Elon Musk has promised he would eliminate the nearly $2 trillion budget deficit in year one. Last night on Fox, he predicted he would get halfway there by the end of May. His critics have insisted that his goal is unrealistic, and that he won't accomplish nearly as much deficit reduction as he claims. Begin on the savings side. Despite wreaking massive havoc, Musk has accomplished little in terms of saving money for the government. Many of the impressive-sounding budget savings DOGE has posted, in a gesture of putative transparency, have turned out to be fake. And when the people in charge of the enterprise are relying on comical errors, such as taking credit for programs eliminated years ago and confusing million with billion, one should rightly question their basic competence. Budget experts have had trouble verifying the actual savings, but they appear to be below the level of a rounding error. Jessica Riedl, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, recently estimated the...
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