Government Efficiency (2 Viewers)

I must have some free articles left:

“The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal health-care grants, requiring government officials to manually review and approve previously routine payments — and paralyzing grant awards to tens of thousands of organizations, according to 12 people familiar with the new arrangements.

The effort, which DOGE has dubbed “Defend the Spend,” has left thousands of payments backed up, including funding for doctors’ and nurses’ salaries at federal health centers for the poor. Some grantees are waiting on payments they expected last week.”

“Typically, an organization that has been awarded a grant does not receive the funding up front. The money is held in a secure account managed by the government, and an organization will request “drawdowns” — tranches of money periodically throughout the year — to cover expenses such as salaries or research costs.

Under Defend the Spend, organizations must now include a justification for each transaction. Federal officials then review the justification before deciding whether to approve the payment.”

Basically nobody knows if they will get money previously granted. It could be denied on a whim, and this previously automatic draw once the grant is rewarded is now up for debate each time they need to draw from the grant. Everything is chaotic and has been slowed down significantly.

Thousands of such drawdowns used to occur every day in an automated system. I should stress these are grants that have already been reviewed and approved. Now only Trump political appointees can approve every draw of money from the grants, and they are trying to make people use a new website set up by DOGE, so you can imagine how well that’s going.

Even NIH officials aren’t sure what the process is supposed to be now and nobody has received money for over a week already. These are health programs.

where yat brah said:

I put this in the wrong thread; but if anyone has access, plz give a synopsis:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/17/doge-trump-grants-hhs-nih-backlog/

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The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal health-care grants, requiring government officials to manually review and approve previously routine payments — and paralyzing grant awards to tens of thousands of organizations, according to 12 people familiar with the new arrangements.

The effort, which DOGE has dubbed “Defend the Spend,” has left thousands of payments backed up, including funding for doctors’ and nurses’ salaries at federal health centers for the poor. Some grantees are waiting on payments they expected last week.

The Trump administration is pushing to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that political officials say conflict with White House priorities.

DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, said the new initiative, which is being rolled out across parts of the Department of Health and Human Services, will force grantees and officials to justify spending and create transparency.

“Thanks to the great work by @HHSGov, for the first time ever, the American people will be able to see line-by-line payment descriptions & justifications — coming soon to the DOGE website,” the group posted on X last Saturday.

Typically, an organization that has been awarded a grant does not receive the funding up front. The money is held in a secure account managed by the government, and an organization will request “drawdowns” — tranches of money periodically throughout the year — to cover expenses such as salaries or research costs.

Under Defend the Spend, organizations must now include a justification for each transaction. Federal officials then review the justification before deciding whether to approve the payment.

The process has been abruptly instituted at the National Institutes for Health, the Administration for Children and Families, and other parts of HHS, with inconsistent instructions on how to proceed, said the people familiar with the arrangements, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. They also described immediate backlogs in processing payments.

HHS said in a statement that the DOGE effort would not threaten “support for critical programs” and was intended to root out fraud and abuse. “The era of rubber stamping is over,” the HHS statement said.

Current and former federal officials said the process would create bottlenecks.

“Instead of cutting red tape, they are strangling grantees with it,” said Robert Gordon, who served as the HHS assistant secretary of financial resources during the Biden administration.

Some officials have been told that only Trump political appointees can sign requests to disburse funds, even if a career official has already approved it, adding an additional layer of review. The justification for each payment also must include an explanation of how the money will be used to advance Trump administration priorities, according to two employees in separate agencies who received high-level briefings on the process...............

DOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review​

Oh, and as for the NIH article from WaPo: they put the freeze on funds in place without any sort of announcement or any guidance for the grantees.

A Catholic charity in TX for example, takes weekly draws and pays doctor and other health workers salaries. They have no money to pay people for work already performed.

The head of the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has announced that the Trump administration would be taking over the reconstruction of Penn Station in New York, removing it from the care of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

Alongside the transportation department, Amtrak – which is federally funded – will now helm the project.

Penn Station sees more than 600,000 commutersevery day and is the busiest transit hub in the western hemisphere. The MTA has for years attempted to execute its plan to renovate the station in an effort to increase train service in and out of New York and instead found itself mired in controversy owing in part to competing priorities of its various stakeholders. Some of those include the MTA, Amtrak, NJ Transit and Madison Square Garden (the venue which sits atop Penn Station).


The DOT claimed in a statement that this move “will save taxpayers approximately $120m” and that Trump is “also championing a public-private partnership model for Penn Station, harnessing private sector innovation and capital to minimize financial risk to taxpayers”.

The statement did not clarify how, exactly, this will save taxpayers money or what the administration’s plans for the renovations include.

Amtrak officials did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said in a statement: “New York City deserves a Penn Station that reflects America’s greatness and is safe and clean.

“The MTA’s history of inefficiency, waste and mismanagement also meant that a new approach is needed. By putting taxpayers first, we’re ensuring every dollar is spent wisely to create a transit hub all Americans can take pride in.”……..

A member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency kept Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffers working for 36 hours straight to send out mass layoff notices at the agency, screaming at those he thought weren’t working fast enough, according to a declaration filed Friday in a legal case over the terminations.

“DOGE member Gavin Kliger managed the RIF. He kept the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out yesterday (April 17). Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent,” said an unidentified member of the team working on the reduction in force, or RIF, notices. The person used a pseudonym in the filing for fear of retaliation.

The CFPB started sending RIF notices to about 1,500 of the 1,700 agency staffers yesterday……..

superchuck500 said:

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President Musk has fired him I guess.

superchuck500 said:

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That’s not much of a power struggle. Are we still pretending Musk isn’t in charge of DOGE or Treasury for that matter?

Nearly 300 academics have applied to a French university’s offer to take in US-based researchers rattled by the American government’s crackdown on academia, as a former French president called for the creation of a “scientific refugee” status for academics in peril.

Earlier this year, France’s Aix-Marseille University was among the first in Europe to respond to the funding freezes, cuts and executive ordersunleashed on institutions across the US by Donald Trump’s administration.

What they were offering – through a programme titled Safe Place for Science – was a sort of “scientific asylum”, offering three years of funding at their facility for about 20 researchers.


On Thursday the university said it had received 298 applications in a month, of which 242 were deemed eligible. The applicants hailed from institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, Nasa, Columbia, Yale and Stanford, it said in a statement.

Most of the applications were sent using encrypted messaging, the university’s president, Eric Berton, wrote in the French newspaper Libération. “And with them came worrying, sometimes chilling, accounts from American researchers about the fate reserved for them by the Trump administration,” he said……..

Optimus Prime said:

Nearly 300 academics have applied to a French university’s offer to take in US-based researchers rattled by the American government’s crackdown on academia, as a former French president called for the creation of a “scientific refugee” status for academics in peril.

Earlier this year, France’s Aix-Marseille University was among the first in Europe to respond to the funding freezes, cuts and executive ordersunleashed on institutions across the US by Donald Trump’s administration.

What they were offering – through a programme titled Safe Place for Science – was a sort of “scientific asylum”, offering three years of funding at their facility for about 20 researchers.


On Thursday the university said it had received 298 applications in a month, of which 242 were deemed eligible. The applicants hailed from institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, Nasa, Columbia, Yale and Stanford, it said in a statement.

Most of the applications were sent using encrypted messaging, the university’s president, Eric Berton, wrote in the French newspaper Libération. “And with them came worrying, sometimes chilling, accounts from American researchers about the fate reserved for them by the Trump administration,” he said……..

Nearly 300 apply as French university offers US academics ‘scientific asylum’

Aix-Marseille University generates interest amid a US crackdown and calls for a ‘scientific refugee’ status

www.theguardian.com

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I sincerely hope other European nations will follow France’s lead. The current political climate in the U.S. poses a serious threat to critical research in healthcare, renewable energy, and environmental science. Without intervention, there’s a real risk that groundbreaking work—research with global implications—could be lost, delayed, or permanently derailed.

France’s initiative shows leadership and vision. If more European countries step up, they can help safeguard this essential research. This isn’t just about supporting scientists—it's about protecting knowledge that belongs to the world. We’re talking about advances in climate change mitigation, potential cures for devastating diseases like pancreatic cancer and Alzheimer’s, and the development of new vaccines, including those targeting multiple forms of cancer.

Losing this research would be a loss for all humanity, not just the U.S. France has opened the door—now it’s time for others to join.

The Senate-confirmed cabinet secretary at the Dept. of the Interior has turned his agency over to DOGE.

What an absolute joke

superchuck500 said:

What an absolute joke

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I posted a really good TikTok video by an economist explaining this. It is the worst sort of joke, because it’s on all of us. Even those of us who knew it would be a joke.

superchuck500 said:

What an absolute joke

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And this surprises us why? Trump is the self-described king of debt yet MAGA thinks he is a business genius.