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Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Released Wednesday, 4th December 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Can DOGE cut $2 trillion?

Wednesday, 4th December 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:00

Elon Musk is a funny guy. You

0:04

can tell because his favorite cryptocurrency

0:06

is based on a cute dog, Ashiba

0:08

Inu, which inspired the Doge meme,

0:10

which inspired Dogecoin. I'm sorry if I'm

0:12

losing you, the point is it's

0:14

Elon's fave. In 2021, he hosted Saturday

0:16

Night Live and plugged it over

0:18

and over. He

0:25

also said he would fund a

0:27

moon mission entirely with Dogecoin and

0:29

incessantly tweeted about the crypto and

0:31

for a minute Tesla was accepting

0:34

Dogecoin in 2022 investors got tired

0:36

of the antics and sued Elon

0:38

Musk for manipulating the price of

0:40

the coin they lost Elon won

0:42

and then Kamala lost so Elon

0:44

won again and now our future

0:47

president has rewarded Musk's loyalty with

0:49

an entire government agency named for

0:51

his favorite meme coin and as

0:53

you've probably heard it's called the

0:55

Department of Government Efficiency or on

0:58

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2:07

more at ACLU .org. This

2:14

is Today Explained. The first thing you

2:16

need to know about the Department of

2:19

Government Efficiency is that Trump's put two

2:21

people in charge of it, so it's

2:23

off to a great start. Elon is

2:25

one of them, the other is Vivek

2:27

Rameswamy, no relation. We asked Vox's Dylan

2:29

Matthews to help us understand what they

2:32

intend to do, but first we asked

2:34

him where he stands on the federal

2:36

government. Any

2:39

sufficiently large organization is going to

2:41

have inefficiencies and there are definitely inefficiencies

2:44

in federal spending. But almost

2:46

everything that the federal government

2:48

spends money on is pretty

2:50

noncontroversial, which is why we

2:53

keep spending money on it.

2:56

But that's not how Elon and

2:58

Vivek feel. No. It's no

3:00

secret that it is a fourth

3:02

branch of government, the administrative

3:04

state that makes most of the

3:06

rules that creates a federal

3:09

bureaucracy that's hampering our economy. If

3:11

a current trend of strangulation

3:13

by overregulation is not turned around,

3:15

we will never get to

3:17

Mars. It just will be illegal.

3:19

I mean, they're private sector

3:21

guys, right? Like, they're all about

3:23

arguing that old sectors are

3:25

inefficient and need to be disrupted.

3:27

How much do you think

3:29

we can rip out of this

3:31

wasted $6 .5 trillion Harris -Biden

3:33

budget? Well, I think we can

3:35

do at least two trillion.

3:37

Yeah! I'm skeptical.

3:39

There's an old saying in Washington

3:41

that the U .S. federal government

3:44

is an insurance company that

3:46

has an army attached to it.

3:48

And I think this is

3:50

a good way to broadly think

3:52

about what it spends money

3:54

on. And

3:58

how much does this insurance company...

4:00

with an army attached to it You say

4:02

say they want to eliminate 2

4:04

trillion of the budget how many

4:06

trillions is the budget trillions is the

4:08

budget? So in year year 2023,

4:11

we spent 6.1 we spent

4:13

$6 .1 trillion things. Of that,

4:15

a various things. 700 that,

4:17

a little under 700

4:19

billion just was interest, so that's

4:21

just debt we had, and we had

4:23

to pay interest on it. So for for

4:25

actual programs for people, it's more

4:27

like 5 .4 trillion. So 2 trillion

4:29

out of that. that over a

4:31

third, it's a really, really big

4:33

number. Okay, and so a

4:35

huge a of it is just of service, but

4:38

what is the actual

4:40

spending? What's the largest share?

4:42

the of that share

4:44

trillion. six-ish biggest single share

4:47

is social security. That's

4:49

1 .3 trillion. That's benefits

4:51

for retirees. for

4:53

retirees, survivors, with disabilities

4:56

that they've paid into, that and

4:58

so 1 .3 out of out

5:00

of 6. .1 trillion. And that's that's the

5:02

biggest single program, and it's

5:04

one that Trump has promised

5:06

not to cut. and will

5:09

always protect your your security. And

5:11

when you think about about what this

5:13

Doge outfit wants to do, not they're

5:15

not talking about getting rid of

5:17

social security, are they? are they? No, they're

5:19

very insistent that they're not and

5:22

that they're and trying to aim

5:24

for social security and Medicare, which

5:26

is the second biggest program. which is the

5:28

are big programs for seniors. We're

5:30

not touching Medicare. We wanna keep

5:32

Medicare. We're not touching social security.

5:35

One thing that was unusual about

5:37

Donald Trump both in 2016 and

5:39

2024 is he promised he promised not to

5:41

cut them Paul you had Paul

5:43

Ryan. serious about them. serious plans to

5:45

cut them. Do you consider it possible

5:47

to arrive at a fiscal policy

5:50

and plan that reduces the deficit without

5:52

touching Medicare or Social Security or military

5:54

spending? No, you can't. It's just

5:56

a mathematical impossibility. so Trump And so be

5:58

this wanted to be this of thing. Republican

6:00

who wouldn't threaten these programs. The

6:02

reason that people like Paul Ryan

6:05

wanted to cut them is that

6:07

together they make up about a

6:09

third of the overall budget, and

6:11

it's just very hard to make

6:14

serious cuts while declaring them off

6:16

limits. If you do not tackle

6:18

the drivers of our debt, which

6:20

are entitlements, you cannot balance the

6:23

budget in the future and pay

6:25

down the debt. It's just not

6:27

possible. And just to help people

6:30

understand the full picture here, what

6:32

are we spending on Medicare as

6:34

a country? So 2023 we spent

6:36

839 billion. So less than sort

6:39

of security, but a lot. And

6:41

sort of security is increasing in

6:43

its costs just because the population

6:45

is aging. More people are retired

6:48

and taking benefits. Medicare is growing

6:50

both because of that and because

6:52

medical costs tend to grow quicker

6:55

than other costs. And so it's

6:57

smaller than Social Security now. It

6:59

might overtake Social Security as we

7:01

get new treatments. We get new

7:04

kinds of surgeries, new ways to

7:06

extend people's lives that are great,

7:08

but cost money. Okay, so now

7:10

we're into the hundreds of billions

7:13

of dollars of expenditures. You mentioned

7:15

that debt service was in this

7:17

company. What about defense spending? Isn't

7:20

that a huge chunk? Where does

7:22

that fall in? Defense spending is

7:24

huge. That was $800.5 billion in

7:26

2023. So just behind Medicare in

7:29

terms of total expenses. But almost

7:31

no Republican wants to cut it

7:33

outright. And so they might talk

7:35

about, you know, finding areas of

7:38

waste, defense contractors that charge 30

7:40

bucks for a wrench, that kind

7:42

of thing. But it's unlikely to

7:45

be a major target. Okay, so

7:47

then what are we talking about?

7:49

So we've gone through, you know,

7:51

Social Security, Medicare, Defense, debt service,

7:54

things that sound sort of untouchable

7:56

or not really of much interest

7:58

to Trump, Elon, and Vivaic. What's

8:00

left? I think the biggest category

8:03

is programs for poor people bluntly.

8:07

So the most important here is

8:09

Medicaid, which is our program for

8:11

people in poverty and many disabled

8:14

people. That's about $116 billion in

8:16

federal money. It's a federal state

8:18

program, so states kick in a

8:21

lot on top of that. But

8:23

that's the next biggest chunk after

8:25

sort of security Medicare defense. And

8:28

it's historically been a big target

8:30

of cut proposals. when Trump was

8:32

trying to repeal and replace Obamacare

8:35

in 2017, most of Obamacare is

8:37

an expansion of Medicaid. And so

8:39

what he was talking about were

8:42

very serious Medicaid cuts. And I

8:44

would expect something similar. His budget

8:46

chief is this guy named Russ

8:49

Fott. who has been putting out

8:51

budgets sort of during the Biden

8:53

years of what he wants to

8:56

do, and those budgets include a

8:58

third cut to Medicaid. He wants

9:00

to slash the whole program by

9:03

a third. I don't know if

9:05

Trump is going to go that

9:07

far, but his own budgets last

9:10

time around included very serious Medicaid

9:12

cuts, and I would expect the

9:14

same this time around. And after

9:17

Medicaid, we spend about 450 billion

9:19

on where it's called income security

9:21

programs. These are things like food

9:24

stamps, tax credits like the child

9:26

tax credit and the earned income

9:28

credit. Broadly, a lot of programs

9:31

that support low-income people's incomes. It

9:33

also includes some things for veterans,

9:35

which are unlikely to be cut.

9:38

But that broad category of income

9:40

supports report people has been a

9:42

major target as well. And food

9:45

stamps in particular, Trump tried to

9:47

cut repeatedly last time and are

9:49

likely to be a major target

9:52

again this time. So I would

9:54

say they're not politically easy things

9:56

to cut because advocates report people.

9:59

whole Democratic Party are going to

10:01

fight you two to nail on

10:03

this, but they're historically easier to

10:06

cut than Social Security or Medicare

10:08

or defense spending. And so I

10:10

think they're likelier to be top

10:13

targets. And

10:17

if the space man and

10:20

the young man figure out

10:22

some, you know, huge cuts

10:24

to welfare programs in the

10:27

federal government, do they have

10:29

the power to slash spending?

10:32

I do not think that the

10:34

White House on its own has

10:36

the power to cut federal spending.

10:39

Congress has the power of the

10:41

purse. Traditionally, the way this has

10:43

always worked is that the president

10:45

will put in a budget request

10:47

outlining what he wants the budget

10:50

to look like. Congress will completely

10:52

ignore that and pass of what

10:54

they want to pass, and then

10:56

what ultimately is enacted is much

10:58

closer to what Congress wants than

11:01

what the president wants. However, Russ

11:03

fought, the budget director who Trump

11:05

recently reappointed, has been pretty vocal

11:07

that he thinks the president has

11:09

what's called an impoundment power or

11:12

the power to refuse to spend

11:14

money that Congress has appropriated. If

11:17

they're right, and if they assert

11:20

this power and it goes all

11:22

the way to the Supreme Court,

11:24

then Trump on his own would

11:26

have the power to just ignore

11:28

spending bills from Congress. And if

11:30

he, say, wanted to cut Medicaid

11:33

by some number of billions of

11:35

dollars, he could just withhold spending

11:37

for the programs that he doesn't

11:39

want to fund there. That would

11:41

be a quite radical expansion of

11:43

presidential power. I bring it up

11:46

only because senior members of Trump's

11:48

team have been very vocal that

11:50

they think he has this power,

11:52

but it will require a pretty

11:54

dramatic assertion of authority. a

11:56

very long court

11:59

battle before anything

12:01

like that comes

12:03

up. up. So what

12:05

do you think that means for Doge

12:07

and their goal to cut cut two trillion? They are not

12:09

are not going to cut $2 trillion. I

12:12

will bet any amount any If

12:14

Elon wants to of set up

12:16

a crypto deal with me a say

12:18

with bet $5 million five I for

12:20

sure don't have, sure don't have, bet

12:23

you $5 million million dollars that we're going

12:25

to pass two $2 trillion annual

12:27

spending cuts, I will sign

12:29

that and take out whatever loan

12:31

shark loans because I will win

12:33

that bet. win that bet. I

12:36

think they will come up

12:38

with a of of smaller appropriations

12:41

that they are are wasteful or ill

12:43

-advised. They'll come up with government

12:45

contracts that they think are for

12:47

too much too much money or I

12:49

will say this for I will say

12:51

this for Elon a he does

12:53

have a lot of experience with

12:55

government procurement through SpaceX. through I

12:58

would guess that the of

13:00

of cuts going to to be

13:02

looking at is in the

13:04

tens of billions rather than

13:06

hundreds or trillions. one thing I've learned that

13:08

I thing I have learned

13:10

is that to felt like I

13:12

was able to predict what Joe Biden would do. I

13:14

was I felt like I was able to predict what

13:17

Barack Obama would do. do. I felt like I was

13:19

able to predict what Paul Ryan would do. I

13:21

have been wrong again and

13:23

again about what Donald Trump

13:25

will do in his team.

13:28

so Trump will do in his team. And so

13:30

while rolling out, I'm rolling out, a

13:32

wide range of possibilities here.

13:34

of possibilities here. You

13:42

can read Dylan Matthews I certainly do.

13:44

When we're back on when we're back on

13:46

today who is a glass a glass half

13:48

full of guy guy when it comes

13:50

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conditions to apply. Chris

17:51

Edwards is with Cato, which means

17:53

he's a a which means he'd

17:55

love to see to trillion dollars,

17:57

or probably even more, even more

17:59

from - the federal budget. He's super

18:01

into the concept of Doge, but

18:03

he says he would add another

18:06

E at the end of the

18:08

name. So I asked him how

18:10

he'd pronounce that. Do I say

18:12

Doge double E perhaps? Doge double

18:14

E. You know, the Elon Musk

18:16

and Vivek Ramoswami, you know, they

18:18

proposed their Department of Government efficiency.

18:20

Well, to solve the $2 trillion

18:22

federal deficit problem, we not only

18:25

need more efficiency, we need elim

18:27

elimim eliminations. So while people might

18:29

envision the federal government and it's

18:31

the two million federal civil servants

18:33

we have working more efficiently, that's

18:35

great and fine, they do need

18:37

to work more efficiently. We also

18:39

need to eliminate programs. You seem

18:42

to believe that there are eliminations

18:44

here. They may not get us

18:46

to two trillion, but if you

18:48

pull a bit from here and

18:50

pull a bit from there, you're

18:52

going to start making progress. Tell

18:54

us where you want to pull

18:56

from. Well, Trump unfortunately has said

18:58

he wouldn't cut the two biggest

19:01

programs in the federal budget, Social

19:03

Security and Medicare. He's probably not

19:05

going to cut defense either because

19:07

his party traditionally supports big defense

19:09

spending. So those are the three

19:11

biggest programs in the federal budget.

19:13

So what else can you cut?

19:15

Well, the next biggest pot of

19:18

money in the federal budget is

19:20

aid from the federal government to

19:22

state and local governments. That's $1.1

19:24

trillion of spending every year. So

19:26

this is aid for highways. K-12

19:28

education, Medicaid, housing, community development, that

19:30

sort of stuff. I think that

19:32

stuff can be cut. I think

19:34

it should be cut. I think

19:37

state governments can pick up the

19:39

slack. State governments are actually in

19:41

a very strong budget position these

19:43

days with large rainy day funds.

19:45

So I think the federal government

19:47

can and should cut this flow

19:49

of money from the federal government

19:51

down to state governments. So then

19:54

the states can, you know, can...

19:56

can respond as they please they

19:58

can raise taxes they can cut

20:00

others state governments are required to

20:02

balance their budgets. So that's a

20:04

good thing. The federal government will

20:06

cut the subsidies, then state governments

20:08

can handle the fallout and figure

20:11

out how they want to reorganize

20:13

their budgets. How

20:16

much would these cuts be felt

20:18

by people across the country, by

20:20

voters, by Americans? You know, cuts

20:22

to housing, community development, highways? I

20:24

mean, I realize that states have

20:26

their own budgets and can fund

20:29

these things, but not all states

20:31

are created equal. Not all states

20:33

have surplus funds to use to

20:35

pick up the slack for the

20:37

federal government, right? No, that's right,

20:39

and every state would respond in

20:42

a differential source of ways. Diversity,

20:44

I think that's a good thing.

20:46

You know, if the federal government

20:48

cut a welfare program, like public

20:50

housing, you know, New York might

20:52

decide to fund its own public

20:54

housing, but say Texas might decide,

20:57

hey, we're going to privatize our

20:59

public housing. but I think that

21:01

those differential kind of responses by

21:03

the states would be a good

21:05

thing. I think that when the

21:07

federal government cuts aid to the

21:10

states, it should phase it in

21:12

over, say, five years to give

21:14

state legislatures the time to plan,

21:16

you know, how they're going to

21:18

respond and whether they're going to

21:20

cover the funding for these programs

21:23

themselves. But, you know, currently the

21:25

federal government has 1,300 different federal

21:27

aid to state programs. This is

21:29

a massive web of programs that

21:31

has grown particularly since the 1960s.

21:33

I don't think these programs have

21:35

worked particularly well. They're extremely bureaucratic

21:38

when you involve two or three

21:40

levels of government in funding programs.

21:42

I think we'd have a much

21:44

more efficient government at all levels

21:46

if we got the federal government

21:48

out of these properly state activities.

21:52

We know you libertarians love

21:54

to eliminate programs. Are you

21:56

envisioning a United States that

21:58

maybe doesn't have? that

22:01

support public housing? Maybe doesn't have,

22:03

you know, a federally funded transit

22:06

or maybe doesn't have a corporation

22:08

for public broadcasting. Is that what

22:10

you'd really like to see? I

22:13

would like to see that, and

22:15

over the last century, power has

22:18

become centralized in Washington. In my

22:20

view, for no particular reason, and

22:22

I'll give you a story about

22:25

that, Sean, so I grew up

22:27

in Canada. Canada is a high-income

22:30

democracy. It's a much more decentralized

22:32

Federation than United States. In rough

22:34

terms, government spending in United States

22:37

is two-thirds federal and one-third state.

22:39

Canada is the flip. Canada is

22:41

only one-third federal and two-thirds provincial.

22:44

As an example of that, Canada

22:46

has no federal department of education.

22:49

And on international test scores, Canadian

22:51

students do substantially better than American

22:53

students. So I don't believe you

22:56

need to centralize some of these

22:58

activities to have well-functioning government. And

23:01

I think Canada, it's not a

23:03

great model for some things. I

23:05

think the current Prime Ministers had

23:08

lots of problems. However, I think

23:10

the basic governmental structure of being

23:13

a decentralized Federation is a good

23:15

model for us to look at.

23:17

And you heard Dylan say that

23:20

the one thing he's always expecting

23:22

with Trump, and let's say now,

23:25

Doge, is the unexpected. Does the

23:27

unexpected factor here mean that these

23:29

business-minded drain the swamp? let's

23:32

go to Mars types, could actually pull

23:35

something out of the bag to get

23:37

rid of these programs to even maybe

23:39

eliminate things that have so far seemingly

23:42

been political third rails in this country.

23:44

There is a tradition of Congress putting

23:46

together big fancy blue ribbon commissions writing

23:49

big reports and the reports end up

23:51

on shelves collecting dust. That is true.

23:53

However, the debt problem is much bigger

23:56

than it was 10 years ago. I

23:58

think something that's changed as well is

24:00

the threat of inflation. You know, we

24:03

found out during this last election how

24:05

incredibly unpopular boats of inflation are. And

24:07

you know, Republicans have spent the last

24:10

two years blaming all the inflation on

24:12

Biden spending. When you spend trillions of

24:14

dollars, you cause inflation. and staying warm.

24:17

This could not be a more challenging

24:19

problem confronting America. Only three in ten

24:21

Americans Approve the way that Joe Biden

24:24

is handling inflation. Only three. Whether or

24:26

not, you know, you buy that as

24:28

an economic argument, I think going ahead,

24:31

Republicans will be scared that if the

24:33

deficits are too big and the spending

24:35

is too large, they risk a bout

24:38

of inflation leading up to the midterms.

24:40

I think they should be scared of

24:42

that, and I do think that that...

24:45

should be an impetus for them to

24:47

make start making some spending reforms to

24:49

encourage financial markets that you know there

24:52

will be a problem to this massive

24:54

these massive deficits in Washington. So I

24:56

think there is a political opening here.

24:59

Presidents have their most legislative leverage in

25:01

their first year and I think they

25:03

need to start cutting in the first

25:06

year again in order to ward off

25:08

inflation. as well as to actually, you

25:10

know, get something done before the midterms

25:12

get too close on the political calendar.

25:15

Before we go, I would love to

25:17

ask you what you think of all

25:19

the corporate welfare that is going directly

25:22

to Elon Musk to fund programs like

25:24

SpaceX. Well Yolom Musk is an interesting

25:26

example of someone and he can't deny

25:29

his incredible entrepreneurial success, but it is

25:31

also true that he's got a lot

25:33

of corporate welfare over the years both

25:36

at the level and at local

25:38

level. local of the

25:40

problems with our

25:43

giant government giant octopus

25:45

tentacles into everything these

25:47

days is that

25:50

every business gets subsidized

25:52

and it's hard

25:54

to run a business

25:57

without hard to run to

25:59

Washington and pleading

26:01

for subsidies. and pleading for

26:04

know, that is true

26:06

that is true about wish, I

26:08

wish you know know, he's

26:11

got a great

26:13

car company there. He

26:15

should wean himself

26:18

off those federal subsidies.

26:20

Your money being wasted

26:22

and the department of Government

26:25

Dificion is gonna

26:27

fix to fix that. Chris

26:39

Edwards, Cato Institute Sean Ramosferm today our

26:41

show today was produced by produced

26:43

by She was edited by edited

26:45

by Amana mixed by Patrick Boyd

26:48

and Rob and and we

26:50

were fact we by Kim by

26:52

Kim Eggleston. mañana. Maniana. Amazon

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