Two Billionaires’ Big Plan to Shrink Government

from The New York Times I'm Sabrina. tavernes and this is the. [Music]. daily your money is being wasted and the. department of government deficiency is. going to fix. that Elon Musk and V ramaswami have. called the federal bureaucracy a quote. existential threat to our Republic we're. going to get the government off your. back and out of your pocket book.

now president-elect Trump is empowering. them to drastically shrink it by. whatever means necessary America is. going to reach Heights that it has never. seen before the future is going to be. [Applause]. amazing today my colleague David fenold. examines their plans and what it would. look like if they actually carried them. out.

it's Wednesday December. [Music]. 4th so David you've been doing some. reporting on plans by Elon Musk and Viv. ramaswami to cut government to the tune. of $2 trillion you're trying to. understand exactly what this effort is. and how it would work tell me what. you're finding well we're talking about. this thing called the department of. government efficiency um those of you. who are on the internet may know that. that's a meme it's a it's named after. after a funny dog meme that Elon Musk.

likes and a cryptocurrency apparently. and a cryptocurrency that's named after. the funny dog meme now there's no thing. in the government called the department. of government efficiency but it is. something that President Trump has. pledged to set up once he takes office. and what they're talking about is kind. of a hybrid setup where there would be. people outside the government Viv. ramaswami and Elon Musk these sort of. advisers on the outside taking no. government salary holding no government. position and then a bunch of folks on. the inside who actually would work for.

the government muskus described them as. sort of committed smart government you. know budget Cutters and together their. goal is pretty massive they talked about. as you said cutting about $2 trillion. dollar from the federal budget you know. the numbers like that can get kind of. abstract with that at that size but what. that really means is about a third of. the federal budget they want to cut and. they also want to make huge cuts to. regulation to the number of regulations. to the size of the regulatory State now. it's important to note that there is fat. in the federal government there is.

potentially room to cut it but the thing. they're taking on it's it's really not. just in numbers but in sort of effort is. going to be a massive task so basically. very very big promises but you know to. be kind of real about this I think. anyone who stood in line that DMV could. get behind the idea that a more. efficient government as they say that. they want to make makes sense I mean you. know efficiency is a hard concept to. argue with right right it's hard to. argue with the idea that those. government processes could be made more.

efficient and on paper Elon Musk is a. really good person to put in charge of. efficiency he has many areas of success. but the thing that he has done best over. his career is process engineering taking. a process like assembling a car. assembling a rocket building a thing and. making that process run faster smoother. cheaper I mean the way he changed the. assembly process for Teslas particularly. and for SpaceX there's a reason why his. companies build those things fast than.

others so he is a great expert in. efficiency at least in that kind of. efficiency sort of manufacturing. efficiency in fact this whole thing the. whole Doge I mean as you can probably. tell from the name this is elon's idea. Donald great great to uh to speak. there's actually a recording of it. happening congratulations musk is. interviewing Trump in August on X musk. social media platform I mean I think it. would be great to just have a government. efficiency commission that takes a look. at at these things and and musk says hey.

you know I think we should have this. commission um and and and i' I'd be. happy to help out on such a commission. I'd love it if it were F Well you you're. the greatest cutter I mean I look at. what you do you walk in and you just say. you want to quit they go strike I won't. mention the name then Trump says oh yeah. sure we'll do that so this is musk's. idea and so he's the one who sort of. planted this idea and he's really. focused on it since Trump was elected I. appreciate it I'll see you soon all. right sounds good thank you thank you El. thank you very much and then VI.

ramaswami this partner in this is. somebody who briefly ran for president. uh it seems like a million years ago but. year ago was run for president and he. talked a lot on the campaign Trail about. also cutting government how to make. government smaller so they're really. focus on this idea of efficiency but. listen the question for all of us. looking at this effort is what do they. mean by efficiency that's an easy. question to Define when we're talking. about making a car but what exactly does. it mean when you're talking about. government right like how do these two.

people take the private sector idea of. efficiency of this process engineering. and map it on to the federal government. there are of course risks to this right. I mean if you make a mistake at Twitter. and it goes offline for a day not really. that big of a deal but if you do it with. a traffic controllers planes could. Collide so what's the plan here so it. seems to me honestly like they are still. figuring this out themselves but to the. degree that we know their plan they. spelled that out in in an oped in the. Wall Street Journal last month and they. laid out a few different ways that they. they would go about sort of beginning to.

identify and then make the right cuts. and the sort of theme underlying it all. was that government is run by what they. call unelected bureaucrats meaning. federal workers they're going to find a. way to take power back from those folks. and return it to the people which is. kind of a little rich I mean power back. to the people it's basically to them. right so power back to the business. people right we're in a situation where. a couple of very rich people are sort of. putting themselves in the place of in. identifying what the people want right. you but they are working for a president.

who just won so you know maybe they have. a little more claim to it now than they. would have a few months ago right okay. so what are they actually saying what. are they going to do well there's a few. different ways they going about this but. the most important thing I think we need. to start with is the idea that they want. to cut regulations First Federal rules. first and then once you cut rules then. you can start to cut people and spending. and the way that they're going to start. by cutting rules is using a Supreme. Court decision called Loper bright it. basically strikes down something called. Chevron Defence we're deep in the legal.

weeds here but this is important okay so. the reason it's called Chevron is it's. named after a case in which Chevron was. a party back in the 80s and the idea. that the Supreme Court laid out in the. 80s was that if a federal agency makes a. rule it takes an idea that Congress laid. out and then sort of makes it more. specific promulgates a rule for people. to abide by if somebody challenges that. rule and says hey this rule is wrong or. it doesn't comport with what Congress. wanted that the court should defer to.

the Judgment of the agency the idea. being that the agency has experts that. they may know better than the courts. that they should defer to the Judgment. of the agency unless it's really. egregious so the power of the federal. government is kind of present there. because the court defers to what the. federal agency says the rule is but. scotus changed that in the past few. terms they did so the Supreme Court got. rid of that and what they said instead. was no courts should just be able to use. their own judgment the agencies don't. deserve any sort of special def.

that if somebody challenges a rule and. you know in court that the court should. be able to use their own judgment about. whether that rule was reasonable or not. without going from a starting point that. the agency might be right so the way. that musk and ramaswami want to use this. is to say okay well now we're going to. go back into federal government and with. the help of the folks who work inside. government we're going to identify a. whole bunch of rules that we believe are. wrong that now that we think there's. more freedom to challenge Federal rules. we're going to find all kinds of federal. rules we think are overreaching or don't.

follow the original inent of Congress or. unconstitutional and we're just going to. start identifying those and tell. president Trump hey stop enforcing these. rules don't enforce them and we'll start. the formal process to take them off the. books and that once you stop enforcing. rules and start taking those rules off. the books their idea is well you won't. need as many federal workers to enforce. those rules because there's less rules. to enforce and you won't need as much. spending because there'll be fewer. workers to pay for so basically their. argument is that they have this magic. wand that they can just wave and stop. enforcing Federal Regulations what else.

do they say they're going to do that was. sort of the main thrust the idea that. you know you cut regulations first and. you know other cuts are Downstream of. that but they had a couple other ideas. for cutting the federal Workforce and. their plans here really kind of run the. gamut they refer to a plan where the. president could just lay off huge. numbers of federal employees across the. board you know there are civil service. protections that prevent individual. employees from being fired for their. political beliefs or other reasons but. they believe the president could just. simply shut down an agency um they also.

float some kind of more creative efforts. that would make employees quit so they. wouldn't have to be fired one is to make. federal workers come back into the. office 5 days a week ending what they. call you know the sort of unnecessary. postco Privileges and the other was to. relocate federal agencies out of. Washington I think about 85% of federal. workers don't work in Washington but. there are a lot obviously who are here. in Washington where I am you know. president Trump can use executive action. to say okay the headquarters of this. agency is no longer Washington it's. somewhere else andum that a lot of.

people won't want to relocate and so the. federal Workforce will decline in the. process of moving them got it and then. finally they say they want to look. around the federal government to cut. wasteful spending that means both. cutting entire programs spending. programs that they don't agree with it. also means trying to make existing. programs like Medicare or the Pentagon. run more efficiently by finding and. cutting waste or fraud okay so it sounds. like an oped right here's how I'll cut. the federal government in easy steps.

it'll be so quick so. easy it's funny you say that actually. Fox News interviewed uh Elon musk's mom. may. musk May it's great to have you with us. it's great too I to be here because I. watch your show who has been and sitting. in some of these meetings his mom yeah y. musk's mom is part of this and she was. saying he wants to chop the bureaucracy. I take it he's excited about doing that. isn't he very excited because it's going. to be very easy because then I it's. going to be so easy it's going to be so.

and um and I'm very proud of him I can't. imagine what it would be like to be his. mother there was actually another. element of this Vic ramaswami posted a. picture on Instagram over Thanksgiving. with like one of his kids napping in his. lap and he's reading a report on how to. cut the federal budget so oh boy you. know the vibe from them has been this is. going to be fun this is going to be easy. it's going to be bigger than you think. you know just we can't wait to get. started and we're going to make such. huge. progress but we have seen lots of. administrations try this I honestly the.

history of just this one idea about how. to cut the budget which is you get some. very successful businessmen from outside. the government bring them in and help. them you know with their fresh eyes. they'll see how to run government like a. business the first person to do that was. theor Roosevelt Ronald Reagan made a big. effort led by this industrialist named. Peter Grace he had this huge commission. that produced like 2500 separate. recommendations to cut the budget more. recently we had Al Gore trying to. reinvent government on the night s and.

then you know I was covering Congress in. in 2010 11 12 when the Tea Party wave of. Republicans came in they were all about. cutting the budget getting the. government down to the right size it's. been tried again and again and again in. the last 100 plus years and often it. doesn't. happen now there are reasons to think. this time might be. different there's never been anybody. like Elon Musk at the head of one of. these commissions nobody as rich or. powerful nobody as close to the. president so those are all reasons to.

think that doge is going to have more. luck than these other previous efforts. that said it's pretty clear that doge is. about to run into some pretty big. hurdles of its. [Music]. own we'll be right. back so David you said that many past. presidential administrations have tried. but failed to do what doge is attempting. tell me about the obstacles that these.

two are likely to run into well I think. the best way to start Elon mus because. he wants to cut $2 trillion out of the 6. point something trillion federal budget. so about a third of the federal budget. if you zoom out think about what are the. biggest chunks of the federal budget. where does that money go and the first. is about a third of the budget goes to. two programs Medicare and Social. Security two programs that provide. income security and healthare for older. Americans now those are things that. Republicans have targeted a lot in the.

past you remember the Paul Ryan Years A. lot of people wanted to cut Medicare and. Social Security right Trump's Innovation. the thing that he did that no other. Republican did was that he said no we'll. never cut those things in fact it says. it in the Republican Party platform this. year Medicare and Social Security will. not be touched so you're putting those. two giant programs off the table they're. not going to be touched so okay a third. of the federal budget already off limits. that's right and beyond that if we put. Medicare and Social Security off to the. side we're not going to touch those. another big chunk about 13% % of the. budget goes to National Defense and.

that's you know all the Armed Forces all. the contracts to people who Supply. things for the Armed Forces you know. which by the way includes Elon musk's. SpaceX they they have contracts to shoot. satellites up in the air for the Air. Force right so it's really unlikely that. Trump is going to make major Cuts in. that area if you look at his governing. record from his first Administration the. military budget went way up and Trump. tried to make it go higher even than it. did so he's somebody who has said a lot. he wants the military to be strong he. wants to spend a lot of the military I.

don't sense a lot of appetite from him. to shrink the military budget in any. sort of significant way nor presumably. would musk want to cut contracts that he. himself receives from the federal. government that is also part of this so. what else are we talking about here. that's off limits well it's important to. note that we are running huge budget. deficits as a country and that a lot of. the federal budget about 10% is just. paying interest on money we already. borrowed so nobody's excited about this. spending nobody gets any benefit out of. this spending but we already agreed to.

pay these debts and if you stopped. paying interest now you'd save a lot of. money for about five minutes and then. then the country would default and. interest rates would go up and the. economy would be shattered it would not. help any of Trump's political goals to. stop paying interest on the debt okay so. more than half of the budget is. essentially off limits right off the bat. what does that leave for this department. of government efficiency to actually cut. well in theory it gives them a still. pretty broad range of things to cut. within the federal government. this part that remains outside those.

programs we talked about earlier is. everything from Medicaid and veterans. benefits to the state department to the. education department you know there's a. lot of different federal agencies and. federal programs that in theory could be. out there to be cut but the problem. they're going to run into is Congress. that's the problem these efforts always. run into the reason the government. spends money on these things in the. first place is because Congress told. them to and so now to cut them you need. Congress to undo that effort and. sometimes that happens but what has been.

proven again and again is that even. small seemingly small programs have a. constituency in Congress and you're. going to need those folks to sign off to. get rid of them and often it doesn't. happen you know I covered the Tea Party. Congress in 2010 2011 2012 when there. was a huge amount of effort there had. been this big wave in Congress all these. people elected to cut the budget they. were explicitly running on the idea the. budget was too big we have to cut things. back and one of the things I did at that. time was right about these tiny little.

programs that seem like the easiest. possible things to cut what's an example. well so my favorite one was the national. sheep industry Improvement. Center sheep as in sheep the animals. sheep to improve the. Sheep it paid for sort of contest it. rewarded people who were good at. shearing sheep for trips for people in. the Sheep industry to take you know. trips around the country definitely. seems non-essential yeah it's like a. million dollars so it was sort of like. you know in theory the the easiest thing. to cut and so at the time I was writing.

about this congressman from Florida this. republican from Florida it was sort of. like a Mr Smith Goes to Washington thing. except you know the stakes were much. much smaller yeah he just wanted to get. rid of the national sheep industry. Improvement Center okay but they were. people who really like the Sheep. Improvement Center the places that have. a lot of sheep Texas Montana they like. the money and why wouldn't you know if. they're going to be giving out money to. everything else why wouldn't they fight. for some of that money to come to this. industry they care about in their state. and so it it didn't work he failed so. even the like lowest hanging fruit the. thing you think nobody would miss.

somebody would miss it and it you know. didn't go. [Music]. away so if you can't cut the Sheep. Improvement center from the federal. budget you're probably not going to be. able to cut a big hunk out of say. Veterans Affairs no even the education. department you know people that's been. something that's been identified as like. well obviously we got to cut the. education department but a lot of what. it does is provide grants to schools. school districts and schools all over.

the country and so there's a lot of. people on both sides of the aisle that. like it because the people in their. District benefit from it and don't want. to lose that Aid right so I'm not saying. this to tell you that it's impossible to. cut the budget or the budget shouldn't. be cut I'm just saying that it's not one. fight it's a million little fights and. if you're going to cut the budget on a. broad scale you have to not only find. these programs but also find and. convince or bully the people in your way. the people that are defending this. programs into letting them go so even. the stuff that seems quote unquote easy.

is a lot of work and it's presumably. much harder if you're an outsider and. not an Insider who knows how Congress. Works absolutely right and that has been. the downfall of these Outsider efforts. in the past is that they don't really. understand how Congress works and that. they want congressmen to act against. their own interest and it's even more. difficult now in a Congress that is so. narrowly divided where only a few votes. going the other way could Doom any idea. so it's very hard to cut government. programs you have shown that amply but. beyond the programs what about cutting.

the federal Workforce. itself well you first need to know sort. of the size of the federal Workforce. it's about 2.3 million civilian. employees that sounds like a lot but it. hasn't actually changed that much in. decades what has changed is the number. of outside contractors that do work for. the federal government if you come here. to DC that's what's transformed the DC. area brought all this wealth to the DC. area is there's a huge numbers of. federal contractors doing all kinds of. federal jobs sometimes jobs that seem. like they should be done you know of. clerical office work jobs that should be.

done by the agencies themselves so that. makes it a hard problem it's not just. that you can like shut down this. department as hard as that would be if. you're going to really shrink the amount. of money you spend on federal workers. you're going to have to go through the. hard work of auditing contracts figuring. out which ones are duplicative which. ones you actually need right now this is. an area where I think musk and ramas. Swami have not really answered a basic. question which is why are you cutting. the federal Workforce are you doing it. because you want to save money is that.

the goal are you doing it because you. want to reduce sort of the deep State. the like liberal influence over. Washington are you doing it because you. think the government does things that it. shouldn't do this is how far apart those. two are musk has been calling out on his. Twitter account individual government. employees who he thinks their jobs are. too woke you know look at this person. you know who works for this department. on this woke thing they shouldn't work. for the government anymore but firing. that person is not going to change the. federal budget in any meaningful way. right so maybe following your political. agenda but you're not really doing the.

main work which is making government. more efficient yeah you're not going to. cut $2 trillion firing one person at a. time Ras Swami on the other hand has. been sort of like the machete approach. to government he's talked about we. should fire everybody works for the. government whose social security number. ends in an odd number so just like one. of those dramas where everybody just. vanishes one day like you know like like. this like a Rapture we're going to. Rapture the government employees and one. day only half of them will be there so. there's no sense that we're to continue. delivering the same Services it just.

let's cut for cutting sake so until the. two of them can get on the same page. about what they're cutting and why. they're cutting that does leave some. questions about their ability to deliver. any sort of significant reduction to the. federal Workforce okay so bottom line. very difficult to make Cuts anywhere. near the scale that musk is talking. about cutting the budget and even the. size of the federal Workforce will be. very hard but what about this idea of. reducing government. regulation this is clearly what animates. musk that's what got musk into this he.

runs a lot of businesses that are. regulated by the federal government he. regards a lot of those regulations as. standing in his way standing in the way. of progress he often says standing in. the way of getting Humanity to Mars and. what he talks about you know what will. this Doge committee do he often talks. about things that affect him personally. you know I'd like to get rid of this. regulation that slows down my rocket. launches or that inhibits this tunnel. I'm digging somewhere so you know I'm. not saying that he gets into this only.

to sort of clear the way for his. businesses but when he talks about what. makes him mad about government and why. he's so animated about this it's clearly. the regulations that impact him so that. makes sense for the him to say. regulations is the place we're going to. start so remember that so much of their. plan revolves around using this court. case that that ended what we called. Chevron Defence right and so their. argument here is that now there's all. this new power in the executive branch. to basically stop enforcing rules you. don't agree with but. the problem with that argument is that.

according to the legal experts we've. talked to is it is 100% wrong okay how. well remember that the essence of that. decision was it took power that had been. given to the Executive Branch the. federal agencies and gave it to the. courts the courts now have the power to. strike down these regulations if they. feel like they have overstepped the. bounds right and they don't have to. defer to the federal government exactly. it doesn't do anything to say that the. Federal Executive Branch can decide to. do that in fact it takes power away from. them so basically they're claiming a.

right and a power not to enforce. regulations that is nowhere in that. Court decision and in fact they probably. have less power to ignore rules or. reinterpret rules than they did before. because that power is now in the courts. right I do think that that court case. will lead to a lot more deregulation but. it's going to happen slowly one court. case at a time as courts sort of roll. back those rules it's not going to. happen all at once because the president. decides he doesn't want to start. enforcing rules he doesn't like so. there's Central argument of how they're. going to pull off this efficiency thing.

kind of doesn't hold water that's right. they have lofty Ambitions they have a. lot of confidence and they have some. very high level ideas about what they. want to cut but this is not something. that can be done with high level ideas. this is going to take a lot of detailed. focused effort a lot of political effort. and we haven't seen yet that those. elements are present and of course do. they even agree among themselves on all. of this stuff I mean as you've described. here it doesn't sound like they're all. going to be Ro in the same. direction look I think the most.

important thing to remember about all. this is the finite quality of all this. is going to be attention and energy both. musk's and energy ramas Swami's energy. probably most importantly Donald Trump's. energy remember when Trump takes office. he's promised to do all kinds of things. that are going to be disruptive in. Washington they're going to produce. controversy and they're going to take. energy time an effort to make work he's. talked about Mass deportations a. deportation like we haven't seen in. decades he's talked about ter tariffs. huge tariffs on a lot of different.

countries and possibly trade deals. there's a lot of disruption he's. promised and in among all this Elon mus. and Viv kwami are going to try to make a. very disruptive change in the size of. the federal government the question for. me is when the rubber hits the road on. these cuts when they recommend big cuts. to different agencies or to things that. congressmen want to fight for is Trump. going to have the energy and the. inclination to join that fight to lend. him some of his presidential energy and. power or is he going to be focused on. other things. but as you said we do have a budget.

deficit crisis the country could benefit. from addressing it this is a hugely. important conversation just in the last. few years we've added 12 trillion dollar. to the national debt we spend as I said. more than 10% of the federal budget. every year just paying off the debt for. money we already borrowed whatever you. think the size of the federal budget. ought to be I think it the country would. benefit from a real serious significant. conversation about what it spends on and. an effort to try to make that more.

efficient to try to spend the least you. can to get the services you want so. given all of that David what's the best. case scenario here I mean in terms of. what Doge might actually get done I. think the best case scenario is that. Elon Musk really dives into one of these. like really thorny ugly complicated. federal government you know. bureaucracies and finds a way to make it. more efficient think about you know. Finding waste in Medicare where there's. you know billions of dollars lost to. waste think about auditing the Pentagon.

although the Pentagon is one of its. customers but if there was a way to sort. of shrink the wasted money and. duplication at the Pentagon you could. really make a huge difference not just. in the budget but at the functioning of. the federal government I think that's. the best case scenario is that someone. really digs into one of these supposedly. unsolvable problems that make the. government so big and. inefficient but the worst case scenario. here is that Trump or musk get. distracted they get bogged down they. don't change very much but the Small.

Things They do change they make a huge. deal out of and people see that see you. know a cut of a few million dollars hair. even a few billion dollars here things. that sound big but are actually pretty. small in the context of the federal. government that they see those kind of. changes and they think Oho the problem. was fixed Donald Trump fixed this. problem when in reality the problem. wasn't fixed it was just sort of kicked. down the road for somebody else to deal. with in other words this just becomes. another chapter in the government's. struggle to contain the problem. that's.

right David thank you thanks for having. me. [Music]. on we'll be right. back here's what else you should know. today South Korea one of America's. closest allies in Asia descended into. Political Chaos on Tuesday after its. president Yun sukol imposed martial law.

and then just hours later the country's. National Assembly in a swift rebuke to. the president voted to lift it Yun a. deeply unpopular and divisive leader. accused the opposition of quote trying. to overthrow democracy it was the first. time a South Korean president had. declared marshal law since the military. dictatorship ended in the country in the. late. 1980s the the move Drew peaceful. protests in Soul the capital and over.

the course of a tense night eventually. backfired before the sun rose on. Wednesday morning the president had. backed down and rescinded his martial. law. declaration and Donald Trump's. transition team announced that it had. belatedly signed an agreement with the. Department of Justice that will allow. the FBI to conduct background checks on. people Trump intends to appoint at. senior officials in his new.

Administration FBI background checks. have long been a routine part of. transitions but Trump who is hostile to. the FBI because of its role in various. criminal and Counter Intelligence. investigations into him had let weeks. pass without signing the. agreement today's episode was produced. by Eric krupy Rob zipco in ASA chra it. was edited by MJ Davis Lynn and Michael. benois with help from paig cowt contains.

original music by Marian Lozano and. Rowan neimo and was engineered by Alyssa. Moxley our theme music is by Jim runberg. and Ben Lanser of. wonderly that's it for the daily I'm. Sabrina tavernes see you tomorrow. [Music].