The Daily Populous Saturday February 1st, 2025 evening edition
Authored by newrepublic.com and submitted by marji80

I contacted a few former officials at the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, to try to gauge what this means. What was striking is the level of alarm they evinced about it. Here’s how the Post describes these systems:

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

Former officials I spoke with were at a loss to explain why Musk would want such access. They noted that while we don’t yet know Musk’s motive, the move could potentially give DOGE the power to turn off all kinds of government payments in a targeted way. They said we now must establish if Musk is seeking to carry out what Trump tried via his federal funding freeze: Turn off government payments previously authorized by Congress. The White House rescinded the freeze after a national outcry, but Trump’s spokesperson vowed the hunt for spending to halt will continue. The former officials are asking: Is this Treasury power grab a way to execute that?

“Anybody who would have access to these systems is in a position to turn off funding selectively,” said Michael Linden, a former OMB official who is now director of Families Over Billionaires, a group fighting Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. “The only reason Musk wants to get himself in there must be because he wants to turn some things off.”

bowak on February 1st, 2025 at 09:01 UTC »

Can you try and only take down your country please - the rest of us would like to carry on.

Seriously though, I feel for everyone of you who voted against Trump and I hope the Donald/Elon fallout out happens imminently.

zubbs99 on February 1st, 2025 at 08:40 UTC »

Why the hell would an unelected Trump operative and his unknown assistants want access to these? Wtf is going on here, this sounds possibly criminal and the FBI, DOJ, possibly Congress should get involved ASAP.

These are the actual Treasury Dept's payment systems for ...

> Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

> Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide.

> “The payment systems are controlled by a small number of career officials precisely to protect them and the full faith and credit of the United States from political interference,”

Confident_bonus_666 on February 1st, 2025 at 08:08 UTC »

Imagine if this was George Soros and the Democratic party. The republicans would never shut the fuck up about the deep state.