Panelists Ben Ferguson and Stacy Washington discuss how Democrats react to Doge by examining public spending on “results”.
A head of the Treasury Department declared Tuesday to members of the Congress that a technological director working with the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government, or Doge, will have “reading only” to the government’s payment system, stressing that He undertook to protect the system after Doge obtained access.
The manager has written a letter in response to the legislators who feared that Doge’s access to the government’s payment system for the federal government could lead to security risks or missed payments for various programs, including Social Security and Insurance -disease.
The legislators have also expressed their concerns that the billionaire Elon Musk, who directs Doge, has too much power within the American government and which he says on his social media platform X DOGE will arrest payments to certain organizations, as A Lutheran charitable organization.
The letter notes that the current examination of the treasury systems has “not caused payments for obligations such as social security and health insurance to be delayed or reinstalled” and that the CEO of Cloud Software Group, Tom Krause worked at Treasury as a “special government employee” which means that the rules on ethics and financial disclosure are less strict than for other government employees.
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Elon Musk is seen in the American Capitol after a meeting with Senator John Thune, Rs.d., while he was on the hill to speak of the “Department of Efficiency of the Government” of the President elected Donald Trump, Thursday on Thursday December 5, 2024. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, included via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Krause conducts the examination in coordination with the managers of the career treasury, according to the letter.
“Currently, the members of the Treasury staff working with Tom Krause, a treasury employee, will have access to reading alone to the coded data of the tax service systems in order to continue this evaluation of operational efficiency,” said the letter . “This is similar to the type of access that the Treasury provides to people who examine cash systems, such as listeners, and which follows the practices associated with the protection of the integrity of systems and commercial processes.”
“The Treasury will continue its efforts to promote the efficiency and efficiency of its operations and to prevent waste, fraud and abuse,” he adds.
Treasury payments are managed by its Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which spends almost 90% of all federal payments and performs more than 1.2 billion transactions per year.
The manager said that the objective of the exam was to “maximize the integrity of payments for agencies and the public”.
“The Treasury has no higher obligation than managing government finances on behalf of the American people, and its payment system is essential to this process,” said the letter. “In accordance with this mission, the Treasury is committed to protecting the integrity and security of the system, taking into account the implications of any compromise or disturbance of the American economy.”
The American Treasury Building, photographed on Friday July 16, 2021 in Washington, DC (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)
While the Treasury Manager said DOGE had just “access to reading alone” to payment systems, some Democrats remain skeptical.
“Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk has only” access to visualization “to the highly sensitive payment system of the Treasury as if it were acceptable either,” said senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., In a press release.
“But why hell should we believe this – especially when he says exactly the opposite aloud and several times so that everyone can see him?” Murray, vice-president of the Senate credit committee, added.
A group of unions and defenders has filed a legal action trying to prevent the Treasury from putting access to payment systems in Doge.
“The extent of the intrusion in the private life of individuals is massive and unprecedented,” said the trial. “People who have to share information with the federal government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk or his” DOGE “. And federal law says they don’t have to do so. “”
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The building of the US Treasury Department is visible in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Some Congress Democrats have decided to test if they would have access to the cash since Doge had access, with the representative Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Writing on X: “We are members of the Congress in the Treasury Department. We want to be left to provide surveillance in the name of our voters. “
The director of communications for the White House, Steven Cheung, replied: “Look at these losers. Literally, all they do is for social media.”
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Doge’s access to payment systems came after the Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary David Lebryk has resigned from the agency. Lebryk resigned from his post after Dogi asked for access to sensitive data from the Treasury, according to the Washington Post.
“The budgetary service fulfills some of the government’s most vital functions,” Lebryk said in a letter to the Treasury employees. “Our work can be unknown to most of the public, but that does not mean that it is not exceptionally important.
