America is the world’s most powerful country – both economically and militarily. But its government is also the most wasteful, partly because the U.S. can print money whenever it wants. And we are not talking about people wasting 92 billion pounds of food annually, which are equivalent to 145 billion meals – translating to US$473 billion worth of food every year.
Some called it corruption, but fraud, mismanagement, leakages, bureaucracy and misplaced priorities happen every year, so much so it has become the culture of the federal government ever since. Wasting taxpayers’ money is the U.S. government’s expertise. In fact, Senator Rand Paul identified US$900 billion in government waste in 2023 alone.
Wastage is one of the factors the national debt continues to skyrocket, from roughly US$30 trillion last year to roughly US$34 trillion today. The U.S. Department of the Treasury spent a jaw-dropping US$659 billion in Fiscal Year 2023 just on interest payments. That’s roughly the GDP (nominal) of Belgium or Sweden. Worse, there seems to be no end in sight to the government wastage.
The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the nation will add an average of US$2 trillion in debt annually for the next decade. The report further warns – “The U.S. government will add over US$5 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years. We borrow over US$200 million every hour, we borrow US$3 million every minute, and we borrow US$60,000 every second.”
This can’t go on forever. Sooner or later, the government will collapse as the bubble bursts. President-elect Donald Trump might be able to change that. His Cabinet nominees have stunned even the Republicans, from Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, as defence secretary to Matt Gaetz, who has been investigated over allegations of sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, as the next attorney general.
Trump has also announced his plans for a “Department of Government Efficiency,” or “DOGE” to be a new playground for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and onetime presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Despite its name, it won’t actually be a “department”, but rather an advisory council. Their mission is to slash government regulations and spending while downsizing the federal workforce.
Trump said that DOGE “will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform”. Musk and Ramaswamy’s work will be completed “no later than July 4, 2026” to coincide with the 250th Independence Day of the United States – a gift to the American people hungry for reforms.
Already, Democrats and good government groups are sceptical of how much DOGE could do it considering that it is outside of the formal government structure. Working from the outside, Musk and Ramaswamy will definitely face a lot of resistance from little Napoleons of about 450 departments in the government. However, Elon Musk is not a stranger in firing people.
After acquiring Twitter for US$44 billion, the industry was shocked when Musk laid off more than 6,000 employees, or 80% of the company’s workforce. While DOGE has no power to fire and hire, Ramaswamy said – “Elon Musk and I are in a position to start the mass deportations of millions of unelected federal bureaucrats out of the D.C. bureaucracy.”
It was actually a clever plan. If Musk and Ramaswamy fail, Trump could easily blame them without damaging his administration as DOGE isn’t part of the government anyway. But if Musk could slash government spending, a Trump’s promise during his campaign that had convinced voters to send him back to the White House, the new president can claim all the credits.
Efficiency advisor Elon Musk wants to cut at least US$2 trillion off the top of the annual federal budget – almost one-third of the federal government’s US$6.7 trillion in annual spending. The number isn’t picked from the sky though. Every one out of three dollars go to waste in the bloated federal government and the inherent lack of integrity and accountability that are already burdening Americans.
Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of US$319 billion (Bloomberg Billionaires Index) has long condemned the U.S. government as bloated and said its excessive spending is unsustainable. The Tesla founder also said he wants to reduce the number of federal agencies to 99, down from 450. Essentially, Trump administration cut spending can target at government spending and bureaucracy.
The federal spending was a joke. For example, in 2023, US$350,000 was spent to study smart toilets, and US$100,000 was spent to see if Japanese quail is more sexually promiscuous if you give them cocaine. Another US$1.5 million was spent to study the mating call of the country frogs to see if they are different from the city frogs.
If you think that was insane, wait till you hear how the U.S. taxpayers’ money to the tune of US$660,000 was spent to study the impact that Covid-19 had on Russian woman, not to mention how the Department of Defense pays US$8,395 for a lobster tank. About US$400,000 was also wasted to study how to talk to ignorant people about climate change.
How about burning US$1 million to study if selfies make you happy? Mismanagement and fraud in Covid-relief funding saw US$38 million went to people who were known to be dead in 2023. Heck, the U.S. government had also spent US$8 million to boost tourism in Egypt last year rather than spending taxpayer money on local schools, roads or at least local tourism.
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy, an American entrepreneur with net worth of US$1 billion, said that the government shouldn’t appropriate money for programs that have expired. He said – “There are 1,200+ programs that are no longer authorized but still receive appropriations. This is totally nuts. We can and should save hundreds of billions each year by defunding government programs that Congress no longer authorizes.”
Crucially, to get rid of civil servants in a huge wave isn’t as complicated as if may sound. Ramaswamy said Republicans could trigger a mass exodus from the federal workforce by simply mandating a 5-day work week “in person” across the government, estimating that “25%” of bureaucrats would quit instantly. He knew exactly where to start the haircut.
On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy said he would get rid of up to 75% of the federal workforce. About 2.3 million civilians are employed by the federal government, with nearly 60% working for the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. The plan also called for closing the Education Department and shifting its workforce training programs to the Labour Department.
Among the biggest targets have been Medicaid, which provides health coverage to lower-income Americans. If Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ programs were protected, the rest of the budget could have to be cut by 62%, affecting defense, food stamps, home heating assistance, housing aid, food safety inspections and infrastructure.
Besides US$659 billion interest payments thanks to the national debt, around US$1.46 trillion (22% of total US government spending) goes to Social Security, defence (US$874 billion, 13%), transportation (US$137 billion, 2%) and education, training, employment and social services (US$305 billion, 5%). Savings can be achieved from dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations and restructuring government agencies.
Regardless whether it’s a fantasy or otherwise, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has started recruiting with a job advertisement on X – “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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November 15th, 2024 by financetwitter
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Comments
Malaysia should benefit tremendously from any funding involving the dead. Malaysia has big numbers of politicians who are brain-dead, living-dead and those who are best off dead.
Added to the above, Malaysia has a large population of the brain-dead too who are always at the ready to vote for the brain-dead politicians.
These are facts that prove I can only be dead right.
Funding for the study of the toilet would be very useful in Bolehland. Building more toilets or just any toilet can make our politicians rich. But what is most useful for Malaysia is to study why are the toilets always fcuking flooded when certain types of the public use them?
Trump and his team will likely experience multiple assisinations as they cut the interests of existing establishments especially those related to Pentagon and FBI, not to mention the so-called Deep State.