Posted on 03/08/2025 4:27:30 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
An HHS official said the associates of Elon Musk’s group had sought ‘read-only’ access.
The Department of Health and Human Services has granted associates of the U.S. DOGE Service access to a sensitive child support database with troves of income data, overriding the objections of career employees, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The government database — created to help enforce child support payments and overseen by the Administration for Children and Families, or ACF — contains substantial amounts of personal income data linked to nearly all U.S. workers. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
An HHS official confirmed that DOGE received access to the system, saying that DOGE’s agents sought “read-only access” to the system and were required “to take all necessary trainings” before being granted permission to use it.
“ACF supports DOGE’s efforts to improve efficiency and data quality to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs,” the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations, wrote in an email. “ACF will continue to assist DOGE in efforts to strengthen the programs it runs.”
DOGE has recently been trying to check personal tax records against federal benefits, grants and student loans, aiming to link together traditionally separated government systems in search of duplicative or wasteful payments. The Internal Revenue Service’s career staff has resisted DOGE’s request for access to taxpayer records, which are protected by federal law, but the child support database could provide another way for DOGE to obtain similar information. That database is also legally protected, but now DOGE officials have obtained authorization to access it.
A career civil servant had initially objected to allowing DOGE to access the child support database, but that person is...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Obama created the United States Digital Service (USDS) in 2014 as a bureaucratic patch job to fix the Obamacare website meltdown.
When he takes office in 2025, Trump rebrands USDS to DOGE (United States DOGE Service), keeps the acronym and the funding, but gives it a whole new mission: Track down waste, fraud and theft over the entire federal government. DOGE is legally untouchable because it was already fully funded and operational.
Next, Trump invokes 5 USC 3161, which allows him to create temporary hiring authorities, and DOGE teams get embedded in every single federal agency. Each team consists of a lawyer, a Human Resources rep, a Generation Z computer nerd, and an investigator. They report to DOGE, not to the agency in which they are embedded.
Finally, Trump invokes 44 USC Chapter 35, which governs federal IT and cybersecurity oversight. Since USDS was originally an IT oversight body, DOGE now has full access to all federal data systems. That's right. ALL. FEDERAL. DATA. SYSTEMS.
By creating the United States Digital Service, Obama built the perfect Administrative State (AKA Deep State) backdoor. Trump and Musk merely commandeered it. Musk now has legal oversight of every major federal agency's internal systems. The Administrative State can't stop it without rewriting multiple federal laws.
The bottom line is that Trump legally hijacked the Democrat's own system to use against them, and there is nothing they, including "career employees," can do about it.
Post you the year. Well done.
“He’ll see everything. He’ll see the big board!”
The article also notes that the HHS bureaucrat who tried to deny them access was fired.
That is how you win.
Isn’t child support a state issue? I guess they share information. I once had a federal tax refund but the state claimed I owed money so the feds sent my refund to the state.
Wow. No wonder they are all so afraid.
“the associates of Elon Musk’s group had sought ‘read-only’ access.”
All they’re doing is investigating and making recommendations; they’re not revising anything. All they NEED is read only for that. It’s not a weird request.
“overriding the objections of career employees”
sounds like HHS will know who to fire next ...
“A career civil servant had initially objected to allowing DOGE to access “
Those bureaucratic buggers are running the show. Trump is trying to stop that. He can’t, but he can make the situation somewhat better.
“overriding the objections of career employees”
They’re just trying to protect the public, right?
d;^)
There are two Huuuuge methods to funnel taxpayer dollars that involve “the children.”
Child tax credits and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
Illegal trespasser or not, the EITC is just another welfare and vote buying system.
There have been stories of certain two-letter Tax Preparation Company filing 20+ such tax returns for one address.
Good.
The child support system is well overdue for an audit.
For people who do not know how it works, a judge issues a child support order, the money comes out of the income of the supporter, it is then given to the state. At that point it is suppose to be passed on to the guardian of the child and used for their care. Sounds like a simple system, what could possibly go wrong?
Most people think that getting the money from the supporter is the issue. No, it is getting the money from the state. For some reason they can mess up a one car parade. It takes taking them to court repeatedly to get them to either give the correct amount to the child's guardian or to give it back to the supporter when they have taken too much.
The federal government pays states an amount for every dollar they collect in child support. That’s why the states make the child support the max they can take from the fathers (90% of the time).
How bout that? Didn’t know. My neighbor just got dinged for an additional $550 a month (even though they have 50-50 custody). She gets paid a lot off the books so his paper trail income looks higher. He figured it would cost him too much upfront fees to do a forensic accounting of her bank statements eg showing more deposits than her pay stubs would substantiate. So he bit the bullet. Fwiw he’s a great dad and great neighbor. I see his kids all the time. Good kids.
Tell him to do what I did...I told my ex husband who was to quit harassing me OR I will call the IRS. I also told a judge he was getting under the table payments. He stopped.
I had my kids week on, week off in the summer, get my child support stayed the same. I asked the judge, why is that? He said, because she still has to keep the heat on. It’s summer.
That enables the fathers to avoid arrearages and fees, possible income tax enforcement, outstanding criminal issues, or a reduction in welfare benefits for their kids paid on the basis that the father is a deadbeat dad. This is commonly done with the mother's knowledge and participation.
As much as the child support system is ripe for overhaul, there is usually little money to be found in chasing down blue collar workers and making their lives and the lives of second spouses and additional kids miserable through more enforcement actions. The few dribs and drabs of cash that might be collected rarely amount to much.
And all the better is why Obama built this backdoor. To fix his Obamacare websites. Government coders couldn’t get it to work and Team Obama was being badly embarrassed. So he set up a way for outside nerds to fix it. Without Obamacare there’d have been no DOGE. Rub that liberally in the faces of Democrats and also John Roberts, without whom it wouldn’t have happened.
What’s going on here is they’re feeding this info into a giant AI that’s connecting data points. This could create some REALLY interesting bits of data when they’re done, and the AI has had time to “chew on” all this data.
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