Five former US Treasury Secretaries penned an op-ed in the New York Times collectively freaking out that President Donald Trump’s Elon Musk-led DOGE task force could upend the status quo at the federal department in charge of managing the nation’s finances.
On Monday, former Treasury secretaries Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew and Janet L. Yellen – all appointed by Democrat presidents – lamented the Trump administration’s purported overstep of its authority, claiming DOGE intruding at the Treasury could stop payments to federal workers and American citizens.
“We were fortunate that during our tenures in office no effort was made to unlawfully undermine the nation’s financial commitments,” they wrote. “Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that such efforts are underway today.”
The five alleged that DOGE and its emissaries disrupted the chain of command by appointing a fiscal assistant secretary who was not a career civil servant.
“These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest,” the secretaries complained, adding there’s a risk of compromising sensitive data and that “our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care.”
The Treasury secretaries went on to claim DOGE also poses a danger to democracy.
“While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming. We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.”
They also insisted Congress holds the power of the purse, and that tampering with the payment system would undermine the separation of powers.
“A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”
The Treasury secretaries signed off by claiming the DOGE interference could lead to Social Security and Medicare recipients, veterans and federal workers not receiving pay, and fear-mongered that “the specter of an American default” looms.
The secretaries’ alarmist letter comes as Elon Musk publicly released common sense Treasury modifications he wants, aimed at increasing accountability and making finances easier to track.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
– Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
– All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
– The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily. The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE.
It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!
Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.
When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.
Considering these five individuals oversaw the Treasury department over the last three decades, it’s no mystery why they don’t want DOGE investigating the Department under their leadership.
Be sure to visit TheAlexJonesStore.com for patriot apparel, nutraceuticals, posters and more!