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Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by downrightmike on Monday February 17, 2025 @09:44PM (#43085552)
Should hold the line instead
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by dekhn on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:04PM (#43085664)
They can't- Musk is empowered to fire leaders of agencies that refuse to work with DOGE. It's comply or leave- and if you leave, they will just find a lackey who will comply.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by zfg on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:17PM (#43085730)
It's better to be fired. That way no one can make excuses that they left willingly.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by GuestFAUniverse on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @12:47AM (#43086455)
That sounds pretty entitled.

Nobody will help them "hold the line". The damage to them personally would be immense. If you have a family, or any other responsibilities (like your own health and well-being) there's only one wise thing to do: leave.

At the end, only surviving counts.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by zfg on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:03AM (#43086527)
They're resigning at the point they would be fired anyway.

It's not entitlement, it's doing the right thing for as long as you can.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by ty6853 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:09AM (#43086561)
I know in the private sector if fired you can pretty much lie if ever asked and odds are no one will find out.

Probably different for government jobs. They will know if you've been fired from a government job. And once you are institutionalized as a beauracrat it can be hard to work elsewhere. You would basically be restarting your career from scratch.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by zfg on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:47AM (#43086747)
And if they know, so what? The mere fact of being fired for doing the right thing will wreck your life?
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by Joker_vD on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:27PM (#43085790)
Honestly, the very idea of a part of the executive branch dedicated to auditing the other parts and departments of the executive branch is just preposterous. We have Congress comittees for that, thank you very much.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by jki275 on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:52PM (#43086175)
Have they ever, in known history, done any of that in any manner one could call effective?

Congress is a pile of squabbling children and has been at least my entire lifetime.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by nielsbot on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:22AM (#43086633)
they suck but it’s better than this shit—don’t tell me you believe Elon
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by nielsbot on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:21AM (#43086623)
he isn’t actually empowered tho?
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by dekhn on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @11:41AM (#43091819)
practically speaking, yes? Because it looks like he's done that several times now, and the US Marshalls (and the President) are backing him up.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by 9283409232 on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:30PM (#43085801)
When Musk accessed the Treasury department data, people here gaslit themselves into it making sense by saying "he needs to see where the money is being sent out!" So why does he need access to social security information? On top of there being no reason for him having it, there is no oversight into what he is doing with it. My guesses are both blackmail and feeding it into his companies' AI. Perhaps for targeting if you wanna get really conspiratorial?
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by silexia on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:02PM (#43085948)
Read only access would be required to find potential fraud. Everyone here has been saying the millions of database records of Social Security people potentially collecting benefits between the ages of 100-150 is just a COBOL programming deal... but what if it is not? We should check.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by 9283409232 on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:08PM (#43085975)
There is no reason to expect that he will have read-only access given that he and his team had write access to the Treasury data. Social security fraud also has to be less than .2% of spending. Is this really worth wasting time on? Doesn't sound like the Department of Government Efficiency is being very time efficient.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by vaxman on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:55PM (#43086194)
If they catch his team copying the data, he should literally be executed. Otherwise, audit on..
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by nielsbot on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:25AM (#43086646)
i don’t want him even seeing the data, sorry. audit through the normal channels. or, failing that, go after the pentagon where the real fraud (and savings) are.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by 9283409232 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @10:44AM (#43090822)
They already caught his team copying Treasury data onto a private server.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by lesuorac on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:09PM (#43085983)
Good point.

First we should check if you're an American because otherwise you shouldn't be able to help us check.

Please post your Social Security number, Name, Mother's Madien Name, and last 4 of each of your Credit Cards.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by nielsbot on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:23AM (#43086638)
pretty sure we already had auditors. this is something else.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by Rastonbury on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @02:06AM (#43086839)
Yeah it sure is looking like that to a non-American like me, looking for witch hunt ammo on political opponents, sure the government makes a lot of social security payment and salaries I doubt there is widespread fraud or improrietry there, worse is if you mess all that plumbing up legit social payments and salaries are going get impacted, these are things that should not done by "move fast and break things" approach. But what about other massive government procurement from corporations and overcharging?
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by phendrenad2 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @01:03PM (#43092988)
Hasn't Musk said that he found 150+ year old people receiving social security? It seems like the answer is obvious if you look for it.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by 9283409232 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @04:58PM (#43095651)
First, Musk is a liar and is often wrong or stretching the truth. You can find out about that here: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-1...

Second, even if he is telling the truth, that is .000001% of the US budget. An extreme waste of time to hunt after it.

Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by phendrenad2 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @08:19PM (#43097408)
Okay now I'm confused. I just read "In 2023, Social Security was responsible for $106 billion in deficits, or 6 percent of the entire federal budget deficit".
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by 9283409232 on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @08:41PM (#43097556)
I'm talking about social security fraud specifically which is what the above post is talking about when mentioning people aged 150 claiming benefits.
Re:Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks... by abctx on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @07:00PM (#43096756)