Billionaires are fed up.
Ordinary politicians can’t seem to control the $34 trillion national debt, so Donald Trump’s billionaire friends say they’ll roll up their sleeves and make it happen after Trump wins the presidential election and the American people finally get the government they deserve. .
Elon Musk will lead the charge, selflessly breaking away from the six companies he runs to hack the federal government to size. Also on the case: hedge fund boss John Paulsonpatiently standing at the front of the line to be Trump’s Treasury Secretary.
If Musk and Paulson need help, they can call on a venture capitalist Marc Andreesseninvestor Peter Thieltitan of Wall Street Howard Lutnickand other supporters of the American aristocracy to help them do the bidding of the people.
Musk already has a model for how to cut back on unruly government: Twitter, which he bought in 2022 while promising to cut 80% of staff. Musk has been so successful in fixing Twitter that its value has fallen from $44 billion when he bought it to about $9.5 billion today. Musk named Twitter X, as in Xed out, to signal all the regression it has made since its acquisition.
Voters can only dream of an 80% cut in the federal government and the services it provides. Anyone who answers a phone in a government agency can be replaced by a bot. Instead of fighter pilots, a volunteer force of basement gamers wearing virtual reality goggles can do the job for a fraction of the cost. The obvious place to start is the IRS, where all auditors trying to catch wealthy tax cheats should be deported.
There may be some hiccups. or poster in X said Musk’s cutbacks in government services and firing of federal workers could cause an “initial backlash in the economy” while “markets will fall.”
“Sounds good,” Musk repliedtelling voters exactly what they want to hear: The pain is coming. But it will all work out in the end, when all the layoffs are retrained life on mars and depleted 401(k)s are converted into Trump™ bonds. Plus, Musk is the richest man in the world, so don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine.
Paulson, as Treasury Oligarch, will help Musk accelerate government deregulation. Paulson says he will “eliminate” the green energy subsidies Congress passed into law in 2022, which won’t be a problem because Paulson is 68 years old and rich, and he can easily hide from the effects of global warming for the rest of it of his life. Musk might want to send Paulson a note reminding him to keep the tax breaks for people who buy an electric car from his company, Tesla.
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Paulson told the Wall Street Journal that the most important priority in the next Trump presidency will be the extension of the 2017 Trump tax cutsso that billionaires’ tax bills stay low. Billionaires create all the jobs in America except the federal ones we don’t need anyway, so keeping the billionaires out of the way is the logical top priority of government.
There are a few technicalities that Trump’s billionaires will have to work out.
For the past 237 years, Congress has been responsible for spending, and any appropriation or rescission of a prior appropriation must pass Congress in the form of legislation. As a law. The same applies to the creation or dissolution of any government agency. Cabinet secretaries and presidential cronies can’t just kill the Department of Education or cancel $500 billion in green energy spending.
This is actually the crux of the problem. The national debt is $34 trillion and only getting higher because Congress always passes spending bills that require more money than the government takes in from tax revenue. In other words, Congress always assesses taxes that are less than what the government spends.
Almost all politicians complain about the gigantic national debt, but they are the ones who created it. And the reason they created it is that the voters, the people who keep them in office, like the combination of low taxes and government services that exceed the disposable income to pay for them. The nation can live beyond its means indefinitely as long as it can borrow to cover the gap.
There are several ways to solve this inconvenient problem.
Musk will probably shrink the government until the 2026 midterm elections, allowing voters to show their enthusiasm by giving Trump-backed Republicans their widest single-party control of Congress ever. But in case this does not happen, Musk Co. can end the election if it can overturn the US Constitution with the help of the Supreme Court, already seeded with a pro-Trump majority.
Or, they can convince voters that it’s finally time to swallow the bitter pill and endure cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits, highway funding, food aid, national security, national park maintenance, farm subsidies , veterans benefits, environmental protection, workplace safety, and a host of other programs without punishing their elected representatives for all the misery it will cause.
Many have tried and failed. But Musk and Paulson and other billionaires are in it, so Americans should feel confident that they are in good hands.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow it to X on @rickjewman.
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