Third Rails

I've been ignoring the Musk/Ramaswamy DOGE thing. It's obviously bad, but they seem so clearly incompetent and self-interested I find it hard to take them seriously. Maybe that's a mistake, but it's so difficult given how laughable they are. 

The two of them throw around dollar amounts they can cut, as if by magic, but this is what they face:

Only the narrow wedges within the 24% ($1.5 trillion) at top right are easily controlled by Congress through appropriations. The 76% surrounded by a yellow outline is either defense spending or outside Congress's control. 

Within that, defense spending (13% of the total) could be cut, sure; waste, fraud, and abuse? Yes, they could find some in there. But Elon Musk gets defense money, for instance, so he's probably not going to target that. And they could look at the many other defense contractors, who are spread across almost every Congressional district... so probably not super-attractive for cutting, if you're looking for votes.

(I come from a rural part of New York where defense contracting is a major part of the economy. When the feds tried to cut a particular helicopter that really wasn't needed back during the Obama administration... you should have heard the outcry.)

So of course, instead, they're talking about cutting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Which sounds like a political deathwish to me. 

Speaking of which, they've also listed some other programs to cut wholesale, and the largest one is VA health care:

VA health care! That's another political deathwish.

I have no idea what they think will happen with the other cuts on this list... Do they expect there be no more federal crimes? Or will they pay private prison companies to house federal prisoners? Somehow I doubt that will be cheaper. 

The other agencies they propose to ax are all regulators they don't respect, or programs that help people they think shouldn't exist (poor children and college students, or sick people [i.e., all of us at some point]).

It will be a pleasure to see these two "smartest guys in the room" burned by touching so many third rails.