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#privatization

4 posts4 participants1 post today

"Elon Musk will not be fully exiting the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—and its activities are only intensifying. On Friday, President Donald Trump threw cold water on the idea that Musk would fully disappear from DOGE and the White House forever. "Elon's really not leaving,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Musk in the Oval Office. “He's gonna be back and forth. It's his baby, he's going to be doing a lot of things."

“I expect to continue to provide advice," Musk, wearing a black hat with DOGE written on it and a black shirt reading “DOGEFATHER,” said during Friday's press conference, while noting that his legal limit for service as a special government employee was coming to an end. "I expect to remain a friend and an advisor.”

Both new and familiar DOGE faces have also been recently detailed to new agencies, according to sources. Members of Musk’s early DOGE team, including Luke Farritor, Gavin Kliger, Edward Coristine, and Sam Corcos, have met with a number of departments and agencies—including the Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and the FBI—in recent days, seemingly continuing business as usual, WIRED has learned.

The team also appears to be actively recruiting, according to documents viewed by WIRED."

wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk

WIRED · DOGE Is Busier Than Ever—and Trump Says Elon Musk Is 'Really Not Leaving'By Makena Kelly
#USA#Trump#DOGE

Our national parks are under attack by the current U.S. administration. The president and his allies are not only causing harm to the parks, but to democracy itself. I am hopeful, though, that the parks’ immense popularity will inspire resistance to making them private resorts for the exclusive enjoyment of wealthy visitors. After all, they are valuable models of America’s democratic aspirations.

#NationalParks #democracy #diversity #inclusion #privatization #Op-Ed
nationalparkstraveler.org/2025

www.nationalparkstraveler.orgOp-Ed | Preserving America’s Best Idea: National Parks In The Fight For DemocracyNational parks have been an aspirational best idea of the American people. The parks may not be absolutely democratic, but their history has evolved toward a better reflection of the nation’s people.

"Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina, leaving millions of cubic yards of destruction. Now,🚨FEMA's sudden decision to pull direct aid threatens to force North Carolina taxpayers to shoulder a shocking hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a #betrayal.

"Maybe North Carolina should buy $1M of Trump’s meme coin & see if that gets him to approve their FEMA request."
-EM Zorbit
#FEMA #Constitution #TrumpRegime #NorthCarolina #Privatization #Austerity #Sadism #USPol
factarrow.com/north-carolina-u

FactArrow · FEMA's Shocking Decision Leaves North Carolina Taxpayers on the Hook for Millions After HeleneBy Munachi Carter

"If it wasn’t already crystal clear to you.

Let me spell it out for you.

They’re never going to get fiscally responsible.

They’re never going to cut spending & voluntarily put the economy into a recession to get our finances in order.

They’re going to🚨devalue your bonds in real terms & wipe away all your savings and the value of your currency.

The impetus is on you to invest around that reality."
-S Hakimian
#Stagflation #Deficit #Republicans #Budget #Trumpcession #Privatization #USPol

Continued thread

Next up in our tour of budget analysis on Common Dreams, I'd like to share a report that demonstrates why I'm referring to this bill as a literal "class war" budget. This monstrous bullshit is basically a nesting doll of terrible policies and financial gifts for some of the worst people in our society, at the expense of the most vulnerable. In addition to ripping over a trillion dollars out of social safety net programs, the reconciliation bill *also* creates a tax shelter for rich people funding the longstanding fundie fascist quest to privatize American schools, while effectively disincentivizing actual charitable giving.

commondreams.org/news/republic

GOP Bill Gives Rich Funders of Deeply Unpopular School Privatization 'A Lucrative Tax Shelter'

"In effect, according to an analysis published Thursday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the legislation "allows wealthy individuals to avoid paying capital gains tax as a reward for funneling public funds into private schools."

"While the bill significantly cuts charitable giving incentives overall, nonprofits that commit to focusing solely on supporting private K-12 schools would be spared from those cuts and see their donors' tax incentive almost triple relative to what they receive today," ITEP explained. "On top of that, the bill goes out of its way to provide school voucher donors who contribute corporate stock with an extra layer of tax subsidy that works as a lucrative tax shelter."

"The House tax plan would create a system that treats people supporting private K-12 vouchers far more generously than donors to children's hospitals, veterans' groups, and every other cause imaginable," the group added.

ITEP estimated that if the policy had been in effect in 2021, billionaire Elon Musk could have saved $690 million in federal capital gains taxes."

As I wrote back when Trump named school voucher advocate Betsy DeVos his first Education Secretary, the privatization of American schools is a longstanding goal of ruling class fundie fascists, who stand to benefit from that privatization in a plethora of ways. Not only do these folks have billions of dollars invested in private education companies looking to monetize the replacement of America's public education system, they also want to establish those schools as Christian Nationalist indoctrination centers away from the prying eyes of state regulators, advocacy groups, and teachers unions. These folks paid a lot of money to buy GOP politicians and everything about this aligns completely with the Trump administration's fascist agenda, so I'm not at all surprised that the GOP is now trying to actively incentivize investing in school privatization; if you want to know why the Pork Reich is busy trying to sabotage public education, look no further than the millions and millions of dollars the folks behind the Christian Nationalist school voucher lobby stand to gain from it.

Common Dreams · GOP Bill Gives Rich Funders of Deeply Unpopular School Privatization 'A Lucrative Tax Shelter' | Common Dreams"The House tax plan would create a system that treats people supporting private K-12 vouchers far more generously than donors to children's hospitals, veterans' groups, and every other cause imaginable."
#Budget#GOP#Trump

Health care privatization costing ON taxpayers a fortune. "The findings of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study that Ontario hospitals spent more than $9 billion on for­profit nurse staffing agencies in the past decade shows the extent of privatization and the false economy that has resulted from underfunding the province's publicly funded and delivered health­care system." #ford #ontario #healthcare #privatization
policyalternatives.ca/news-res

CCPA - · Hollowed out: Ontario public hospitals and the rise of private staffing agencies - CCPAOntario’s hospitals are being privatized through the costly use of for-profit staffing agencies

> FedEx—one of USPS’s prime private competitors—is more expensive than USPS for letter-sized and small packages, which is why your neighborhood postal worker is more likely to deliver meds and ballots to your grandparents on time.
> Trump, Musk, the Heritage Foundation, and their ilk routinely claim private corporations are more cost-efficient and deliver greater value than publicly funded services. Precisely the opposite is true...
znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-t
#uspol #USEconomy #USPS #Privatization #FedEx #SonaliKolhatkar

"MORE PAIN IN ACADEMIA"

"Internal University of Arizona emails we obtained show that the college has lost $60.3M in fed research funds as of May 2. The European Comm is putting together a $500M package to lure US scientists."

Trump's priorities don't include enriching America & Americans, they do enrich him & his donors.

#Kleptocracy #Privatization #Science #Health #Research #NSF #NIH #DOGE #TrumpRegime #USPol
thebulwark.com/p/maga-has-alwa

The Bulwark · MAGA Has Always Been at Peace with East AsiaBy William Kristol

“There're no winners in tariff wars or trade wars. Bullying or hegemonism only leads to self-isolation,” Xi said during a Tues speech.

"Unity & coop among nations were “indispensable for safeguarding” global peace & stability."

Bessent said that the highest #tariffs imposed by Xi & Trump were “the equivalent of an embargo, & neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

#Bullying #Kleptocracy #Fasism #Corruption #Privatization #China #TradeWar #Trumpcession #USPol
thehill.com/policy/internation

Hmm.

The Billionaire who bought (or is currently in 2025) buying Royal Mail has apparently signed a contract not to make any major changes to the company for 3 years after sale.

I'm predicting it now.

After 3 years it'll be made so expensive it'll be out of scope for normal current users or some entity like Amazon (or indeed the actual Amazon) will buy it wholesale.

'Selling the Family Silver' is such an understatement.

There are big, ugly problems with the House Republicans’ Budget Bill.

“GOP's mutually exclusive constraints for their tax-and-budget bill:
*cut taxes
*cut spending (Medicaid, SNAP)
*don't tick off their constituents, who would absolutely be hurt by Medicaid/SNAP cuts
*don't raise debt limit”
-C Rampell

#Budget #Republicans #Austerity #Traitors #Privatization #TaxTheRich #Medicaid #SNAP #Resist #USPol

washingtonpost.com/opinions/20

The Washington Post · There are big, ugly problems at the center of the House budget billBy Catherine Rampell