this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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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.

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[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 13 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

$2 Trillion was more than the discretionary budget of the US. It literally couldn't be done.

Which is why it was a stupid promise and literally anyone with any expertise could tell you that. Which shows you how unserious Musk is about this.

Now that he cut the promise in half and it's still politically impossible but not literally impossible, I reiterate my request...say how you plan to do it. Give us a rough idea what programs are being cut, even the easiest 20%.

By having the conversation about the number alone, we're buying his political premise. The money is not there for no reason, these are democratically popular government programs, that's why they exist. So which popular programs are you getting rid of to save this money?

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

As an Ontarian I feel we are actually more than a few years from America in terms of this bullshit.

You can go back to when Rob Ford won the mayorship of Toronto talking about "stopping the gravy train". He found no gravy.

Fast forward to Doug Ford becoming premier to "stop the gravy train" of which he found no gravy. In fact he unlawfully terminated numerous contracts costing Ontarians even more money.

Short story, people who try to reduce complex economic issues into simple solutions are snake oil salesmen not to be trusted.

Unfortunately in today's media landscape it works.

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 2 points 3 hours ago

You could probably save a bit by getting rid of the department of government efficiency...

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

No, this is bit Elon Musk being unserious, this is musk just lying his ass off as he does all day, every day, since forever.

When you start looking into his history you'll find a pattern of continuous lies and deceits. Everything great he is known for either actually never happened (self driving cars, anyone? Any day now he'll have them, forover a decade already) or is something that someone else did and he just took the credit.

He won't "find" 2 trillion dollars. He won't find a single trillion dollar either, he won't find much, in the end.

This is just typical Elon Musk behavior as he knows that the musk fans will remember those 2 trillion dollars, they'll forgetbot completely ignore reality