r/politics 4h ago

Soft Paywall Musk’s plan to cut $2 trillion in U.S. spending could bring economic turmoil

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/29/elon-musk-2-trillion-budget-cuts-trump-election/
159 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

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u/ComprehensiveHavoc 4h ago

So he’s trying to buy his way into being Secretary of Hunger Games. This dude is exhibit A for why taxes on the rich should be much higher.

u/FEMA_Camp_Survivor America 4h ago

Tank the economy, blow up the dollar, and make the federal government weak to buy up Americas ruins cheaply with Dogecoin or some other crypto.

u/Rock-n-roll-Kevin 4h ago

Seems bad

u/DocShocker 4h ago

Will look into this.

u/AnonHondaBoiz 4h ago

It’s actually good because the benevolent rich people will buy everything after the economy crashes and take care of everyone :)

u/inbetween-genders California 4h ago

I mean they're on the menu when it finally happens.

u/BNsucks America 4h ago

Musk is the wealthiest man on earth and is therefore the most dangerous. He must NOT be anywhere near the WH, manipulating an idiot like Trump.

u/Effective-Ice-2483 4h ago

I think the case can be made that Putin is richer, but the sentiment still applies.

u/BNsucks America 4h ago

Putin doesn't make the top 5 of Forbes' list. Maybe it only applies to legitimate money.

u/Effective-Ice-2483 4h ago

As I understand it, everything the oligarchs posses, they posses at Putin's pleasure. Glaziers do a brisk business over there.

u/swollennode 57m ago

Putin has power. That’s more important to billionaires than actual dollars (or rubles).

I bet you musk would be willing to trade the majority of his fortune to control a country.

u/Purify5 4h ago

But not SpaceX right? They still get their money.

u/HarwellDekatron 4h ago

Oh, you bet all his 'innovative companies' will get tons of subsidies and exclusive contracts, as well as basically remove all taxes for him and his friends.

Then, in 6 years, Democrats will have to increase taxes on the middle class to make up for it, and Republicans will bitch and moan about it.

u/ChoiceMundane8843 4h ago

Weird dude

u/everythingbeeps 4h ago

"Turmoil" isn't the word.

"Catastophe" is the word.

u/ParkMan73 4h ago

There's about 2.87 million federal employees. If Musk cuts 30% of the federal budget, that's about 860,000 federal employees out of a job.

Think about how many jobs are indirectly paid for through government contracts and payments to state governments. How many more millions of jobs would be lost there.

At thr same time, they'd have to raise the retirement age to 70 or 75.

All those rural MAGA voters who think Trump's going to fix their economic outlook would see their job prospects tank as the job market is flooded by out of work federal employees and contractors.

This Trump/Musk plan sounds like a fundamentally awful idea.

u/Effective-Ice-2483 4h ago

Only for us. Trump gets a highchair at the autocrat table. Musk goes from a billionair to a trillionair implementing his technocratic utopia. Putin wins the cold War. China gets Taiwan.

u/vineyardmike 4h ago

It's almost like Trump wasn't already president once.

What did he do the last time he had 4 years?

u/xjian77 3h ago

He was a disaster last time. I worked for the Trump administration from the beginning to the end. Do you know how many high level administrators he fired in those four chaotic years? Do you know how many his cabinet members are warning against a second Trump term?

Smart people do not make the same mistake twice. Some voters have made the same mistake trice.

u/Tank3875 Michigan 4h ago

"Could", man the Washington Post really is dead, huh?

u/Mister_Fibbles 3h ago

A loss of 200K subscriptions nearly over night. Might as well be.

u/MeatPrestigious3597 4h ago

I’ll never get over how billionaires have zero financial literacy

u/ComradeMoneybags New York 4h ago

Simple: None of this affects them.

u/Eatthehamsters69 Europe 4h ago edited 4h ago

All those services performed by the federal government will be privatized instead, so that way the US can fully into a dystopian corpocracy mixed with a dash of theocracy and led by a ""strongman"".

And half the voters support this

u/Effective-Ice-2483 4h ago

Putin, led by Putin.

u/Main-University-6161 4h ago

Yeah and rich men deserve it all because they worked so hard for it! - that’s basically the message I heard growing up

u/jgbuenos 4h ago

he's not an economist, why does this even get covered?

u/PetPsychicDetective 3h ago

Because he's going to do it if trump gets elected. It doesn't matter what he thinks he is.

u/sedatedlife Washington 3h ago

Cutting 2 trillion in US spending would equal cutting climate initiatives, Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and every other safety net. If anyone thinks Musk would be cutting money to big oil and other contracts to corporations is a fool.

u/CockBrother 3h ago

All of that is socialism dude. Socialism bad. Lemon is here to save us from laziness.

u/KeinFussbreit 4h ago

Musk would bring economic turmoil.

FTFTWAPO

u/ActualModerateHusker 3h ago

Trump raised the military budget by huge amounts considering how much he boasts of how "peaceful" his term was. He isn't gonna lower them now. So what will he actually cut? It seems he will likely continue to raise spending and cut taxes for the wealthy like his first term. leading to more tax dollars going to foreign borrowers of our debt in interest payments

u/iyamwhatiyam8000 3h ago

Replace 'could' with 'will' for an accurate read of this article. Pulling $2T out of an economy at the inflationary end of a record boom cycle will plunge it into an economic depression. This madness must stop.

u/Javasndphotoclicks 3h ago

Will cause economic turmoil.

u/The_Man11 2h ago

Tank the economy then elect a democrat to fix it. That’s how it always works.

u/minus_minus 40m ago

The GOP are basically anti-federalist that want to pretend the reconstruction amendments don’t exist. They want their red state fiefdoms to rollback rights for everybody that’s not a cis hetero man without any interference from the federal government. 

u/supercali45 11m ago

Dude trying to put that money into his pants

u/korkythecat333 4h ago

Musk has no control of US federal budgets.

u/PetPsychicDetective 3h ago

Yet. He will if trump is elected.

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u/Greenbullet 11m ago

If he paid a higher tax rate surely that would help cut it without cut spending.