Government Efficiency (8 Viewers)

[RobF]

I think this topic deserves its own thread, both to discuss generally the topic of government efficiency, and specifically the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency' and the incoming Trump administration's aims to "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies".

The announcements have been covered in the The Trump Cabinet and key post thread, but to recap, Trump has announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will work together on a not-actually-an-official-government-Department of Government Efficiency, which is intended to work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before," with the 'Department' to conclude its work "no later than July 4, 2026."

Musk has previously said that the federal budget could be reduced by "at least $2 trillion", and Ramaswarmy, during his presidential campaign, said he would fire more than 75% of the federal work force and disband agencies including the Department of Education and the FBI.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Optimus Prime]

Carolyn Jones never thought it was controversial to herd her cattle to different parts of her 200-acre ranch in northeastern Mississippi to give the grass time to grow back between grazing.

“This is really simple stuff we have been doing since the beginning of time,” said Jones, a lifelong farmer and the head of the nonprofit Mississippi Minority Farmers Alliance.

About 40 percent of U.S. cattle ranchers already use this technique, according to federal data. It helps ranchers keep their grass healthier, but it also helps the environment, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last year, the Alliance won a USDA contract to educate other farmers about these long-standing conservation practices. The project description labeled them “climate resilient farming practices” to appeal to President Joe Biden’s green priorities.

Now, the Trump administration is considering axing the project, along with hundreds of other agreements “related to climate initiatives,” according to internal USDA documents and two people familiar with the agency’s deliberations. The whiplash shows how farmers have been caught in the middle of a political battle over the language used to describe federal programs.

An internal USDA spreadsheet and accompanying instructions obtained by The Washington Post show more than $400 million of climate-related projects administered through the department’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) are under review for possible termination.

It is the latest setback for the USDA’s conservation efforts, beginning in late January with a sweeping funding freeze affecting farm conservation programs worth more than a billion dollars as department officials scrambled to comply with the Trump administration’s priorities.

For decades, the USDA has paid experts to help farmers implement techniques to keep their land fertile and productive, such as fencing off fields to keep cows from overgrazing, planting cover crops to keep soil from eroding or targeting fertilizer use. Many of these projects also help the environment by reducing pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.

The spreadsheet of USDA projects under review was attached to a Feb. 25 email that instructed regional and state conservationists to scrutinize each line item for such terms as “climate adaption and resilience planning,” “environmental education/workforce training,” “biodiversity and ecosystem resilience related to climate change,” and “climate smart agriculture and land use that does not directly benefit farmers.”..............

Under Biden, farmers, companies and nonprofits say they learned to mention climate and diversity to get an edge on their farm aid applications.

“When we applied for the grant, it was a different environment, so we used all those buzzwords,” said Penelope Nagel, co-founder of Soilytics, a company that measures nutrients in the soil to help farmers target their fertilizer use so they can save money and grow better crops.


She sprinkled phrases like “climate change” and “nitrogen use efficiency” into her application for $150,000 to demonstrate her firm’s soil measuring technology on seven farms in South Carolina. Now, those words may come back to bite her.

“Hopefully we don’t get kicked out,” she said, adding, “This is not climate-specific. This is about helping farmers be more productive.”

But USDA officials seemed to disagree. In the draft spreadsheet of conservation projects under review, the Soilytics project has a note recommending “full termination” because the “entire project is based on climate smart science that will lead efforts in climate change.”

Another applicant, South Carolina cattle rancher Leland Gibson, didn’t mention climate change — but his $150,000 grant does mention “regenerative grazing,” a fancy phrase for moving cows around the pasture to keep them from chewing the grass down to the roots.

“They can kill the grass if they do that,” Gibson said. After signing a cost-sharing agreement with the USDA, he fronted the money to put up fencing and add water tanks to different areas of his field so the cows would have a place to drink as they moved from one spot to another. “It has nothing to do with climate,” he said, adding, “I don’t agree with all that.”

Gibson’s project was flagged for “full termination,” the draft document showed, because the “goal of this project is to combat global climate change.”............

Farmers called their work climate-smart to get federal funds. Now it may cost them.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/10/trump-climate-smart-agriculture-dei/

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[superchuck500]

What a forking liar this guy is

 

[DaveXA]

What a forking liar this guy is

Yeah, he's been making sheet up this entire time. Why stop now?

 

[Incumbent]

If we can somehow get through this, my greatest hope would be that the working class emerges from it determined to neutralize the power of the super wealthy. At this point, I'd enthusiastically support any effort to effectively regulate and tax billionaires out of existence. Individuals shouldn't have so much wealth-power that they can upend our government.

 

[UriUT]

I don't know if yall remember the thai cave rescue. That was when I started noticing that he's a complete idiot and jackass. I knew of him as part of Tesla, and for his cameo in the big bang. Other than that, nada. I didn't care to know; till the cave incident. Without knowing the geology of the cave system or anything else, he devised a submarine system that will rescue those boys. Yeah, sure. At one point in the tunnel system, the divers could barely contort their bodies to squeeze through. They literally risked their lives to search for those kids and eventually guided those kids out. These divers were experienced and skilled. For that they were called pedos by Musk. He's an absolute Peice of work of a human being.

Elon Musk calls British diver in Thai cave rescue 'pedo' in baseless attack

Accusation directed on Twitter at Vern Unsworth, who called Tesla CEO’s offer of ‘mini-sub’ to help rescuers a ‘PR stunt’

www.theguardian.com

fyi, I'm not gonna look for links, but he uses his companies to self deal routinely. I question his accounting because he would use tesla to hire that tunneling company to do absolutely nothing. Or when he would transfer funds from spacex after they received funds from the us government to tesla when tesla needed money. Or how about pumping and dumping those bit coins. Jackass did a lot of dodgy stuff. He didn't dare say a word publicly till tesla's stock blew up around 2020. Ask him if he dared say anything about china. He relies heavily on contracts and special privileges from china...ie rare earths and china's competitive advantage in battery manufacturing.