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Confirmation of Project 2025 Architect Russ Vought Expected to Intensify Lawless Trump Rampage
"Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
Feb 07, 2025
In a party-line vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed right-wing extremist and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the White House budget office as the Trump administration works to unilaterally dismantle entire federal agencies and choke off funding already approved by Congress.
Vought's confirmation, backed only by Republican votes in the Senate, comes after the chamber's Democrats used up all 30 hours of debate on his nomination to warn of the damage he could inflict as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Lawmakers and progressive activists echoed those warnings in the wake of his confirmation. Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that "Vought's fingerprints are all over last week's illegal funding freeze."
"Halting funding for Americans' healthcare, childcare, and food assistance wasn't a bug," said Jacquez. "It was by design, and Project 2025 is the blueprint. Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
During his confirmation process, Vought expressed agreement with Trump's view that the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA)—a law passed in response to former President Richard Nixon's refusal to spend congressionally approved funds on programs he opposed—is unconstitutional, a view that Musk has also expressed.
Politicoreported Thursday that Vought "is expected to soon press his theory on impoundments, the idea that the president can ignore congressional spending edicts." Analysts have argued that even without the ICA, unilateral impoundments of the kind the Trump White House is expected to pursue in the coming months and years would still be unconstitutional.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Thursday that "in confirming Vought, Republicans have put their stamp of approval on ending American democracy—built on three co-equal branches of government—and on creating a government of billionaires, by billionaires."
"Our nation is facing an extraordinary crisis," said DeLauro. "Donald Trump is attempting to claim absolute power for the presidency. The chaos, confusion, and flagrantly unconstitutional actions of the early days of this administration are largely of Vought's design and doing. With Vought's encouragement, the administration has taken the groundless position—and demonstrated—that they believe the White House has the absolute power to determine spending, and that they can choose to simply not fund programs and services that Congress has promised to the American people. This could not be further from the truth."
"The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, with the power of the purse," DeLauro continued. "The president is not a king who can pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore. But the president is relying on the guidance and counsel of Russ Vought to do just that."
In one of his appearances before the Senate last month, Vought told lawmakers that he views the Clinton-era welfare reform law that doubled extreme poverty as a crowning achievement and declared that "we need to go after the mandatory programs," which include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
"Vought is an extremist who has made clear he'll ignore our nation's laws, cut funding that helps people across the country, and give Trump unprecedented and unconstitutional power," warned Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, following Vought's confirmation. "There will be consequences."
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Rampant Medicare Advantage Fraud Is Staring Musk in the Face. Critics Predict He'll Ignore It
"I'll bet Elon and the DOGE boys can't find Medicare Advantage," quipped one economist. "You know these people were not hired on merit."
Feb 06, 2025
Privatized Medicare Advantage plans overbill the U.S. federal government by up to $140 billion per year as they make patients appear sicker than they actually are to rake in more taxpayer money.
It didn't take a team of inexperienced engineers combing through the complex and sensitive inner workings of government payment systems to reach that conclusion, but that's reportedly what Elon Musk's lieutenants are now doing at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with the stated goal of locating and combatting "fraud."
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journalreported that representatives of the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) have gained "access to key payment and contracting systems" at CMS with an eye toward "pinpointing what they consider fraud or waste."
Precisely what Musk and his lackeys see as fraud, and whether pervasive Medicare Advantage overbilling fits their definition, is unclear. In a post to his social media platform on Wednesday, Musk claimed—without elaborating or providing any evidence—that CMS is "where the big money fraud is happening."
But critics expressed doubt that Medicare Advantage, a huge cash cow for private insurers that's supported by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, will become a focal point of Musk's austerity blitz.
"You don't have to search payment systems for Medicare fraud, you could turn to the latest published report from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission which helpfully lists $83 billion in annual fraud payments," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote Wednesday. "The unnecessary overpayments are all made to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, the privatization of Medicare. We found the money!"
"Alternatively, if you're hunting for Medicare fraud you could go to the office of Senator Rick Scott," Dayen added, referring to the Florida Republican whose healthcare firm committed large-scale Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Last month, Dayen noted that a crackdown on Medicare Advantage is "an unlikely avenue for DOGE" given that Mehmet Oz—who campaigned for the U.S. Senate on a plan dubbed "Medicare Advantage for All"—is poised to lead CMS.
Nor has Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is on track for Senate confirmation to lead the department that oversees CMS, expressed any interest in tackling Medicare Advantage fraud. During his confirmation hearing last week, Kennedy failed to correctly answer basic questions about Medicare, including Medicare Part C—also known as Medicare Advantage.
Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, quipped Thursday that "I'll bet Elon and the DOGE boys can't find Medicare Advantage."
"You know these people were not hired on merit," he added.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Baker pushed back on the view that "Musk and his crew somehow want a world without government," writing that in reality they simply "don't want government social programs that help people who are not rich."
"Musk's view is that the government should only be there to make him and his fellow billionaires richer," Baker wrote. "We could have a much more efficient insurance system if we had Medicare for All, but that would wipe out the private insurance industry. Instead, we are going the other way and whittling down traditional Medicare and increasing costs by pushing people back to private insurers with Medicare Advantage."
"It is absurd that people on the left have allowed the Musk billionaire libertarians of the world to pretend they are anti-government," Baker added. "They just want a government that only serves their interest rather than society as a whole."
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Congress Must Stop Musk’s Hostile Corporate Takeover of US Democracy
While the ultra-rich and large corporations have long used their political influence to secure power and advance their own interests, never before has one billionaire so thoroughly infiltrated the federal government and bent it to their will for personal gain.
Feb 06, 2025
Befitting a presidency inaugurated by a parade of tech billionaires, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous “move fast and break things” approach to the opening weeks of his second term—and break things he has.
Trump quickly handed over the federal government’s keys and wallet to unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who has treated Congress, federal law, and regulators with the same brazen disregard he displays in his business ventures.
Under the guise of the Orwellian Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), Musk—the richest man in the world—has bought de facto control of the U.S. government for a cool $288 million in political donations. That’s a bargain compared to the nearly $7 trillion in taxpayer dollars currently at his fingertips.
With Musk serving as judge, jury, and executioner for what constitutes “wasteful” government spending, there’s nothing to stop him from, say, killing investigations into Tesla’s workplace harassment in his California plant.
After sparking confusion, outrage, and temporary restraining orders with their hasty attempt to halt federal spending—imperiling vital programs like Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and Medicaid—Trump and Musk continue to rampage through government.
In a few short weeks, they’ve shuttered federal agencies, fired civil servants, and handed over access to Americans’ sensitive personal and classified information to a group of 20-somethings—all illegally.
According to reporting, Musk’s minions have seized control of the Treasury Department’s payments system. That’s the plumbing that ensures that tax refunds, Social Security payments, and other democratically authorized spending reaches its destination, leaving experts and long-time employees fearful of what comes next.
With Musk serving as judge, jury, and executioner for what constitutes “wasteful” government spending, there’s nothing to stop him from, say, killing investigations into Tesla’s workplace harassment in his California plant or self-driving systems after a fatal pedestrian crash in Arizona.
There’s nothing to stop him from cutting off rivals and securing even more in federal funding and contracts for his company SpaceX, which has taken in more than $15 billion in taxpayer dollars to date.
More concerning, there’s nothing to stop him from using the vast reams of sensitive and personal information he’s now stolen from millions of Americans to train his artificial intelligence systems, hone his X (formerly Twitter) algorithms, or even go after specific individuals and nonprofits that criticize him on social media.
This isn’t a government efficiency program—it’s a hostile corporate takeover of American democracy.
While the ultra-rich and large corporations have long used their political influence to secure power and advance their own interests, never before has one billionaire so thoroughly infiltrated the federal government and bent it to their will for personal gain.
In a way, this is the logical endgame for a political system that’s long rewarded those with pockets deep enough to pay for access and drowned out the needs of working people. Musk has gone directly to the source, raiding the public coffers for his own benefit and interests. This way, he can keep the spigots flowing to himself and his companies, while he champions cuts to vital programs that serve workers and families but not billionaires.
Musk rails against the career federal workers who serve under both Democratic and Republican administrations as “unelected bureaucrats,” but you know them as your mail carrier, your social worker, and your Veterans Administration nurse.
New polling for our organization, Groundwork Collaborative, shows that nearly 60% of voters already believe this unelected tech billionaire has too much influence over Trump and the federal government.
The more they learn, the less they like. Musk’s audacious $2 trillion target for spending reductions is infeasible without deep, painful cuts to veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicare, and food assistance, all of which voters find unacceptable by stunning 50-point margins.
Already, scores of lawsuits have been launched against Musk and DOGE’s blitzkrieg through the federal government. Whether they will stop his reckless behavior is one question. Whether he and Trump will listen if they do is another.
Congress must step in and thoroughly investigate DOGE and check Elon’s unbridled power, before he breaks our government and our democracy beyond repair.
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