Someone is FINALLY trying to cut the overbloated size of corrupt government. Isn’t it a shame that Milton Friedman isn’t alive today to guide them?

[RingOfFire]

Milton Friedman knew what was going on DECADES ago. It took Donald J. Trump to finally get us there.

Get rid of the corrupt unconstitutional deep state government bureaucracy and CUT OUR TAXES!

[lightbulb27]

For sure. should play that video in the DOGE meetings.

[RingOfFire]

He was the original DOGE.

My sibling, who is an economist, took courses from him when he was at University of Chicago back in the 70s. He was a tiny guy but boy did he have a big brain! He was way ahead of his time and really a pioneer.

[lightbulb27]

cool, he has strong views that make a lot of sense. That's not how things went though, govt got way larger. be interesting to see what country looks like without fed. like Depart of Ag, food industry, pharma, health, wall street... are all intertwined.

[RingOfFire]

I think the country would be far better off without a lot of these departments. Think of all the money that would be in the hands of the citizens instead of wasted I'm useless government that makes the economy worse not better.

[lightbulb27]

well I agree with you especially with financial situation as it is. but you do see the other angle I suspect.
The govt is arbiter and distributor. in absence of sufficient economy, they take up the slack... screw things up to divide the jobs and work, make a mess... which creates jobs! The goal is to inflate around 2% but we know they jack with that, lie... and when it crashes, they inflate it back up. So much goes to the wealthy that own assets and then govt (left especially) tries to pass $ to the less fortunate and the right tries to do so via business. As they have a printing press... they can re-distribute and divide up the pie govt workers.
We'll... part of that is ensuring there are jobs for people... via govt. it is not efficiency, it's more about having a base. I know govt workers and they don't work that much.

So pushing country to efficiency... I don't really know what these people will do outside of the govt jobs they have had. cut too much, and will have some very soft spots in teh economy in areas where govt is entrenched. Hopefully people have been smart and saved for a rainy day. I'm shocked people have not been dumping stock... I would be... if I were at risk of chopping block.

[RingOfFire]

I think just the opposite will happen if they cut a size of government. I think investment in a technology and innovation will skyrocket creating the best job market we've seen in our lifetime and then some. And that's why the stock market is exploding.

Yes there will be an adjustment period. But it probably won't be very long. Once the private sector gets a hold of that money that's being frittered away paying a 2.2 million person workforce for nothing the economy will explode into prosperity like we've never seen.

[lightbulb27]

what money? I'd like to see a real analysis of this, since there's always two ways to see a coin.
The govt is buying all kinds of stuff they never use... that's technology, like routers and paper and comptuers... and they don't use them... just throw in storage... because they ahve to spend their budget or lose it, so they spend it. Well... you cancel that department or cut spending, that's less $ to those companies. Those compaies lay off people. The govt workesr get fired.
A lot of that $ is debt being printed and we know we can't afford. So unless rates go down enough which reduces interest expense... then there will be a contraction. That's just one angle.
I see contraction, then maybe expansion... if they cut taxes, that frees up $ to spend.

How much... requires some analyst work...

[RingOfFire]

"The govt is buying all kinds of stuff they never use... that's technology, like routers and paper and comptuers... and they don't use them... just throw in storage... because they ahve to spend their budget or lose it, so they spend it. Well... you cancel that department or cut spending, that's less $ to those companies. Those compaies lay off people. The govt workesr get fired."

The flaw there is that every penny the government spends comes from taxes. If people didn't pay those taxes, and it remained in their hands instead, they would either save it, which means investing it, which means more jobs, or they would spend it on something that they find valuable rather than having the government spend it on something wasteful. Either way the citizens would come out way ahead and there would be far more jobs created not less.

There are plenty of studies on this. It's crystal clear that tax cuts lead to economic growth which lead to more jobs and a better quality of life for the population.

[RingOfFire]

I don't remember the exact figures, but one study I read years ago showed that a $1 reduction in government spending resulted in something like a $1.15 increase in median private sector wealth.

Whatever the numbers were, since government has become geometrically more bloated since then, the increase in wealth would likely now be far more of reduction in government spending.

[Anonymous]

I would love for the Federal Government to be cut down, but congress is unlikely to agree to any real cuts. If trump is serous he will need to use dirty tricks with executive power.

[RingOfFire]

There is a LOT he can do with executive power. For example, they are saying that they will immediately require all federal employees to report to their offices five days a week. I forgot the percentage but some HUGE percentage of federal employees are now "working from home." And they say that they are SCAMMING the system and actually working OTHER jobs while still being on the taxpayer payroll.

By demanding that these hundreds of thousands of employees report to their office every day, they figure a very significant percentage of them will immediately quit... saving them the need to fire them and making huge cuts in the budget without even losing anything.

[Opinion Owner]

@offering
It would be most effective if you waited until after using the goverment shutdown to permanently layoff entire divisions currently running on dept.

Then you can thin the remaining ranks by driving them to quit with both mandatory return to office and relocation to undesirable places.

[RingOfFire]

I'm confident that they've looked at those angles. The problem with laying people off is that it's very expensive. Government employees especially get a sweet deal if they are laid off compared to the private sector. Of course it doesn't happen very often in the government sector they just hire more people instead of laying them off when they should. But if they quit, they very likely walk away with a lot less.

If that's true then the better strategy might be the one I outlined since it would likely result in a higher percentage of quits as opposed to layoffs.

In any event, I'm sure looking at those models carefully before taking any action.

[RingOfFire]

I'm sure *they are* looking at those models carefully.

[RingOfFire]

Don't forget, that's Elon Musk. He knows a little bit about this topic from experience.

[Opinion Owner]

@ringoffire In the long run If you can garrentee they are not replaced its worth it to pay them to leave. Unfortunately we can't do that Democrats can be back in in 4-12 years and we will be back to the same situation. As they try to rebuild the superstate. if it is more than 8 years there will be the financial caios of the collapse of Social Security and Medicare to deal with.

Financially this will make it even more difficult for them to replace theses people, thou politically if they successfully blame republicans for democrat failure to fund these programs and decades of lying about it they will win power regardless, and may try as the only real political solution.

[exitseven]

This is a development that is long overdue. Trump is doing the right thing and he picked the right people to do it.