Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.

The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with his exit.

The system could give the Trump administration another mechanism to attempt to unilaterally restrict disbursement of money approved for specific purposes by Congress, a push that has faced legal roadblocks.

MBFC
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  • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
    57·
    13 小时前

    Don’t forget that Trump gets to nominate the next Comptroller in December to a 15 year term that Presidents cannot control. The only manner to get rid of a comptroller is via impeachment.

    All the conservative were afraid of the United States going bankrupt that they never thought they’d be the ones bankrupting the country.

    • eran_morad@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 分钟前

      What?!? They’ve been planning to bankrupt the country for over 50 years. Could it be any more obvious?

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      39·
      11 小时前

      they never thought they’d be the ones bankrupting the country.

      Stop this thinking right now

      They don’t care. They only cared about the country going bankrupt when Democrats had the White House. Go back through any bill debate to raise the debt ceiling and you’ll hear nothing about “uncontrolled spending” from Republicans.

      Their voters don’t care. They see “a return to traditional values” because they can now dead name trans people and start saying the n word.

      We crossed the Rubicon. We are entering fascism.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
      14·
      13 小时前

      Its OK if all the money is going to them.

      In all seriousness, there is still a wing worried about national debt and oldschool free trade, but they are completely suppressed now. See this comment on the tariffs:

      Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is taking a “wait-and-see attitude,” he told Reuters. Iowa is a big farm goods exporter.

      “Normally I’d be stronger in my comments because I am a free trader. I used to be in the majority when free trading was a majority of the Congress, but now I am in the minority,” he said.

      https://www.axios.com/2025/01/31/trump-tariffs-senate-china-canada-mexico