[dauhak]

I'm very pro some systematic auditing/cleaning of out sclerotic waste, but I don't see how anyone can look at the way this is being handled and not be incredibly worried

I think it's the second-order stuff here. Even assuming Musk were to do a fantastic job at just clearing out inefficiency in a smart way (which seems unlikely given the actions he's taken/leaks around cutting funding based on key-word matching etc.), the higher-order point that someone can just buy their way into the President's inner-circle and have complete free-reign to seize government operations and make changes with 0 transparency/accountability seems like it does just stupid amounts of harm to the integrity of the system

[throwawaymaths]

> make changes with 0 transparency/accountability seems like it does just stupid amounts of harm to the integrity of the system

pray tell who was accountable for the grant issuance in the first place? was congress approving every disbursal? could the citizenry vote up/down on every RO1 or SBIR that went past the NIH desk?

[dauhak]

Hey man, if you wanna make a point just make a point - no need to try the whole snarky rhetorical thing

Ofc not every decision is fully democratic, but the people making them are beholden to rules and systems which are - or at the least, have a clear chain of command back to individuals who Congress has direct authority over. No one ever said you needed 100% democratic oversight on every action, as long as those actions are obeying the system that was democratically established

The problem is doing it in an extra-legal way, where the Executive Office is giving a crony power his branch doesn't/shouldn't be able to bestow, where people telling this crony no when he tries things he shouldn't be able to do all seem to get put on leave etc