Doge

[gil]

A lot of people are betting they can’t do it. It will be awesome to watch and when they get the budget balanced hopefully they go to a flat tax like the first $50k is tax free and everything above it is taxed at 15%.

Could cut the IRS by 90%. Remember Biden's great plan to add thousands of IRS agents. What an idiot.

Love it. Couldn’t happen fast enough

I'll be very interested in seeing what they come up with. Smart guys, but the math is daunting. I believe that the sum of Defense + social security + medicare + medicaid + interest on our debt is greater than current revenue, i.e., you could cut everything else and still not balance the budget. Hasn't Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare? And increase defense spending? And cut taxes (other than tariffs, obviously)?

[D-train]

Could cut the IRS by 90%. Remember Biden's great plan to add thousands of IRS agents. What an idiot.

Love it. Couldn’t happen fast enough

I'll be very interested in seeing what they come up with. Smart guys, but the math is daunting. I believe that the sum of Defense + social security + medicare + medicaid + interest on our debt is greater than current revenue, i.e., you could cut everything else and still not balance the budget. Hasn't Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare? And increase defense spending? And cut taxes (other than tariffs, obviously)?

They have a goal of $500 Billion which should be pretty easy to do. Eliminating regulations should boost the economy and tax revenue. Just because they can't balance the budget doesn't mean they shouldn't try to reduce the deficit as much as possible.

[Coeurd’Alene J]

Add in the general waste in every branch of govt. all the empty bldg that have few if any employees. It’s become this untamed monster that seems so big no one dare try…..But along comes Elon and anything becomes possible.

[Donn Beach]

The issue with balancing the budget think is Trump's tax cuts

[Coeurd’Alene J]

Could cut the IRS by 90%. Remember Biden's great plan to add thousands of IRS agents. What an idiot.

Love it. Couldn’t happen fast enough

I'll be very interested in seeing what they come up with. Smart guys, but the math is daunting. I believe that the sum of Defense + social security + medicare + medicaid + interest on our debt is greater than current revenue, i.e., you could cut everything else and still not balance the budget. Hasn't Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare? And increase defense spending? And cut taxes (other than tariffs, obviously)?

Yes our govt can’t live on 4.47 Trillion as crazy as that sounds. We over spent 1.5 Trillion in 2023. My moneys on Elon to slice and dice

[gil]

Love it. Couldn’t happen fast enough

I'll be very interested in seeing what they come up with. Smart guys, but the math is daunting. I believe that the sum of Defense + social security + medicare + medicaid + interest on our debt is greater than current revenue, i.e., you could cut everything else and still not balance the budget. Hasn't Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare? And increase defense spending? And cut taxes (other than tariffs, obviously)?

They have a goal of $500 Billion which should be pretty easy to do. Eliminating regulations should boost the economy and tax revenue. Just because they can't balance the budget doesn't mean they shouldn't try to reduce the deficit as much as possible.

Excellent point. I agree completely.

Something I've been tossing around in my head (bad habit, I know): What expertise do Musk and Ramaswamy in cutting costs? Seriously. They became billionaires by creating top line value (revenue), as far as I know. If I want to, for example, get rid of a bunch of environmental regulations, or stop funding research on the behavior of bisexual mice, I don't need a billionaire to tell me how to do it.

Let's see how easy it is. I'm open minded and curious, but by no means do I think it will easy.

[D-train]

I'll be very interested in seeing what they come up with. Smart guys, but the math is daunting. I believe that the sum of Defense + social security + medicare + medicaid + interest on our debt is greater than current revenue, i.e., you could cut everything else and still not balance the budget. Hasn't Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare? And increase defense spending? And cut taxes (other than tariffs, obviously)?

They have a goal of $500 Billion which should be pretty easy to do. Eliminating regulations should boost the economy and tax revenue. Just because they can't balance the budget doesn't mean they shouldn't try to reduce the deficit as much as possible.

Excellent point. I agree completely.

Something I've been tossing around in my head (bad habit, I know): What expertise do Musk and Ramaswamy in cutting costs? Seriously. They became billionaires by creating top line value (revenue), as far as I know. If I want to, for example, get rid of a bunch of environmental regulations, or stop funding research on the behavior of bisexual mice, I don't need a billionaire to tell me how to do it.

Let's see how easy it is. I'm open minded and curious, but by no means do I think it will easy.

fyi As I said earlier in this thread, Elon cut 80% of twitter's work force and it is still better than ever.

[gil]

They have a goal of $500 Billion which should be pretty easy to do. Eliminating regulations should boost the economy and tax revenue. Just because they can't balance the budget doesn't mean they shouldn't try to reduce the deficit as much as possible.

Excellent point. I agree completely.

Something I've been tossing around in my head (bad habit, I know): What expertise do Musk and Ramaswamy in cutting costs? Seriously. They became billionaires by creating top line value (revenue), as far as I know. If I want to, for example, get rid of a bunch of environmental regulations, or stop funding research on the behavior of bisexual mice, I don't need a billionaire to tell me how to do it.

Let's see how easy it is. I'm open minded and curious, but by no means do I think it will easy.

fyi As I said earlier in this thread, Elon cut 80% of twitter's work force and it is still better than ever.

How do you define better? One way is to value the firm, but of course now that X is private, there is not an objective way. Last I looked, Fidelity says it has lost .... could it be 80%? ... of its value since Musk bought it.

Of course, it begs the question, what the HELL were those 80% doing, and was there some genius business sense in deciding who to cut and who to keep? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm curious also as to why Fidelity feels the company is worth so much less.

[D-train]

User experience.

[D-train]

We want the government to be smaller and more efficient and require less funds so that is actually the goal.