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During the conversation on X between Musk and Trump, they floated the idea of Musk leading a 'government cutting commission' or basically a setup where Musk would come in and cut the fat from the government.
This idea fascinates me, and while I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons it may be terrible, I fear that financially the U.S. may need to do something dramatic like this in order to get the debt under control, etc etc. Also I, along with many other mottizens, am just pretty bearish on the efficacy of most government. Especially federal officials.
The question for me is - how would this work? Which areas do you think would get cut the most? (education was mentioned here specifically) Which areas are critical and should remain mostly untouched? (post office?)
On top of that, if this were to happen, what would be the primary blockers? Do you think Elon is the right man for the job without political connections? Are there ways in which the President can be prevented from firing large swathes of the federal admin? Potential disasters that could happen if critical employees are in fact fired?
What does under control mean here? It's not that long ago (late 90's) the United States has a budget surplus. Our debt to GDP ratio could also be shrinking substantially if we repealed the Bush and Trump tax cuts (i.e. went back to the tax rates we had when we had a surplus). The growth of United States debt to some unmanageable level only seems inevitable because one of the primary ways of reducing it is implicitly off the table. This asymmetry also infects US political discourse. Any new spending must justify itself with how it is going to be paid for but the same is rarely asked of tax cuts.
Any discussion here needs to start with the actual federal budget. About 60% of which is Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/Military. Cutting the DOE down to 0 would cut ~10% off the deficit. You could eliminate a solid majority of federal government departments and still not arrive at a budget surplus. Most of them are tiny relative to the size of the deficit.
The largest one is probably the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. The Act was a direct response to executive branch employees (including the President) giving out government positions as a kind of patronage. The Act reformed the hiring process for large swathes of administrative agencies to be based on merit and competitive exams rather than political appointment. You might have heard about this in the context of Trump trying to create Schedule F to designate a bunch of positions in the executive branch as exempt from civil service protections.
I am not sure how Elon is "without political connections." He just hosted an interview with a candidate for President. His companies are government contractors. He has adversarial relationships with particular executive branch departments. He is not exactly someone with no personal financial interest in the operation of specific government departments.
"Interest payments on bonds are the 3rd highest item on the US Budget, half of the entire public deficit goes to paying them alone, and the interest rates aren't even that high." sounds pretty out of control to me.
So interest payments account for half the budget, and there are two items that cost even more $?
Is this some new kind of math?
Of the deficit.
Sorry. I read the comment several times. Guess I should have read a few more.
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