EP #160 - NOW PLAYING Jan. 14, 2025: 75% 💰 Cuts? Musk, Ramaswamy Say 🪓 Yes
Jan. 14, 2025

75% Cuts? Musk, Ramaswamy Say Yes

75% Cuts? Musk, Ramaswamy Say Yes

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Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk Are Ready to Push Trumps Plans to Slash the Government. 

1.     What to know about Trump's Department of Government Efficiency [CBS NEWS]

2.     Trump taps Musk/Ramaswamy to lead DOGE [NPR]

3.     Elon Musk is looking to cut government waste [Business Insider]

4.     Fareed Zakaria shares why he's excited for Trump's DOGE [CNN]

5.     GAOverview: Understanding Waste in Federal Programs [GAO]

6.     Most Americans Are Skeptical Trump Will Unify the Country [Pew Research Center]

7.     6 facts: Americans' views of government spending and the deficit [Pew Research Center]

8.     7 facts about Americans and taxes [Pew Research Center]

9.     What Trump supporters believe and expect [Pew Research Center]


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Transcript

⏱️ 13 min read             

Think about the U.S. government where 75% of its workforce disappears overnight. Sound radical? That's exactly the vision Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are spearheading under Donald Trump's bold plan to 'streamline' Washington D.C., or the Deep State. But is this a recipe for efficiency—or chaos? These two billionaires', Elon and Vivek, plan to reshape America's federal workforce and the seismic shifts it could and may very well bring.

Welcome to That's Life, I Swear. This podcast is about life's happenings in this world that conjure up such words as intriguing, frightening, life-changing, inspiring, and more. I'm Rick Barron your host. 

That said, here's the rest of this story 

The goal of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is to target $500 billion in spending. 

Donald Trump has created a task force to 'dismantle the federal government.' Call them the Dynamic Duo.


Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading the effort to cut federal government ineffectiveness. Courtesy of: The NY Ledger

Who is the Dynamic Duo? First, we have the multibillionaire Elon Musk, who spent approximately $119 million to get Trump back in the White House, and be part of the family portrait on Election night, when Trump won the 2024 Presidential Election. On the other side, we have Mr. MAGA hype man, Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sharing details about how their newly created Department of Government Efficiency plans to take aim at paring federal spending, with the two writing in a Wall Street Journal an opinion piece defining how they are aiming to cut $500 billion in annual spending.

Now understand that DOGE isn't an official department or even part of the government, as it would require approval from Congress. In short, Elon and Vivek will review the books, assess what needs to be cut, and make recommendations. 

I'm not sure if not making DOGE an official department was planned, but they dodged a bullet in doing so. Why do I say that? Keeping it on the outside in an advisory and advocacy role would protect it from getting sucked up into the bureaucratic quicksand and avoid the irony of creating another federal agency in the name of shrinking the size of the government.

The announcement of DOGE has raised many questions, from whether Musk and Ramaswamy will have the authority to make changes in federal spending, typically controlled by Congress, as well as the group's powers and how it will operate. Musk and Ramaswamy answered some of those questions in their opinion piece, arguing that President-elect Donald Trump has the authority to cut spending authorized by Congress. 

While Musk and Ramaswamy said they "expect to prevail" in cutting costs, there have been plenty of examples throughout the decades of efforts to control federal spending, which have had only limited results. For instance, President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s tapped businessman J. Peter Grace to recommend reforms, resulting in about 2,500 recommendations for cutting spending, most of which were never implemented

Musk has suggested slicing $2 trillion in annual federal spending, which experts say is unrealistic given that most of the nation's $6.7 trillion in yearly outlays is spent on Social Security, Medicare and the military. 

It's called simple math and it doesn't add up. Only about 4 percent of the budget goes to civilian employee compensation, and firing all those federal workers would only cripple the national defense, veteran's care, homeland security and other essential services.

Now to be transparent, I'm all for trimming back some of the bloated departments we currently have. However, the mindset must be to use a scalpel instead of an axe. Additionally, make the process gradual rather than just pulling the cord out of the wall socket and see what happens.

However, in a newspaper opinion piece, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that their initial aim will be to cut "the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended."

Here's what to know. 

Where will Musk's DOGE aim to cut federal spending?

Two-thirds of federal spending is mandatory through programs such as Social Security and Medicare, while discretionary spending is primarily spent on defense.

However, as mentioned above, Musk and Ramaswamy said they'll target $500 billion in spending unauthorized by Congress and programs they believe aren't in line with lawmakers' intentions. 

The biggest source of expired authorizations sits with health care for veterans, which cost $119 billion in fiscal 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

However, Musk and Ramaswamy didn't single out veterans' health care as a place where they'd seek to cut. Instead, they listed the following areas:

  • The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives $535 million a year [think about this one if you will]
  • International organizations that receive $1.5 billion in grants
  • Planned Parenthood and what they describe as "progressive groups" that receive almost $300 million per year

Which federal programs don't have authorization?

The programs mentioned by Musk and Ramaswamy are relatively tiny compared with other unauthorized areas, such as veterans' health care.

After veterans ' health care, the next biggest sources of expired authorizations include programs that invest in opioid treatment, the State Department and housing assistance. Some smaller programs with expired funding include Head Start, NASA [Musk would love this] and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The latter provides weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring, among other tasks.

According to Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that was developed by the Heritage Foundation to guide the next conservative White House, the NOAA "should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated."

Now, no need to worry if NOAA is eliminated as we have Trump with his Sharpie to provide us the real-time weather report, like he did when telling us the direction of Hurricane Dorian.

DOGE wants to cut federal workers. Here's how.

Musk and Ramaswamy also underscored that they'll push to cut the ranks of federal employees, saying their efforts could lead to "mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy." The pair didn't enumerate the number of workers they'll seek to push out of the federal workforce.

In 2023, there were more than 2 million federal employees, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group focused on the federal government. Most of those workers are within Veterans Affairs due to many health care providers for the VA, followed by people enlisted in the armed services, its data shows. 

While civil service workers have job protections, Musk and Ramaswamy argued that the president would be legally allowed to enact "reductions in force" that don't target specific workers, as well as to make decisions including "large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area."

The DOGE would help federal employees "transition into the private sector," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote. "The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit."

Yeah, don't hold your breath on that one.

The pair also said they want to require federal workers to be in the office five days a week, a policy change that they predict would "result in a wave of voluntary terminations." 

Yes, these two have everything figured out.

In a post on X, the social media service owned by Elon Musk, he wrote, and I quote: "Federal government agencies are using, on average, just 12% of the space in their DC headquarters. The Department of Agriculture, with space for more than 7,400 people, averaged 456 workers each day (6% occupancy)." End quote.

It added, "Why are American taxpayer dollars being spent to maintain empty buildings?"

Ok, I'll give Elon a point for that one.

How much do federal workers earn? 

Pay varies by department and seniority, with the federal government publishing a General Schedule of basic pay grades for most federal employees. For 2024, the lowest pay grade was about $22,000 in annual earnings, while the highest was about $160,000. Some agencies offer competitive salaries to compete with the private sector. Pay may also vary by location.

Federal employees are located in every state, with 80% located outside the Washington, D.C. area, according to the Partnership for Public Service. 

According to federal data, workers at the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency charged with identifying improvements for federal agencies to protect public interests, have the highest median salary, at about $242,000.

Employees at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which monitors the freedom of religion outside the U.S., have the lowest median salaries, at about $60,000.

The timeline for Elon and Vivek, to complete their recommendations is July 4, 2026. Just in time for the United States 250th year celebrating its democratic independence. We'll see. 

The DODE report will likely end with a glorified recommendation report crafted with AI and unpaid interns. 

We might want to be mindful of the 'why' Musk is so eagerly engaged in this endeavor.

The world's richest man doesn't care about government efficiency. What Musk does care about is that DOGE will encourage Trump to weed out the regulators who oversee his SpaceX, Neuralink, and Tesla businesses. 

Conflicts of interest is there for both of these two charlatans. 

Both Musk, who owns X and is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, have reasons to want to slash regulations, which could interfere with their vast business portfolios. For instance, in a town hall on X last month, Musk repeatedly criticized government regulations, citing their interference with his companies.

And I quote: "It’s quite arduous getting regulatory approval,” Musk said while discussing his Neuralink startup that develops implantable brain-computer interfaces. “It does slow us down, and I think we should be able to go faster in the US with advancing Neuralink technology and other technologies that are out there unrelated to my company.” End Quote

In other words, the government should be shrinked and made to work more for the president's men and less for the American people.

Yes, what could go wrong, right?

What can we learn from this story? What's the takeaway?

If Trump can hold the band together, this could be the most upheaval ever launched to slash the Federal Government. Maybe something good may come from this, but remember who is steering the wheel when deciding what direction to take. 

The bigger challenge will be keeping the team of egos in check. At the moment, there's no one closer to Trump than Musk. He has been Trumps shadow, even popping up in family photos. 

If politics hold true to form, there's only room for one giant ego in the Oval Office. I'll leave it at that.

Well, there you go, my friends; that's life, I swear

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on Apple Podcasts for show notes and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for the privilege of you listening and your interest. 

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See you soon.