Elon Musk may have left the Trump administration, and his status of friendship with President Donald Trump can be, in the best case, uncertain, but his Torbellino period in the government certainly left his mark.
The Government Efficiency Department (Doge), its government’s request project, remains rooted in Washington. Duration of its 130 -day mandate, Musk led Doge to eliminate around 260,000 federal jobs of employees and destroying agencies that support scientific research and humanitarian aid.
But to date, Dege claims to have saved the government $ 180 billion, well below its ambitious (and frankly realistic) objective to reduce at least $ 2 billion from the federal budget. And with the still fresh Musk departure, there are reports that the federal government is trying to hire federal workers who renounce or were dismissed.
For Elaine Kamarck, main member of Brookings Institution, Dege’s tactics will probably end up being long -term disastrous. “Doge entered with huge cuts, which were not united to a plan,” he told Today, explained Co-elbitrion are Rameswaram.
Kamarck knows everything about making the government more efficient. In the 1990s, he directed the Reinventor Government Program of the Clinton Administration. “I was Elon Musk,” he said Today, explained. With the benefit of that experience, it evaluates the Musk record in Doge, and what, if something, the strong efforts of the billionaire were added to reduce government spending.
Below is an extract of the conversation, edited by length and clarity. There is much more in the complete podcast, so listen Today, explained Wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
What do you think is Elon Musk’s legacy?
Well, there will not be completely and radically restructured to the federal government. At all. In fact, there is a high probability that on January 20, 2029, when the next president takes over, the federal government has approximately the same size as now, and it is likely to do the same things he is doing now. What he heard managed was to insert chaos, fear and hate in the Federal Work Force.
There was information In the Washington Post at the end of last week, the cuts were so ineffective that the White House is approaching several federal employees who were fired and asked to return, from the FDA to the IRS to the USAID. What cuts adhere to this point and which are not?
In the first place, in many cases, people get used to the courts and the courts have reversed previous decisions. So, the first thing that happened, the courts said: “No, no, no, you can’t do it this way. You have to bring them back.”
The second thing that happened is that Cabinet officers began to be confirmed by the Senate. And remember that many of Dogle’s most spectacular things were happening in February. In February, these cabinet secretaries were preparing for their Senate audiences. They are still at work. Now that the house of his cabinet secretary, what is happening is that they are looking at these cuts and say: “No, no! We cannot live with these cuts, we have a mission to do.”
While the government tries to hire the people who shot, they will have a bad time and will spend a difficult time for two reasons. First, they treated them as earth, and they have said many insulting things.
Second, most people working for the federal government are highly qualified. They are not paper pushers. We have computers to push our role, right? They are scientific. They are engineers. They are people with high skills and guess what? They can get work outside the government. Therefore, there will be real load damage to the government because of the way they did this. And it is analogous to the lasting damage that they are causing in universities, where we now have the main scientists who used to invent priests for cancer and things like that, deciding to look for work in Europe because culture has very bad Goths.
What happens to this agency now? Who is in charge of it?
Well, what they have done is that Dege’s employees have embedded in each of the government organizations, okay? And basically, and the president himself has said this, they basically report the secretaries of the cabinet. So, if you are in the Department of Transportation, you must ensure that Duffy, who is the Secretary of Transportation, agrees with you on what you want to do. And Sean Duffy has already fought against a cabinet meeting with Elon Musk. You know that it has not been excited with the advice that is Gothic of Doge. From now on, Dege will have to work hand in hand with the designated leaders of Donald Trump.
And just to bring this to what we are talking about here now, they are in this huge fight for the waste spending with the so -called Bill Big and Beautiful Bill. Does this look like the government as usual, ultimately?
It is actually worse than normal. Because the impacts of the deficit are larger than normal. It is adding more to the deficit than the previous invoices.
And the second reason why it is worse than normal is that everyone still lives in a fantasy world. And the fantasy worlds that we can somehow deal with our deficits by cutting the waste, fraud and abuse. That is pure nonsense. Let me say it: pure nonsense.
Where does most of the government money go? Are you going to some bureaucrats sitting on Pennsylvania avenue? Go to us. You go to your grandmother and your social security and your Medicare. He addresses veterans in veterans benefits. Go to Americans. That is why it is so difficult to cut it. It is very difficult to cut it because we are.
And people live in it. Now, there is another issue that nobody is talking about, and is called the reform of law, right? Could we reform social security? Could we make retirement age from 67 to 68? That would save a lot of money. Could we change the cost of living? No one, nobody, nobody is talking about that. And that is because we are in this crazy and polarized environment where we can no longer have serious conversations about serious problems.
