Expecting a tax return this year? Or are you a Social Security recipient? If you’re either and expecting federal funds from the Treasury Department, you may soon be disappointed and destitute because a close personal associate of Tesla/Twitter CEO Elon Musk is now deciding who does and doesn’t get paid.
Silicon Valley executive Tom Krause has been named financial assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, according to the Washington Post, replacing David Lebryk, who resigned rather than give a Musk ally so much power.
Krause will have absolute control over what’s known as the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which dispurses some $5 billion annually to programs such as Medicare, Social Security, tax refunds, and thousands of other programs, including some that Musk says should be terminated because he claims they’re illegal.
“The decision puts Musk’s DOGE in a potential position to make sweeping changes to the federal budget, with implications for tens of millions of Americans,” the Post notes. “The payment system, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, contains sensitive taxpayer information, and some former Treasury officials have expressed concerns about granting access to individuals with private business interests. The move has also touched off broad alarm within the Treasury Department, the people said.”
“This is the bureau designed to be run by a career, nonpolitical person, but being taken over by a member of DOGE,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury Department official now at the Brookings Institution, a D.C. think tank. “It’s pretty scary — the Fiscal Service is the bureau of the people who cut the checks. They don’t determine who gets the checks. And the data that goes through this is of massive national security consequences.”
So an unelected official who has not been approved by Congress can now determine whether or not you get the money you need to pay your bills every month. Did you vote for Kamala Harris or Joe Biden? That might be a disqualifying factor Tom Krause can use to keep you from getting your monthly check even though you worked for decades to earn your retirement income.
Then again, Musk might just decide that he needs your money more than you do and demand that Krause steer billions of taxpayer dollars into his business ventures such as the SpaceX rockets that explode more often than they launch successfully.
Scared yet? If not, you aren’t paying attention.
