Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who head President-elect Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, have said they can cut federal spending by two trillion dollars. No. They. Can’t. But their failure to do so will not be their fault. Rather it will be Congress’s fault—and ours.
We can see how badly Musk and Ramaswamy have overpromised—and therefore will inevitably underdeliver—by looking at how much the federal government spends, on what the government spends, and who gets the money.
For the last complete fiscal year—FY 2024, which began on 10/1/23 and ended on 9/30/24—the federal government collected 4.92 trillion dollars in tax revenue and spent $6.75 trillion. To its everlasting disgrace, it thereby added more than $1.83 trillion to our monstrous national debt and required the expenditure of $882 billion in interest to the government’s creditors—an expenditure that simply cannot be abandoned.
The government also spent:
- $1.46 trillion on Social Security;
- $874 billion on Medicare;
- $912 billion on other health expenditures—Medicaid, Obamacare, etc.;
- $874 billion on national defense;
- $671 billion on “income security,” i.e., welfare programs;
- $325 billion on veterans’ benefits;
- $305 billion on education;
- $137 billion on transportation;
- $311 billion on other programs, such as national parks, law enforcement, foreign aid, etc.
So where can significant cuts be made? Theoretically, whenever and wherever Congress chooses to make cuts through the legislative process. Realistically: Nowhere. The reason is simple: Every federal dollar spent on any federal program ultimately GOES TO SOMEBODY—and NOBODY receiving federal funds ever wants to federal spigot turned off.
The biggest program by far is Social Security. It is practically sacred. Too many millions of Americans rely on Social Security checks for much if not most or all of their income. Because most Social Security recipients are elderly, they tend to vote at a higher rate than younger Americans—and they will most assuredly vote to cut short the career of anyone who votes to cut Social Security expenditures. So cutting Social Security and other programs requiring direct cash payments to large segments of the public is a political nonstarter. After all, few, if any, recipients of federal largesse want the money to be cut off.
And what about programs such as national defense, or transportation, or education? It must always be kept in mind that no matter how necessary or unnecessary a new weapons system, military base, highway, or educational grant or scholarship program may be, somebody will get money, and nobody will want to see it cut. People are paid to build and staff military bases and communities in which they’re located benefit enormously from the money pumped into their local economies by the Defense Department. Similarly, people are paid to build ships, airplanes, armaments, missiles, etc. People are paid to design, supply equipment and materials, and supply labor to build highways. Real people ultimately get the grants, loans, and scholarships supplied by federal funds. And nobody wants to give any of that federal money up.
So what can Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Donald Trump do? It’s possible they can persuade Congress to cut programs aiding groups that are unpopular or otherwise too weak to organize to defend their interests. They may be able to cut, say, aid to illegal immigrants or to the poor on the chopping block. But realistically no cuts totaling or even approaching $2 trillion can be made.
So whose fault is all this? Musk and Ramaswamy can be fairly faulted for trying to serve up too much pie in the sky, with their promises and expectations so detached from reality. They can, at best, call attention to programs and practices which, if changed or eliminated, could save money, but whether any of their ideas would be put into effect would be ultimately up to Congress. But they shouldn’t be faulted for actually creating the situation about which their judgments are so poor. The most obvious culprits are Trump (and other presidents) and Congress for wanting to spend too much money—whether to do what they think is actually good or to at least buy are votes—while refusing to pass legislation to raise sufficient tax revenue to cover expenditures.
But their fiscal policies—excessive expenditures coupled with insufficient revenue—however contemptible they may be, are nonetheless perfectly understandable. After all, the two most popular sets of public policies are those which increase spending and those which cut taxes. On the other hand, those who advocate spending cuts and tax increases soon find themselves out of office, and therefore without the power to do anything responsible.
And that’s ultimately the fault of We the People: We’re the ones who elect all these clowns to the Congress and the White House. We’re the ones who set the expectations—more spending, lower taxes—and we’re the ones who prolong the careers of those who do what we want, no matter how irresponsible that may be, and end the careers of those who don’t, no matter how necessary for our fiscal health, that may be.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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