutting these programs could save billions, and he’s committed to targeting expenditures that “don’t advance the interests of American citizens.”

DOGE, co-led by Elon Musk, aims to curb government spending, with Musk estimating potential cuts of up to $2 trillion.

167 comments

As someone with just as much federal authority as the non-existent DOGE, I also propose defunding expenditures that “don’t advance the interests of American citizens.”
And I would like to start with fucking Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon fucking Musk.
- as equal authority, I propose we just lock them up.
  I'm sure we can find something to actually justify it. Like, you know, betraying classified secrets to the russians, as well as providing intelligence and military aid;
  
  If we're all just doing things without authority, why does it even need a legalized justification? Home Depot sells dog cages and padlocks.
  
  Newly added colluding with Iranian representatives outside official government channels
  
  Wait long enough, and neither will pass the nationalist purity test. The leopards will turn inwards for face-eating sooner than some fasc-allies think, I suspect
  
  if elon lied on immigration forms, strip his citizenship, seize his wealth and assets 'earned' after committing that crime, and kick him tf out.
- Give 'em an Archie Slap for even suggesting that shit.

As a US citizen, paying for veterans healthcare and early education programs advance my interests a whole fucking lot more than paying this jackass.
Stupid piece of shit, you don't speak for us.
- I know what you mean but he does, quite literally, speak for us now. This is what we asked for.
  
  I sure as fuck didn't, I voted against every single fascist asshole on my balot. I'm just angry.

Do it. Cut tricare too. I don’t want those things gone, but holy hell yes please eliminate the willingness of the military to aid you against the constitution. Defund barrack improvements and force married troops to bring their spouses into the barracks while you’re at it.
Crash and burn and let us rebuild America with an understanding it wasn’t immigrants or trans people that did this, it was rich people and fascists.
- As a former military child, I largely agree with cutting tricare. It's pretty good, and military people take for granted that they get socialized Healthcare but not the rest of us. Yeah, "serving the country" and all that, but most military personnel aren't doing anything that anyone else isn't doing. Most military personnel are not in combat roles. Everyone should be treated well because everyone benefits the nation. Take away the socialized healthcare of the military and vets and maybe we'll get socialized healthcare in general.
  I doubt this will work, but it'll at least force military people to come to terms with the fact they have socialized healthcare and how well it works. My dad at least used to argue with me whenever I called it that. I'm not sure if he still thinks it isn't true. I'm sure other people haven't even considered that that's what it is.

Touching NASA very well might be the thing that finally pushes me to actual violence.
Scientific endeavors, but specifically research and exploration of space are pretty much the only things in life I really have a passion for.
- NASA is definitely a target. Musk wants to make SpaceX America's privatized space agency.
  
  you'll know nasa is doomed when space-lasers greene or flat earth boebert get tagged for nasa admin.
  
  For sure
- The last conservative government silenced the government scientists from discussing climate change and destroyed decades of research as they didn't believe in it and it didn't fit their Alberta oil jobs first objectives.
  We are looking at another Conservative government coming our way again in the next year and it's going to be a super shit storm when our Cons and the US Cons are firing on all cylinders destroy everything they don't like or believe in. I fear it's going to take decades again to come back on the science again.
- NASA is and has always been a way for the US to maintain a literal military high ground. If it gets defunded, I don't think you'll have to resort to violence, our rivals will do it for us.
- Back in the day they funded NASA because they were worried about being eclipsed by the USSR. Now they may worry about belong eclipsed by China. But yes they might move a shit ton to spacex.

America: Our soldiers are heroes!
Also America: But they don't deserve a penny and should pay exorbitant prices for healthcare...
I know this isn't all Americans, but it's more than I thought.

Any woman or veteran or union worker who voted for Trump is going to have a serious case of buyers remorse. I am none of those things but still voted for Harris because it seemed like the responsible thing to do, lesser of two evils. Way lesser it seems.
- The leopards are eating our faces!!
- Buyers remorse or will they blame someone else?
  
  They'll blame democrats like always

Remember when if you didn't "support our troops," Republicans would ask you why you hated America?
- The right wing has never supported veterans
- At best, "support our troops" was a version of that dumbass magical thinking that, in earlier times, held that the U.S. lost in Vietnam because Americans didn't clap for Tinkerbell, err, I mean, support the war. Mostly, it was a thought-terminating cliché.
  Yeah, as you rightly point out, it was never about the soldiers themselves.
  
  I learned the ugly truth of that way back in 1990 when I was still in Middle School and Bush Sr. sent Americans to die for oil in Iraq and all of his fans in my town were tying yellow ribbons around the trees in their yard to "support the troops" being sent to die pointlessly.
  
  "Lost in Vietnam"? Oh, no, they were saying much worse than that. It used to be that if you suggested the US lost Vietnam that you were "insulting the bravery of the troops" or some shit like that. It was only after the War on Terror became unpopular that you could say the US lost Vietnam (because, you know, it did) without some jackass wingnut bringing out the faux patriotism.
- They confirmed, for anyone paying attention, that that was always performative bullshit.
- The good old days when it was republicans who were "if you're not with us I will enjoy watching you die"

Elon musk being like "all that money we're spending on vets could be going into my pockets."
- The status quo is just a lot more visible, now.

This will piss off every single veteran, active service member, and their relatives. I don't just want this shit to fail, I want people to remember just how little fucks these people give about anyone other than themselves.
- Republicans have been cutting vet benefits for years, and it hasn’t stopped them from voting red yet.
- I want to see these fucks do this then ask for the military to keep them in office when they violate the constitution
  
  I kinda have lost faith in most of humanity. At this point I think they will follow orders without question while fully knowing that they will be thrown aside like a moldy bag of garbage as soon as their usefulness is done.
- If you hear back well they did not realize... you answer with yes, this is how little they care

Save billions on essentials while spending trillions in bullshit.

The clown is inviting more clowns and they are building up the circus, this could be funny if it wasn't so serious.

This is amazing. Good. Fuck the troops. Let's see you garrison your military bases in every other country in the world, losers. You can't even meet recruiting goals now!

“This bloated liberal socialist program is inefficient and doesn’t work. Because it’s liberal and socialist. So we’re going to get rid of it. We’re planing to plan a replacement plan, but we haven’t planned on when to plan it. But we’ll blame the libs for that too, even though we have essentially captured all branches of the government at this point.”
- They’ve learned their lesson from 4 years of failure to repeal and replace Obamacare. “Replacing was hard and expensive and anything that addresses people’s concerns or doesn’t ensure failure to re-elect was to the left of this, so we’ve decided to just repeal and not replace. Get over it loser.”
- And people will eat it the fuck up like the hogs they are
- "And Goober Nation will believe it when we say that 'the libs' are responsible. Despite the fact that we control the presidency, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the news media, because they have the collective memory of a goddamn goldfish. "

Part of me, as an outsider looking in with abject horror, wants to see this happen just because I still hold out hope that it might finally wake up a not-insignificant part of rural and rust-belt America that live off these benefits (or ‘handouts’ according to the GOP) out of their political stupor.
But on the other hand, I know that once it’s gone, it’s very unlikely to be brought back in the immediate future by the current crop of Dems, who seemingly would rather keep dangling it as a carrot (along with restoring ablation access) in order to entice voter turnout.
- If it’s gone it’s gone. Those people in rural America who live off handouts and vote R can live with the long term consequences. The only way you will see a change is if they are no longer insulated from the consequences of their actions. Fox ~~News~~ Propaganda is going to be spinning itself in circles to justify why their “gubment program” was ended under Trump.
  Perhaps they will vote blue in the future and we will have enough of a majority that more liberal policies can be enacted.
- Just know that there are people in the US that feel the same. And it's horrifying.

I expected NASA to get screwed by DOGE. What I didn't expect was that it's at the behest of Ramaswamy instead of Elmo. 2024 is defying expectations yet again.
- NASA gives SpaceX fat government paychecks. He doesn't want anything to happen to them.
  
  I dunno I disagree. I think he'd like nothing more than if NASA just completely disappeared. I've thought that since the second they started talking about him guiding fiduciary spending. Once NASA is out of the picture, it's all SpaceX all the time. Trump is already most of the way there anyway. "His rocket company is the only reason we can now send American astronauts into space."
  This is part of the plan I suspect.
  
  Not necessarily. He wouldn't want anything to happen to the funding that ends up going to himself. He would likely be thrilled if their funding for designing and building their own rockets dried up, though.
  It's right in line with the purpose of DOGE and an easy sell to anybody that doesn't immediately see the conflict of interest: "Why are we spending $100 million annually to play catch-up with the private sector? Reallocate $80 million to get rockets that work today and save the taxpayers $20 million while doing it."
  
  Are you guys for real?? They will literally just cut out the middleman and give all the work to SpaceX instead. Jesus Christ people, read a history book about fascism.
  Man, so many people are in for a rude awakening come January, when they realize that their understanding of the previous world order is completely obsolete.

Okay I agree with the other comments here but I'm a bit confused on this.
How are we still spending money on these things if congress doesn't approve it? The legislature sets the budget, did they just forget to make it official and extend these? Also why even have a phase out period in the first place?
- I think it's because there is a difference between the Budget and Appropriations in Congress. The budget is a plan, where programs are authorized and an overall budget is set. The appropriations process is what assigns particular dollars to particular discretionary programs. (Certain programs deemed "mandatory" by Congress, like Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt, get allocated money automatically and are not involved in appropriations)
  If I had to guess, I would say that once a program is authorized once under a budget, it can continue as long as it (or the Federal department it is part of) is not specifically de-authorized, and as long as it continues to receive appropriations specifically for that program.
  So, it is likely that this is all about Ramaswamy's total ignorance of how Congress works. Which tracks pretty well with what this DOGE is all about.
  
  So, it is likely that this is all about Ramaswamy's total ignorance of how Congress works. Which tracks pretty well with what this DOGE is all about
  How Congress worked.

Please, keep pissing off the military, sounds like a FAFO-prone strategy.
- Is the tide changing? I feel like the GOP has been dicking the veterans over my whole life and they're still like their biggest and strongest supporters. Leopards and faces and all that.
- There is a reason Trump is talking about replacing all of our generals (can you imagine the national security risk?) and replacing them.
  I'll let you work it out on your own...
  
  I don't think he's ever heard of "fragging", "mutiny" and the extreme disdain the enlisted already have for REMFs.

We can't be taking care of Veterans that is way to decent of a thing to do for Republicans.

they just want Russia to be the top superpower
- Don't know anything about top superpower, but Russia already has better healthcare than american veterans. Even tourists have better healthcare in Russia than americans in America.
  
  most so-called third world countries have better healthcare than the US. what I'm talking about is influence over there world. they're dismantling the country, and even though they're already terrible at education and healthcare, it will get worse.

Specifically about veterans' healthcare: Veterans surveyed supported Trump 61% to 37% Harris with 2% undecided. And it's not like the plan to screw up VA benefits was hidden, it was there in Project 2025.
- Days after the election, I was talking to coworkers who literally said that was just propaganda and he's not actually going to do it. Because he said that.
  Turns out all people needed was a little bit of plausible deniability...

Entirely typical.
Republicans have already dicked veterans over so hard that private charities have to try to make up for all of the broken promises.
And it's still not enough for them.

Shameless, veterans risk their lives for their country, the least the govt can do is give them healthcare
- Unfortunately for veterans, they aren't risking their lives for their country. They're risking their lives for the special interests of corporate oligarchs who couldn't care less about them.
  
  I know but that’s a hard sell for poor young recruits, if they knew this more they’d charge like mercenaries

So DOGE is getting cut then?

How is veteran healthcare unauthorized?
- It was authorized, but it had an expiration date. Now it's something that we just take for granted so much we never even thought about having to re-authorize it.
  
  OIC. Well snowballs chance when orange twit assumes the throne
  
  Really surprised he’s the first republican to try cutting it. They’ve been going after vets for years.

Trump: "What is the worst idea we can implement?"
Ramaswamy:"Let's make all the people that know how to use the most complex and deadly weapons mad at us as quickly as possible!"
- Wait, a firearm is complex or am I misunderstanding?
  Firearms aren't really that complex.
  
  When it is connected to a f-16 it might be complex.
  
  I can't make one.

I'm sure this will help with the dramatic drop in people willing to volunteer for the army.
- Nice of you to assume you won't get mandatory military service.
  
  They stopped drafting people for a reason.
  Maybe they forgot? Guess we'll have to remind them.
  
  If they want fragging to come back this will do it lol
  
  Cool. And when EVERYONE is in the military, pissed, and unified with all of the guns and training? Oh, they can ordered, but orders can be ignored when enough people just say…nah, I’m getting fucked so I won’t do it until you do something for me - whatcha gonna do about it?

Not for millenia would I have realized that Department of Government Efficiency stood for DoGE. What a funny little boy Elon is.

Then do universal healthcare, right? Right?
- Universally leave you to die if you don't pay, sure.
  
  Typo. Then, not they.
- If they really go whole hog and sell off the hospitals and stuff then I would think the next president would just go to a Veteran's Public Option. There's a world in which 5 years from now we prove Medicare for All works because they deleted the entire side of the VA that does healthcare.

Guys, c'mon. There's only so much face a guy has to feed the leopards.

These guys really seem to want a pissed off veteran to take them out.

FWIW, this breaks from the Two Santas Strategy. This Santa is suppose to be funding things conservatives want, while at the same time reducing taxes (on the rich), thereby driving the deficit up without making their voters mad. If you actually cut funding for a bunch of stuff people rely on, you will earn the ire of the voters, that's why no one ever does it.
Yeah, there will be a core of people who will defend Trump and Musk to their self-inflicted death, but those people are in the minority. Most Americans (and most people in the world) voted against the incumbent this year because they were unfortunately there during a time of inevitable inflation. And they'll do it again if their lives continue to get materially worse over the next few years.
I can't help but wonder how we would be sitting right now if Trump had won in 2020. But we're due for a generational crisis, and I don't think that wouldn't have been nearly as exciting.

This next two years of "FO" realizations for the FA crowd will bring me no pleasure. Unfortunately we're past the point of return now in participative democracy due to a menially literate population that has had the capacity for rational and forethought drowned out for 3+ generations.
Time, yet again history, to teach people lessons the same, hard way. 😔
- The problem is that it appears as though there are tens of millions of Americans who are literally unable to FO. Or they FO, but are entirely unable (or perhaps unwilling at this point) to connect it to all the FA they've been doing.

They won't cut the funding that goes to the richest Americans and themselves of course.
The crazy thing is the amount of money donated to a Trump by people who work for the Dept of Defense. Or maybe that includes contractors, aka, the rich.
I've can only hope that they fuck things up so bad that... Oh who am I kidding. There are to many stupid Americans for anything they do to make a difference in the Trumpublican party.

I'm sure that'll be popular and there won't be any repercussions and that unicorns will poop free candy for everyone.
- Doesn't matter. Everyone enjoys their face being eaten. They can blame it on the damn (outgroup) and feel better about themselves. Rage and being better than some other tribe is all that matters anymore.
- Sorry, but that unicorn is illegal and should be deported!

No exceptionalism for war criminals. Get in line like the rest.

Optics of cutting the programs aside, it's criminal that beneficial programs like these don't get re-authorized.

If Fuckface 45 and his cronies actually take office on Jan 20, then this country as we know it is gone. It's over. It's cooked.
They need to be jailed for their crimes before getting into office.

Okay I'm ootl on this asshat but now I keep hearing his name. Who the fuck is he and what the fuck is his problem?
- Conservative to both questions
  Given the rest of trump's cabinet about 50/50 shot at being someone who assaults children.
- So during the Republican primaries there were several people trying to demonstrate themselves as similar but different to trump. Desantis was trump but able to force his policies through. Haley was trump but not as anti woman. Ramaswamy was trump but younger and possibly less sane somehow.
  He’s a venture capitalist from and focused on fucking Columbus Ohio (and no he is not known or liked there, it’s a weirdly blue city)

Speaking of inefficiency... https://youtube.com/shorts/l5woagC47NM

Karma
This is a c/leopardsatemyface moment.

Gotta save that money for corporate welfare

Could you picture that little runt Ramaswami in basic training? He'd wash out on the first day.

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