{"id":16498,"date":"2025-02-15T02:23:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T02:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16498"},"modified":"2025-02-15T02:23:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T02:23:46","slug":"elon-musk-implausibly-claims-competence-and-caring-can-cut-the-federal-budget-deficit-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16498","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Implausibly Claims ‘Competence and Caring’ Can Cut the Federal Budget Deficit in Half"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“contrary to what Musk claimed, tackling “waste, fraud, and abuse<\/a>” cannot possibly generate enough savings to eliminate the annual budget deficit, which was nearly $2 trillion<\/a> in fiscal year 2024, let alone reduce the ever-climbing national debt<\/a>, which currently exceeds $36 trillion, including $29 trillion in debt held by the public.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even if Musk succeeds in curtailing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” there is only so much<\/a> he can accomplish<\/a> by focusing on “driving change through executive action based on existing legislation,” which is how he described<\/a> his agenda last November. Any serious attempt to reduce federal borrowing will require new legislation that addresses the main drivers<\/a> of federal spending, including Social Security<\/a>, Medicare<\/a>, and the military budget<\/a>. But the platform<\/a> on which Trump ran takes all those things off the table while promising pricey policies that will only exacerbate the problem that Musk decries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/02\/12\/elon-musk-implausibly-claims-competence-and-caring-can-cut-the-federal-budget-deficit-in-half<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“contrary to what Musk claimed, tackling “waste, fraud, and abuse” cannot possibly generate enough savings to eliminate the annual budget deficit, which was nearly $2 trillion in fiscal year 2024, let alone reduce the ever-climbing national debt, which currently exceeds $36 trillion, including $29 trillion in debt held by the public.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Even if Musk succeeds in curtailing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” there is only so much he can accomplish by focusing on “driving change through executive action based on existing legislation,” which is how he described his agenda last November. Any serious attempt to reduce federal borrowing will require new legislation that addresses the main drivers of federal spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and the military budget. But the platform on which Trump ran takes all those things off the table while promising pricey policies that will only exacerbate the problem that Musk decries.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/02\/12\/elon-musk-implausibly-claims-competence-and-caring-can-cut-the-federal-budget-deficit-in-half\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7,278,1598,1193,378,259,675,279],"class_list":["post-16498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-debt","tag-deficit","tag-elon-musk","tag-government-spending","tag-medicare","tag-military","tag-social-security","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16499,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16498\/revisions\/16499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}