By Steve Levy
One of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk, and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are licking their chops, ready to take an ax to the federal budget, now that they’ve been appointed to head the new cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.
Such a department is long overdue, but Musk may have already dug himself a hole by casually claiming that he will be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.
Before anyone echoes the comments of many leftists who claim this will destroy the country, let’s remember that federal spending jumped from $4.45 trillion in 2019 to $6.21 trillion in 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That is a 40% increase over four years. https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-spending-40-2019#:~:text=Federal%20spending%20jumped%20from%20%244.45,unless%20policymakers%20pursue%20major%20reforms.
Even though the pandemic is now long behind us, the current year’s budget is a whopping $6.75 trillion. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
So what if we were to go back to the 2019 levels? Would it mean devastation for America? Hardly. Nevertheless, the reality is that a good deal of this spending tends to get baked into the cake which makes it very hard to undo.
Additionally, the overwhelming amount of spending in the federal budget is slated for entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Interest on the debt is now about 10% of the budget and the military is another behemoth line item. That leaves the discretionary part of a budget, which is smaller than many think.
Finding half a trillion dollars in waste and redundancy would be a major accomplishment, but Musk is already setting himself up to fail by overpromising.
Tamp it down a bit and get to work. Every dollar saved is a dollar earned by taxpayers.
Steve Levy is Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.”