Summary
Elon Musk, co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency under Donald Trump’s advisory team, revised his claim of finding $2 trillion in federal budget cuts to a “best-case outcome” of $1 trillion.
Musk’s earlier target, dismissed as unrealistic by experts, had included the entire discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion.
While Musk and co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy plan to recommend cuts, specifics remain unclear.
Experts warn savings may require targeting mandatory programs like Medicaid, potentially causing hardships.
Okay, I feel like I’m going crazy here.
Can someone please acknowledge the fact that Elon Musk, as a private citizen, just created his very own government department, and people seem to be just going along with it?
“Savings” they will find:
-
any agencies that monitor, counteract or release reports on Putin and Russian activity
-
agencies that regulate electric vehicle production or road safety
-
Agencies that regulate space flight and aerial pollution
-
The NLRB, OSHA and whichever agencies work to oppose child labor
-
agencies that regulate pharmaceutical pump and dump schemes
-
agencies that regulate emerald mines
-
The CFPB
-
agencies that monitor ethics among government employees
-
agencies that regulate recreational ketamine, ritalin and cocaine use
-
child protective services and agencies that intervene in spousal abuse
-
anecdotes that certify or otherwise support divorce attorneys
-
agencies that originate, maintain and enforce restraining orders
-
agencies that track and publish flight information to enable safer travel between all of the aircraft simultaneously in the sky.
-
agencies that allow for the creation, distribution and use of rape kits (yes, even though there’s a backlog. You’re very clever)
-
Agencies that keep a database of all people with small, odd shaped penises that no longer get hard…
-
If they go after Medicaid or Medicare it might bring more attention to how fucked up insurance is for Americans. I don’t want them to be empowered to make any suggestions, but this might just bring a tense situation to a head.
That’s what we said about COVID and absolutely nothing improved fundamentally.
Yeah, it is sad. I am slightly more hopeful now after the UHC CEO was killed, and a lot of normal people started talking about their bad experiences with insurance companies. I won’t hold my breath for a revolutionary change, but fingers crossed.
of course you can’t you stupid fuck.
fucking troglodyte pretends he’s iron man when he can’t do basic arithmetic.
Come on, give him a break. Those are some big numbers! It’s not like just anybody could have figured out that 2 trillion was more than the entire 1.7 trillion discretionary budget. It takes a genius to figure out this stuff, a real genius like Elon “I’m a good dad” Musk, who is a stable genius and definitely was not an illegal immigrant at any point.
Likely because he refuses to put his own stuff under that microscope
$2 Trillion was more than the discretionary budget of the US. It literally couldn’t be done.
Which is why it was a stupid promise and literally anyone with any expertise could tell you that. Which shows you how unserious Musk is about this.
Now that he cut the promise in half and it’s still politically impossible but not literally impossible, I reiterate my request…say how you plan to do it. Give us a rough idea what programs are being cut, even the easiest 20%.
By having the conversation about the number alone, we’re buying his political premise. The money is not there for no reason, these are democratically popular government programs, that’s why they exist. So which popular programs are you getting rid of to save this money?
How much of the budget could be reduced if we fired all military personnel and sold at auction most of out military assets?
$176 billion/year could be saved by firing all military personnel.
As an Ontarian I feel we are actually more than a few years from America in terms of this bullshit.
You can go back to when Rob Ford won the mayorship of Toronto talking about “stopping the gravy train”. He found no gravy.
Fast forward to Doug Ford becoming premier to “stop the gravy train” of which he found no gravy. In fact he unlawfully terminated numerous contracts costing Ontarians even more money.
Short story, people who try to reduce complex economic issues into simple solutions are snake oil salesmen not to be trusted.
Unfortunately in today’s media landscape it works.
Which one was on crack?
Rob bless him. In hindsight he was the good one
No, this is bit Elon Musk being unserious, this is musk just lying his ass off as he does all day, every day, since forever.
When you start looking into his history you’ll find a pattern of continuous lies and deceits. Everything great he is known for either actually never happened (self driving cars, anyone? Any day now he’ll have them, forover a decade already) or is something that someone else did and he just took the credit.
He won’t “find” 2 trillion dollars. He won’t find a single trillion dollar either, he won’t find much, in the end.
This is just typical Elon Musk behavior as he knows that the musk fans will remember those 2 trillion dollars, they’ll forgetbot completely ignore reality
You could probably save a bit by getting rid of the department of government efficiency…
Man who lies endlessly caught lying again. More at 7.
Can we take a moment to acknowledge a few billionaires made their own government department, and people are just rolling with it?
They’re a random private company. Why are we just letting that fact slide???
Because the media is owned by that same billionaire class
Seriously what an unexpected outcome…
The one trillion difference needs to be paid back from his salary and a potential salary claw back for this underperformance.
I think he isn’t getting a salary, apart from whatever gains he reaps by removing roadblocks for his companies.
And Trump won’t bring down grocery prices. I really wish Americans were smarter. It’s going to be a rough ride. At least I’m not going to have to subscribe to the NYT to see the obituary that I want to.
Elon is such a dumbass.
Edit: I’m sorry, *President Elon is such a dumbass.
It’ll be 2 million, and way less than the amount the DOGE department manages to embezzle itself.
Wherever he cut, you can safely assume it will only hit the people at the bottom, not those at the top.
It will hit whatever annoys him, his companies and that extends to everybody who kisses his ring sufficiently.
But yes, social and worker protections probably match that criteria.
Whatever supports his companies
i’m actually kind of shocked he admitted this. isn’t his usual strategy to promise super unrealistic things, not deliver, and then make the same promise the next year?
Indeed, but I bet he isn’t used to hide things in the public. This is a federal budget, not yet another of his corporations. I bet he knows the very best accountants but that’s just different.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED by this revelation!
