It's cutting off critical supplies, stalling travel, and killing productivity all across the government.

Last month, the Trump administration placed a $1 spending limit on most government-issued credit cards that federal employees use to cover travel and work expenses. The impacts are already widely felt.

At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists aren’t able to order equipment used to repair ships and radars. At the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), laboratories are experiencing delays in ordering basic supplies. At the National Park Service, employees are canceling trips to oversee crucial maintenance work. And at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), employees worry that mission-critical projects could be stalled. In many cases, employees are already unable to carry out the basic functions of their job.

“The longer this disruption lasts, the more the system will break,” says a USDA official who was granted anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media about the looming crisis.

  • @flashpanda
    203•2 days ago

    So to give people some additional context on why this is a nightmare. Currently in contracting we have something called the Micro purchase threshold, which is $10k for supplies or $2500 for services. This is what the government was allowed to buy on a government purchase credit card with minimum paperwork (it’s regularly audited but doesn’t need to go through the whole contracting process, which is a lengthy process). Removing the credit cards has meant buying something like office supplies is no longer a quick Amazon buy, it is now something that will take over a month as they fill out tons of documents and some poor contract Specialist and contracting officer will have to go through all the contracting steps. This is aggressively inefficient and expensive. It is by far the dumbest thing this jack ass has done. ~source me, a poor contract Specialist who now has to do an unholy amount of micro purchases.

    • @SinningStromgald
      90•2 days ago

      In the article they say:

      2002 report from the Department of Commerce said that, “by avoiding the formal procurement process, GSA estimates the annual savings to be $1.2 billion.”

      With inflation that would now be something like $2.1 billion. So the whole thing is costing money.

      • @ghostrider2112English
        43•2 days ago

        Yeah, that is because Musk is an idiot and p-cards actually help give more transparency (better reporting) and helps ensure alignment to budgets, approved spending limits, approved vendors, etc. So, like the total opposite of a typical credit card. lol

    • @ghostrider2112English
      44•2 days ago

      Considering that Musk doesn’t seem to know much beyond the surface layer of anything, I doubt he even knows the differences between a p-card and a regular credit card, and how they actually help control (ensuring alignment to right budget line items, approved spending limits, etc.) and report on spending. Dumb ass.

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        18•2 days ago

        The only thing Musk seems to know well is he has a dick and it makes babies.

        Nothing else is as important as that.

        Edit … they may be all IVF but he still needs a dick to get sperm into the jar.

    • @PM_Your_Nudes_Please
      24•2 days ago

      Yeah, I came in to say exactly this. The typical contracting process usually involves reaching out to multiple vendors, (usually a minimum of three, including at least one Historically Underutilized Business), soliciting quotes from all of them, waiting for quotes to come back, deciding on the best quote (and being able to justify it if you didn’t pick the cheapest one), and then going through the entire invoicing process with the selected vendor.

      With a p-card, you can just walk into the local office supply store, swipe your p-card, and be done with it. Or better yet, just order it online using the account that the contractor has already set up via the aforementioned bidding process, and have it delivered in a day. But needing to go through the entire contractor process for every single purchase will quickly cripple any office.

    • Admiral PatrickEnglish
      20•2 days ago

      Have worked in civil service and dealt with the procurement process in the past. You are 100% correct.

    • @[email protected]
      7•2 days ago

      There is going to be a whole mess of UCC ratifications from all this. I would hate to be a CO right now dealing with all that paperwork.