5 ms·

Elon Musk revoked $80M in FEMA funding from NYC bank accounts

42 points by fcq 2y ago

nainzelliam49 2y ago
if they fund on homeless people may this is good idea
bbcat 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
armitron 2y ago
[flagged]
- lannisterstark 2y ago
  Oh please. Funding you disagree with isn't "waste, fraud, abuse." I don't think there's a single citizen anywhere that agrees with everything the government spends on. Musk has yet to provide a single line item that does so. If "no need for FOIA, everything is transparent" is so transparent, let us have every single line item, why he thinks it should be removed (the real reason, not "WFA"), and a method to submitting public comments that he then goes over and actually makes decisions like how rule changes are proposed, commented, and finalized in federal registers. "I dun wan it" isn't a good enough reason.
- nullbyte808 2y ago
  Years ago I was borderline Republican, now you would have to pay me whatever JD gets to vote for one.
- dashundchen 2y ago
  Falling for their propaganda again, maybe intentionally. This is congressionally appropriated money for FEMA to administer a program, by DHS. Congress and the Supreme Court have ruled impoundment is illegal. You are supporting a sprint into fascism where an unchecked executive has no push back on anything they do, violating the courts, law or constitution. If you can't see why this is a problem, understand that it can and will be used to harm you too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- vFunct 2y ago
  Can you confirm that this money was somehow “waste” and “graft”? I am not familiar with the details. What was this money allocated for? Who was going to spend it? How was it going to be spent? Please confirm details.
  - ckemere 2y ago
    I think in this particular case, it was to help recoup some of NYC's costs for housing the 100Ks of migrants (some undocumented, some with pending asylum cases, some with humanitarian parole work authorizations) that were being bussed from TX in 2023/24. From my understanding, because NYC has a "right-to-shelter" law, they needed to house people, and apart from building a giant tent-city, once the standard homeless shelters filled up much of the housing had to be done in hotels. I think total cost to NYC was i the $5-10B range. It's unclear what the exact "fraud" or "waste" claim is. I think people are upset because they consider some hotels in NYC "luxury". Personally, I'd suggest staying in a $200/night hotel in NYC, and then staying in, e..g, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise at $2k/night before concluding that the migrant hotels were "luxury".
    - ckemere 2y ago
      Tremendous respect, btw, to the New Yorkers I met last year. Some of them were unhappy about things like, e.g., having no soccer fields or having the libraries closed on Sundays. But for the most part, the large majority of folks I talked with did not begrudge the migrant families a place to stay even though this $$ was coming mostly from NYC taxes (and only a little bit from the Federal government).
    - vFunct 2y ago
      Thanks for the background. That’s pretty cool that NYc has a right-to-shelter law.
- lawn 2y ago
  The lack of proof for any of this "waste" is what's truly staggering. I actually agree that the democrats won't win an election any time soon... But that's because I believe the republicans will do away with free and fair elections.
- archagon 2y ago
  Will DOGE revoke the State Department’s $400 million armored Tesla contract? https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administration-order-400-million-worth-of-armored-teslas https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administrati... If not, then what more is there to say?
CalRobert 2y ago
I'm curious about the mechanism used here. There was some discussion of this on bluesky. What I'm not clear on is whether the payment was effectively cancelled/taken back/etc. or if they just went and took it out of the bank account. Either is a problem of course but the latter is truly disturbing. I believe ACH transfers can be reversed for 5 business days, and I think this action was 5 business days after the initial payment, so maybe they used that mechanism?
TacticalCoder 2y ago
[dead]
muddi900 2y ago
Why is this post flagged?
- polski-g 2y ago
  > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
  - matsemann 2y ago
    An unelected tech oligarch having the ability to take money from arbitrary government accounts I think would count as "interesting new phenomenon".
  - muddi900 2y ago
    A constitutional crisis in the world's biggest nuclear power clearly an interesting phenomenon. Whether new or not remains to be seen.
- jimswhims 2y ago
  Yep.
- renegade-otter 2y ago
  Hey, the United States government is being destroyed by a tech billionaire. LET'S TALK ABOUT TAILWIND INSTEAD. Ugh.

42 points by fcq 2y ago

nainzelliam49 2y ago

if they fund on homeless people may this is good idea

bbcat 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

armitron 2y ago

[flagged]

lannisterstark 2y ago
Oh please. Funding you disagree with isn't "waste, fraud, abuse." I don't think there's a single citizen anywhere that agrees with everything the government spends on. Musk has yet to provide a single line item that does so. If "no need for FOIA, everything is transparent" is so transparent, let us have every single line item, why he thinks it should be removed (the real reason, not "WFA"), and a method to submitting public comments that he then goes over and actually makes decisions like how rule changes are proposed, commented, and finalized in federal registers. "I dun wan it" isn't a good enough reason.
nullbyte808 2y ago
Years ago I was borderline Republican, now you would have to pay me whatever JD gets to vote for one.
dashundchen 2y ago
Falling for their propaganda again, maybe intentionally. This is congressionally appropriated money for FEMA to administer a program, by DHS. Congress and the Supreme Court have ruled impoundment is illegal. You are supporting a sprint into fascism where an unchecked executive has no push back on anything they do, violating the courts, law or constitution. If you can't see why this is a problem, understand that it can and will be used to harm you too.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vFunct 2y ago
Can you confirm that this money was somehow “waste” and “graft”? I am not familiar with the details. What was this money allocated for? Who was going to spend it? How was it going to be spent? Please confirm details.
- ckemere 2y ago
  I think in this particular case, it was to help recoup some of NYC's costs for housing the 100Ks of migrants (some undocumented, some with pending asylum cases, some with humanitarian parole work authorizations) that were being bussed from TX in 2023/24. From my understanding, because NYC has a "right-to-shelter" law, they needed to house people, and apart from building a giant tent-city, once the standard homeless shelters filled up much of the housing had to be done in hotels. I think total cost to NYC was i the $5-10B range. It's unclear what the exact "fraud" or "waste" claim is. I think people are upset because they consider some hotels in NYC "luxury". Personally, I'd suggest staying in a $200/night hotel in NYC, and then staying in, e..g, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise at $2k/night before concluding that the migrant hotels were "luxury".
  - ckemere 2y ago
    Tremendous respect, btw, to the New Yorkers I met last year. Some of them were unhappy about things like, e.g., having no soccer fields or having the libraries closed on Sundays. But for the most part, the large majority of folks I talked with did not begrudge the migrant families a place to stay even though this $$ was coming mostly from NYC taxes (and only a little bit from the Federal government).
  - vFunct 2y ago
    Thanks for the background. That’s pretty cool that NYc has a right-to-shelter law.
lawn 2y ago
The lack of proof for any of this "waste" is what's truly staggering. I actually agree that the democrats won't win an election any time soon... But that's because I believe the republicans will do away with free and fair elections.
archagon 2y ago
Will DOGE revoke the State Department’s $400 million armored Tesla contract? https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administration-order-400-million-worth-of-armored-teslas https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administrati... If not, then what more is there to say?

CalRobert 2y ago

I'm curious about the mechanism used here. There was some discussion of this on bluesky. What I'm not clear on is whether the payment was effectively cancelled/taken back/etc. or if they just went and took it out of the bank account. Either is a problem of course but the latter is truly disturbing. I believe ACH transfers can be reversed for 5 business days, and I think this action was 5 business days after the initial payment, so maybe they used that mechanism?

TacticalCoder 2y ago

[dead]

muddi900 2y ago

Why is this post flagged?

polski-g 2y ago
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
- matsemann 2y ago
  An unelected tech oligarch having the ability to take money from arbitrary government accounts I think would count as "interesting new phenomenon".
- muddi900 2y ago
  A constitutional crisis in the world's biggest nuclear power clearly an interesting phenomenon. Whether new or not remains to be seen.
jimswhims 2y ago
Yep.
renegade-otter 2y ago
Hey, the United States government is being destroyed by a tech billionaire. LET'S TALK ABOUT TAILWIND INSTEAD. Ugh.