Elon Musk knows a thing or two about slashing things. To cite one for instance, he slashed the value of Twitter a point where the one-time global social media giant could drown in a bathtub.
Now the reputed genius rich guy – his money comes from being born rich, good timing, and fleecing the government for sweetheart-deal contracts and subsidies – is set to be in charge of a half-hearted effort on the part of the president-elect to reduce wasteful government spending.
Musk could start with the billions that he gets from the government for his loony space and EV ventures, but we know that won’t happen.
This is a big part of the reason we shouldn’t expect anything serious out of whatever it is he ends up doing under the auspices of the incoming Trump administration.
“I’ll say about Elon Musk, you know, one of my beliefs is the guy didn’t necessarily have a long attention span, you know, he may be, you know, focusing on this government efficiency plan now, and he may be, you know, figuring out something else next month that he wants to do,” U.S. Sen Tim Kaine, D-Va., said, by way of dissing Musk.
So, there’s that part of it, that Musk, a rich kid who lucked into being a billionaire, is hard to take seriously.
The bigger part of doubt for the Musk government efficiency thing is, he’s not Congress.
“The President doesn’t have the arbitrary power to shut down departments. Congress has to pass that kind of legislation,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said, pointing out what would be obvious to anybody who had to take a civics class in middle school.
Warner and Kaine both expressed support for the general idea behind what Donald Trump claims he wants to do – Warner: “If there’s ways to bring more efficiency to government, count me in”; Kaine: “I’m not threatened by the notion of anybody offering good ideas.”
Warner’s take on how the Trump-Musk effort is doomed: “In terms of numbers, arbitrarily taking a hack to the government workforce, which will simply mean, in many cases, we’ll just supplement that same purpose as well with contractors, ends up costing more money.”
Here’s Kaine on the topic: “No unilaterally appointed, you know, group of self-proclaimed experts is going to be able to themselves decide to shed the government of federal employees. Congress has got the power of the purse. Many of these agencies are set up by statute. If you don’t think there’s, sure, here’s one, the Republicans, President Trump and others, say, abolish the Department of Education. What’s the statute? So, go ahead and file your bill to abolish the Department of Education, if that’s what you think, and let’s see how you fare over here. I think you’re going to find out that you’re not going to fare very well.”
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Chris Graham
