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deregulation
Musk and Ramaswamy Outline Plan for Mass Firings, Cuts to Antipoverty Programs
"The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is poised to make far-reaching recommendations that could have a devastating impact on Americans and enormously benefit insiders, starting with Musk himself."
Nov 21, 2024
The two right-wing billionaires President-elect Donald Trump has tasked with spearheading a new "government efficiency" commission outlined their vision Wednesday for the mass firing of federal employees, large-scale deregulation, and major spending cuts that could impact antipoverty programs, drug research and development, and more.
For the first time since Trump announced plans to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which, despite its name, would be an advisory commission rather than an actual federal department—Tesla CEO Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy offered a detailed look at how they plan to achieve their stated objective of taking a "chainsaw" to federal operations.
"We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America," the pair wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. "The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws."
Decrying rules crafted by "unelected bureaucrats," Musk and Ramaswamy—unelected outside advisers—wrote that they intend to present to Trump "a list of regulations" they believe should be eliminated. The culling of regulations would, they argued, provide the justification for "mass headcount reductions"—corporate-speak for sweeping firings—across federal agencies, a plan the two wrote would not be deterred by civil service protections.
Watchdogs have noted that the regulatory cuts envisioned by the commission's co-leaders would likely benefit Musk's companies, at least three of which are currently under scrutiny from nine federal agencies.
"Based on Elon Musk's comments, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency is poised to make far-reaching recommendations that could have a devastating impact on Americans and enormously benefit insiders, starting with Musk himself," Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said Wednesday.
"A second Trump term will undoubtedly see a multipronged attack on any institution that seeks to constrain big business, and DOGE will lead the charge."
Musk and Ramaswamy also laid out a plan under which Trump would evade existing federal statutes such as the Impoundment Control Act to cut spending already allocated by Congress.
"DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood," they wrote.
As The Washington Post's Jacob Bogage recently observed, the federal programs "without separate spending authorization" that Musk and Ramaswamy are targeting "represent more than $516 billion" and encompass key areas including veterans' healthcare, education spending, housing assistance, childcare aid, student loan programs, Head Start, opioid addiction treatment, and NASA.
Musk, a megadonor to Trump's 2024 presidential bid, claimed on the campaign trail that he would be able to identify "at least $2 trillion" in possible cuts to federal spending.
Casey Wetherbee, an Argentina-based writer, warned Wednesday that "Musk and Ramaswamy's admiration of Argentine president Javier Milei offers us a glimpse into their ideal end state."
"Ramaswamy tweeted on November 18: 'A reasonable formula to fix the U.S. government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids,'" Wetherbee wrote for Jacobin. "When Milei assumed office last year, he declared that conditions would worsen before things would get better; Musk similarly warned that DOGE’s recommendations may cause 'temporary hardship.' Meanwhile, in Argentina, Milei's austerity measures have targeted the country's social safety net, causing the poverty rate to skyrocket while only lowering taxes for the country's wealthiest citizens, a troubling outlook for a second Trump administration if DOGE's advice is ever implemented."
"A second Trump term will undoubtedly see a multipronged attack on any institution that seeks to constrain big business, and DOGE will lead the charge," Wetherbee added. "After all, in DOGE's public call for collaborators, it seeks 'super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries'; that's how they see themselves. We can only hope that, by virtue of how evidently insufferable they are, DOGE's relationship with the Trump administration flames out spectacularly."
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'Ultimate Corporate Corruption': Trump Announces Musk-Led Department to Gut Regulations
"If anyone had any doubts whether the Trump government aims to serve regular people or the billionaires, they should now be resolved," said one watchdog.
Nov 13, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Elon Musk—the world's richest man, a megadonor to the Republican's campaign, and a beneficiary of government contracts—will co-lead a not-yet-created department tasked with gutting federal regulations and slashing spending.
Musk, who leads several companies that are under federal scrutiny, will head the so-called Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire.
"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump declared in a statement, without explaining the funding structure of the commission or how it would achieve those sweeping objectives. Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control come January, has authority over federal spending.
Trump said the commission "will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before."
During the presidential race—into which Musk pumped more than $100 million to boost Trump—the Tesla CEO claimed a government efficiency commission would seek out $2 trillion in spending to eliminate. That sum, as The Washington Postobserved, far exceeds the combined budgets of the Pentagon and the Departments of Education and Homeland Security.
Musk acknowledged during a virtual town hall event in late October that the massive cuts he hopes to enact would bring "temporary hardship" to ordinary Americans.
He has also cast his push to gut federal regulations as an "existential" issue, claiming that "humanity will never reach Mars" unless "we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations."
"This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!" Musk said in the Trump team's statement announcing the commission.
"Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said it is "laughable" to put "the ultimate corporate tycoon" in charge of a commission on government spending and regulations.
"The purpose of government regulations is to protect the American people," said Gilbert. "We all depend on these regulations to protect our air, water, workers, children's safety, and so much more. 'Cutting red tape' is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests. Our problem is corporate capture of so much of our public policy, not this lie that corporations are held back by too many rules."
"Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new 'czar' position," Gilbert added. "This is the ultimate corporate corruption. If anyone had any doubts whether the Trump government aims to serve regular people or the billionaires, they should now be resolved."
In a report published in October, Public Citizen found that "at least three of Musk's businesses are currently under scrutiny for alleged misconduct by at least nine federal agencies."
Since endorsing Trump over the summer, Musk has exerted significant influence over the Republican leader's political operations, impacting his choice of running mate and injecting his views on candidates for key posts in the incoming administration. The New York Timesreported Wednesday that Musk "has sat in on nearly every job interview with the Trump team" and is "trying to install his Silicon Valley friends in plum positions in the next administration."
Musk, whose wealth has surged by tens of billions of dollars since Trump's victory in last week's election, has also relentlessly boosted the president-elect on X, the social media platform he purchased in 2022 and transformed into a right-wing disinformation machine.
"Get ready this January for chaos, revenge, greed, rampant abuses of power, and the unbridled control of corrupt plutocrats and oligarchs," legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader warned over the weekend. "With Elon Musk in the lead."
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The Dems Need to Get Serious About Defeating Trumpty Dumpty
The election will all come down to two things: One, who gets the most non-voters to the polls, and two, who will motivate their voting base to show up in big numbers.
Jun 22, 2024
In the last several months, the chips have been falling in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s favor to a level that probably astonishes this convicted felon. Consider the following:
1. Three of the four serious state and federal criminal lawsuits have been delayed by Trump’s lawyers and judges, so it is unlikely there will be trials until after the November election. The one case in New York where the jury pronounced him guilty of 34 felonies is awaiting the presiding judge’s sentence on July 11. The betting in legal circles is that he won’t even sentence Trump to a short prison term.
At the same time, Trump used his conviction to motivate his loyal supporters to send his campaign over $52 million within 24 hours after the verdict. In his ego driven, long, and repetitive speeches, Trump takes no responsibility for his crimes and mocks the rule of law.
Trump pays no political price for his omnicidal “drill baby drill” cry for coal, oil, and gas interests to further the present and coming climate violence.
2. Month after month, Trump is leading President Joe Biden in the six swing states, except Wisconsin. The Biden campaign, still vulnerable to another Electoral College defeat despite winning a majority of votes nationally, is facing the risk of a dangerously large number of voters staying home on election day. Trump attacks Biden daily, slanderously, and with the usual nickname “crooked Joe Biden,” repeated and reliably reported by the mass media. Where are the Democrats’ nicknames for Der Führer, the dangerous, unstable, lying, convicted felon aka Donald Trump? Biden once did use “Sleepy Don” to describe Trump’s drowsy state during the trial in New York.
Joe Biden and Democratic operatives need to re-double their meager efforts in the name game. Trumpty Dumpty gets a free ride: There are no “lock him up” chants at Democratic rallies.
So rare is anyone high on the Democratic Party ladder giving blowhard bully Donald his own medicine that when one politician, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, does just that, he is featured in The New York Timesas an outspoken maverick. (See New York Times, June 13, 2024, “This Top Democrat Is Leading His Party’s Attack on Trump as a Felon”.)
3. Fox News, which Trump castigated for not being Trumpian enough, has fallen fully back in line. The rest of the mainstream media reports his lies (often corrected to no avail) and repeats his bombastic, delusional self-evaluations and grandiose promises.
The “Trump Media & Technology Group” (DJT stock), which features, Truth Social the social media platform, is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. DJT is the ultimate meme stock with tiny revenues, huge debts, propped up by his fan investors, giving him a share value of some $2-4 billion (though restricted for another four months from sale.)
4. Trump pays no political price for his omnicidal “drill baby drill” cry for coal, oil, and gas interests to further the present and coming climate violence. He’s gone so far as to ask a group meeting of energy barons for a billion dollars in campaign contributions as a payoff.
5. The labor unions continue, with few exceptions, to lie low, fearing the third of their members who are Trump supporters. The deafening silence of labor leaders continues, not withstanding Trump’s active hatred of labor unions and multiple anti-labor policies as a failed businessman and as president, including freezing the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage and corporatizing OSHA, the Labor Department, and the National Labor Relations Board.
6. Hoping for a repeat of Trump’s 2016 Electoral College presidential campaign victory, several big money contributors from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, including some big bankers, are lining up to support Trump. Worse, Trump is picking up small extra percentages in the polls from Black and Hispanic voters who have been devastated by Trump policies and largely excluded from Trump’s government appointments during his tenure as president.
7. Last week insurrectionist Trump returned to Capitol Hill to a triumphant display of obsequious hand-kissing including from Republicans who were stand-offish and sharply critical of the presidential outlaw and inciting election denier. Among them were sleazy Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
8. It is worth noting that not all Republican voters are MAGA Trumpsters. A large number are traditional Republicans going back generations who would vote for any Republican nominee, even if he were, as Michael Bloomberg once said, Leon Trotsky. So inbred is their hatred of the Democrats, that, in his worst moments, Trump could not provoke them to defect from the GOP nominee.
9. Despite Trump’s ongoing shafting of all Americans in their roles as workers, consumers, parents, students, patients, children, women, seniors, and targeted voters he wants blocked from voting, Trumpty Dumpty’s base, still in the minority of likely voters nationally, sticks with him, as he adds more new adherents.
When asked why? The answers come fast and furious. “He is a strong leader,” “He’s rich so he can’t be bought,” (but he could be sold) “I like his stand against abortion.” Other conservative voters like his tax cuts for upper-income people and big corporations, never mind the massive deficits piling up as a result on their descendants. “He wants to protect our borders from hordes of immigrants.” “He will fight inflation.” Really? According to ProPublica, “The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”
Have they forgotten his disastrous mocking inaction early in the Covid-19 pandemic that cost over 350,000 American lives?
Women who support Trump forgive or don’t care about his serial abuse of women, his infidelities, or his anti-women economic policies. “I don’t support Trump to learn my family values,” said one fervid woman backer, neglecting to recognize how Trump destroys family values.
Much of the business community likes Trump’s relentless tax cutting, advantageous to his own family of course, and his radical deregulation of critical consumer, labor, and environmental protections. Big Business CEOs want their profits even as more of them experience the ravages of megahurricanes, uncontrollable wildfires, rising sea levels, and unbearable heatwaves. They want Trump’s rubber-stamp approval of corporate mergers, and they want to “defund” the federal cops on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse beat. They also want to muzzle agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.
Trump boastfully rejects the rule of law. He repeatedly said, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” This often-repeated dictatorial declaration doesn’t bother his supporters who say all presidents break the law. Many presidents have broken the law, but none have broken as many laws, including obstruction of justice and defiance of congressional subpoenas, as often as Trump. And none have been indicted on felony charges for working to overturn the results of a presidential election. Remember, Trump encouraged the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and tried to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
So, it will all come down to two things: One, who gets the most non-voters (there are estimated to be as many as 100 million non-voters this year) to the polls, especially in the six or so swing states, and two, who will motivate their voting base to show up in big numbers.
Instead of wasting huge amounts of money on unmemorable TV and radio ads, which net their corporate-conflicted media consultants a rich 15% commission, the Democratic Party leaders would be well advised to read Bishop William Barber’s just published book White Poverty and learn how his ground game can get out more votes from low-wage workers.
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