Today’s links It’s pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually: Just end all the private-sector profiteering. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. It’s pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually (permalink) If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there’s a pretty straightforward way to get there – just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharmaceuticals to roadworks to (of course) rockets, and then make the rich pay their taxes. There is a ton of federal bloat, but it’s not coming from useless programs or overpaid federal employees. As David Dayen writes in a long, fact-filled feature in The American Prospect, the bloat comes from the private sector’s greedy suckling at the government teat: https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/ The federal workforce used to be huge. In 1960, federal employees were 4.3% of all US workers; today, it’s 1.4%. Zeroing out the entire federal payroll would save $271b/year (while beaching the US economy!), a mere 4% of the federal budget. On the other hand, zeroing out the budget for federal contractors would save over a trillion dollars – the US spends 4 times more on private sector contractors than it does on its own…Pluralistic: It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually (27 Jan 2025)