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.
This doesn’t look good for Elon. Lucky for him that he’s the president.
Doesn’t matter his fan base will eat it up
He has a fan base?
Yes he does. Right now they are all virtually MAGA as well. They believe Leon can do no wrong and believe that all the MAGAs are going to buy Tesla now.
Correct me if I’m wrong. I was under the impression that a substantial part of MAGAs are climate change deniers and gasoline bros who drive huge trucks and SUVs. Now they all want teslas? I’m confused.
a. they don’t all want the Teslas, the ones that have had them, think all the other MAGAS want them. b. These are fanbois that were always first to say “I didn’t buy my Tesla for the environmental stuff, …”
Yup. It keeps him from falling over from all of the blowing.
Who’s blowing whom?
Yes. Leon often prices merch at $69.
Exactly.
First day on the Internet?
Yes I’m just learning about this guy. Doesn’t seem like the type of bloke who would have fans.
I wish I could have lived in your world these past 10 years. I mean that (mostly) sincerely.
I kind of wish he could have lived out his life in that world.
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!
Man who lies endlessly caught lying again. More at 7.
Wherever he cut, you can safely assume it will only hit the people at the bottom, not those at the top.
Whatever supports his companies
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.
Anyone who actually believed they would find $2 trillion was an idiot, the rest of us knew they’d just cut the things they hate, bump the subsidies that favor them and their friends, and call it a day.
Surely it’s essy to find $2tr in the Homeland Security/ military budget?
Not even there. DoD is ~$840B and DHS another sixty. Not even one trillion in the entire US security apparatus, but they were going to so easily find twice that. It was always pure nonsense.
I expect them to privatize and then somehow claim they cut the budget because they are paying a private company instead of running whole departments themselves (govt)
Your comment will age poorly when Trump’s tarrifs lead to a collapsing economy and he prints money like mad to solve it, resulting in hyper-inflation letting President Musk keep his election promise.
Wondering how that connects as I didn’t mention tarrifs?
After hyperinflation, Musk will easily cut $100T from the budget, making your claim that only an idiot would believe he could find $2T in cuts laughable.
Aha, well played!
Makes me glad I don’t hold dollars.
Yeah maybe it’s time to buy some gold
Or property, but make sure you fix your rates for 30+ years.
Gold is a good option, and I have some, but I also have some Monero.
Starts thinking of all his old pc equipment How much gold is in this stuff
Not much
The funny thing is…it’s not like their voters would care if they lied. They could literally say “We cut the budget by $17 trillion by making sure the trans kids don’t get surgeries!” And their voters would fucking cheer.
They wouldn’t look deep enough to actually care what they cut.
So the question is why even make this announcement? I’m guessing it’s a distraction from something else.
Ahh, his administration hasn’t even officially begun and already we have the Memberberry shadow president. I think someone should have t-shirts made up.
The next 4-years are going to be… I honestly have NFC.
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.
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.
If RFK is crazy because a worm ate part of his brain, it seems like Enron Musk may have had drugs that are the equivalent of 2 worms.
He’s been known to, shall we say, “macrodose” ketamine at parties.
Not to mention overdosing on money and ego. That stuff makes a person crazy.
I have macro dosed ketamine and I know that there are no 2 trillion to cut in the government of the US.
Yes, but how often have you done it and were you stupid to begin with?
Yeah a lot of people who know nothing about ketamine love to blame it for Musk’s idiocy.
Dude is just a moron no matter what drugs he takes.
Likely because he refuses to put his own stuff under that microscope
Man, it’s almost like he has no idea what he’s talking about or something. Definitely a good candidate to be making policy decisions affecting millions of people.
Billions.
“Savings” they will find:
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any agencies that monitor, counteract or release reports on Putin and Russian activity
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agencies that regulate electric vehicle production or road safety
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Agencies that regulate space flight and aerial pollution
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The NLRB, OSHA and whichever agencies work to oppose child labor
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agencies that regulate pharmaceutical pump and dump schemes
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agencies that regulate emerald mines
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The CFPB
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agencies that monitor ethics among government employees
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agencies that regulate recreational ketamine, ritalin and cocaine use
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child protective services and agencies that intervene in spousal abuse
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anecdotes that certify or otherwise support divorce attorneys
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agencies that originate, maintain and enforce restraining orders
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agencies that track and publish flight information to enable safer travel between all of the aircraft simultaneously in the sky.
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agencies that allow for the creation, distribution and use of rape kits (yes, even though there’s a backlog. You’re very clever)
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Agencies that keep a database of all people with small, odd shaped penises that no longer get hard…
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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.
Oh? The places he’s looking at actually work fairly efficiently already? Or the inefficiencies are outside their control? The inefficient sections are the places he can’t go, like the DOD?
Or they’ve already had their budgets slashed so much that there’s nothing left to slash. Which is pretty common unfortunately.
But those things actually help poor people. Can’t have that, can we?
Any inefficiency likely comes from private industry bending the government over and stealing our wallet. I’ve been paid obscenely better as a contractor than my government counterparts, and I’m probably only seeing half of what my company charges. Entire departments are twenty contractors at a cost of $5 million per year and two actual government employees making a grand total of $60k each. Maybe double that at most by the time you include all the benefits.
But if you try to trim that, you’re cutting into the profits of private industry, and we sure as fuck can’t have that, can we?
And a bunch of bureaucracy in government with budgets, approvals and checks etc were put in place as cost cutting in the first place.
