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The amount of damage inflicted by this admin will take over a generation to assess, if circumstances are stable enough to do so.
As if Trump was the first to print trillions and start a new war. Americans are so enchanted by their 2 party duopoly, it's not even funny. Bizarre how people view reality.
If the rest of the world stayed still, that's a hard "maybe". Since the rest of the world isn't, what we're actually watching is the "Western Flavor" of the Soviet collapse. The fact that these destructive policies are being repeatedly selected - over and over and over again - means that the collapse is systemic; indeed, this could even be seen as a part of a larger "End of the West" which kicked off with World War 1 and then the utter self-immolation of the secular colonial period in WW2.

Future historians, with the benefit of hindsight, will probably date the beginnings of the collapse[1] to 9/11, with the actual ceasing of the functional economic system somewhere around the 2008 econopalypse. COVID was something like our Chernobyl. I think Trump is, quite honestly, our version of Yeltsin: the buffoon who ends everyone's faith in "the system".

Americans should mentally prepare for an equivalent collapse in, well, everything, from public health to aviation safety. Of course, by the numbers, "you're already soaking in it".

[1] The American side of it, anyway. The larger end of the West, World War 1 is a logical place to draw the line, but honestly it started when Europe ran out of profitable/exploitive space on the map.

This was fairly obvious from the start.
The goal wasn't to save money, but to destroy the administrative capacity of the government. And to eliminate programs Musk, Trump and their cronies disliked, while circumventing the legal procedures.

Of course it didn't save any money, and it was obvious from the start that the numbers they put out were entirely fictional.

people were saying this literally as the cuts were happening, we need to get over the delusion of powerful men knowing something the general population doesn't
Oh, it saved money for someone all right
You mean they didn't save 25 trillion dollars a year from the 7 trillion annual spend?

I cant believe they would lie about this ... i am sure that this is a totally isolated case and they have been straight forward and honest about everything else.

The DOGE refund cheque is due to arrive any day now.

Who ever claimed these numbers? Wtf.
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They'll just extend the forecast horizon when questioned:

"Oh, those projections were over the life the expected costs,forecast out 10/15/20 years into the future. Everyone knows this is how you calculate such savings..."

I won’t be surprised when the GAO’s budget is cut next as retaliation for this embarrassing report.
Its purpose was not to save money but to disable government regulation of capital.
No problem just find more. It’s pretty easy.
And all you techno futurist republicans voted for this. And you’ll do it again cuz money or whatever.
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It probably saved money for some very special companies.
Last night a jam was canceled in Brazil: "bee-conservation musical". People say it's a waste of US tax payer funds (USAID), but they don't understand the real cost. 600 people are now suffering from PTSD and attending survivor therapy after being deprived of the bee-conservation musical. Our homeless can wait, the "bee-conservation musical" must go on.

(Europeans: this is sarcasm)

If there's a government watchdog left, then Trump, Musk, DOGE, etc... haven't done their jobs. They are all too incompetent to even do a proper work of destruction. Or did someone fail to bribe them right?
DOGE was never about saving money, it was about cutting aid to the poor.
"No shit" everyone else says
Suspect this was flagged for being obvious.
It's a good thing we can now all agree that the US federal government is completely devoid of corruption and taxpayer money misuse, and that all future attempts to discover and curtail any of such are irresponsible and futile!
Overstated is doing a hell of a lot of lifting in this headline