pull down to refresh

Elon Musk is failing to cut American spendingwww.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/02/12/elon-musk-is-failing-to-cut-american-spending?utm_campaign=a.io_fy2425_q4_conversion-coreasc-cbdr-sub_prospecting_global-global_auction_btl&utm_medium=social-media.content.pd&utm_source=facebook-instagram&utm_content=conversion.content.non-subscriber.content_staticlinkad_np-americanspending-n-mar_na-na_article_na_na_na_na&utm_term=sa.int-all&utm_id=faq420455&fbclid=IwY2xjawI6hvBleHRuA2FlbQEwAGFkaWQBqxrF_qOLFQEdfYpTX5XwTcPqvxte6kNxX7j3uVVyD0KUmepolyMYkKwNsOA5uKAe9ekM_aem_IfZclbB5SGQNAKHveeKp4g
1348 sats \ 8 comments \ @south_korea_ln 12h Politics_And_Law
Non paywalled: https://archive.md/a6IQC
The article is more nuanced than the title.
Depending on public money myself, this topic keeps fascinating me. More so, being able to do it from the sidelines, keeps me emotionally mostly uninvested.
In large part this is because of the way America’s budget is structured. The government is on track to spend $7trn this year. Nearly two-thirds of this consists of mandatory expenditures on Social Security and health insurance. Interest payments account for over 10%. That leaves a quarter of the budget for discretionary spending, a category which in theory is somewhat easier to trim—except that half of it goes on defence and Republicans would like to increase such spending. In other words, no matter how aggressive DOGE is, its actions are focused on barely more than a tenth of the overall federal budget.
write
preview
related posts
60 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 12h
Assuming they aren't lying, you'll either want:
  1. a near-future version of this text to reflect these promised savings, or
  2. USD inflation to match the promised savings (as the budget and the savings are both expressed in that)
  3. The whole of the savings to be returned to the taxpayer (like a dividend) which will likely cause option 2 or worse.
So if Elon claims that $2tn was saved and yet $7tn was still spent, then inflation (including wages) shall rise to ~40%.
(edit: took the wrong baseline number)
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Akg10s3 12h
Very true 👌
reply
1343 sats \ 3 replies \ @Stackamore 11h
Elon isn’t trying to cut spending, he has zero understanding of how a country is managed and even if he wanted to do anything other than enrich himself, he would have hired an army of accountants, not 8 incels with Kremlin ties
reply
247 sats \ 0 replies \ @sox 8h
So satisfyingly well put.
reply
100 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 10h
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 7h
His task is to cut federal payroll
3 million federal employees
20 million contractors
reply
17 sats \ 0 replies \ @ExponentialBTC 10h
Firstly, this article is nearly a month old now. Though I wouldn't doubt that current numbers show little has improved on the spending front.
Secondly, everybody knows the saying: change is hard. But change is also expensive (in one form or another).
I know many of the actions (cuts) taken so-far have been spot-on based on my personal anecdotal evidence (i.e., from those with the most hatred towards "Elon Mussolini", which is what I've heard them refer to him as).
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 7h
You are a professor or academic who can work at a private university or company
You are not a career bureaucrat
Not all taxpayers funded jobs are equal
reply