The first phase of the rapid effort of Elon Musk, executive president of Tesla, and the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to reduce the expenditure of government agencies seems more driven by an ideological attack on federal agencies that conservatives hated for Time that for a good faith effort to save money from taxpayers, according to two veteran budget experts.
Since Trump’s possession on January 20, Musk has sent members of his Government Efficiency Department (Doge) to scrutinize sensitive information about staff and payments in the government’s computer systems and has led a successful campaign to dismantle two agencies: one that provides support to the most needy in the world and another that protects Americans from unscrupulous lenders.
But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former republican director of the Congress Budget Office (CBO), said that the agencies that Musk and Trump have put in the spotlight to date are a small fraction of the Federal Federal Budget , which is expected to reach 7 billion dollars this fiscal year, according to the CBO.
“They are not going to get into agencies that are doing things they like, but with those who do not agree,” Holtz-Eakin told Reuters, who has participated in previous negotiations on taxes and expenses in Congress.
Trump, Republican, says he is “very proud” of what he describes as a vital initiative to close the door to superfluous spending.
With Musk standing behind him in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that expands the Doge powers, ordering government agencies to work with the Doge to cut personnel and limit hiring.
Speaking to journalists, Musk responded to critics who say he is a non -elected official who the president has granted an unprecedented authority to dismantle parts of the US government.
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Musk promised to save 1 BDD identifying fraud and waste in the government
“You cannot have an autonomous federal bureaucracy. You have to have one that responds to the people, ”Musk said.
A “live tracker” on the Internet of the Doge affirmed on Tuesday that the department has saved taxpayers 37,690 million dollars since it began working on January 20, but did not provide evidence of how that figure had reached.
Of the 15 agencies that the Musk team has in the spotlight so far, nine were indicated to eliminate them or cut personnel in the 2025 project, a controversial plan of 900 pages compiled by conservative reflection groups to redo the US government.
The document states that many federal government agencies have been taken by a leftist elite that uses taxpayers’ money to boost a liberal agenda that goes “against conservative values.”
Trump distanced himself from the project during the 2024 elections after an uproar about some of his proposals of greater reach, but several of the authors are now in his government.
Bill Hoagland, a former member of the Republican staff and director of the Senate Budget Committee for more than 20 years said that cost reduction efforts have so far been designed to dance the water to Trump, and have been “an easy target in matters in matters ideological. “
“These strategies have not been designed to save money, but to feed the philosophical and ideological differences that conservatives have with the work of these agencies,” said Hoagland.
With Reuters information.
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