How Elon Musk and DOGE Can Deliver on Smaller Government

Plus: a listener asks the editors why it is acceptable to allow unrestricted border crossings into the United States without penalty.

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How Elon Musk and DOGE Can Deliver on Smaller Government

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman assess the current shape of President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks and policy priorities.

00:27 - New Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

14:48 - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz nominated for Trump cabinet positions

31:37 - Weekly listener question

41:46 - Trump's foreign policy cabinet picks

48:22 - This week's cultural recommendations

 

Mentioned in this podcast:

"DOGE's Chances Are Slim, but It Might Be Our Only Hope," by J.D. Tuccille

"The National Debt Just Hit $36 Trillion. Does Trump Have a Plan To Control It?" by Eric Boehm

"To Cut Wasteful Spending, Start With Energy Subsidies," by Jeff Luse

"The Impact of Trump's Cost-Cutting Initiative Hinges on What He Means by 'Government Efficiency,'" by Jacob Sullum

"To Succeed at Cutting Government, Musk and Ramaswamy Must Take on Entitlements," by Eric Boehm

"The 19 Percent Solution: How to balance the budget without raising taxes," by Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy

"How Donald Trump and Elon Musk Could Cut $2 Trillion in Government Spending," by Veronique de Rugy

"The Math Does Not Favor Avoiding Senate Scrutiny of Trump's Bizarre Cabinet Picks," by Jacob Sullum

"Will Donald Trump and RFK Jr. Psychedelicize America?" by Nick Gillespie

"Can RFK Jr. Fix Our Dysfunctional Public Health Agencies?" by Ronald Bailey

"Matt Gaetz's Personality Irked His GOP Colleagues. There Are Better Reasons To Oppose His Nomination." by Jacob Sullum

"Trump Nominates Matt Gaetz as Attorney General," by C.J. Ciaramella

"One Brainworm To Rule Them All," by Liz Wolfe

"Abolish the FDA," by Jeffrey A. Singer

"Abolish Antitrust Law," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Trump's Immigration Picks Are Terrible," by Fiona Harrigan

"Abolish the TSA," by Robby Soave

"Abolish Borders," by Christopher Freiman

"Abolish the National Park Service," by Eric Boehm

"Abolish ICE," by Fiona Harrigan

"Get in Line! Now, Stay Out!" by Mike Flynn, Shikha Dalmia, and Terry Colon

"Infographic: How Republicans and Democrats View Federal Agencies"

"Meet Trump's Incredibly Confusing New National Security Cabinet," by Matthew Petti

"Abolish the NSA and CIA," by Ronald Bailey

"Abolish the Army," by Matthew Petti

"What is the Future of Immigration?" by Shane Smith

"'I've got a bad feeling about this,'" by Nick Gillespie

The Psychedelic Society, an masterclass on Aldous Huxley's Island. Use the code REASON for a discount. https://hereandnowstudios.com/the-psychedelic-society

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsors:

• In an election year, getting overwhelmed by the constant buzz of news and opinions is easy. Understanding the true impact of political events can be a challenge. Not Another Politics Podcast, from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, provides clear, research-driven perspectives on the biggest issues. Get the insights you need to truly understand the political landscape—no spin, just facts. Subscribe today at harris.uchicago.edu/napp or look for Not Another Politics Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Audio production by Ian Keyser

Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser
• Producer: Hunt Beaty

What are we consuming this week?

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Island by Aldous Huxley

Nick Gillespie

• Loneliness Was A Pandemic

Peter Suderman

• The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War, 1) by James S.A. Corey

Matt Welch

• Django & Django

---

Comments

[Uncle Jay]

Elon Musk and DOGE can't deliver on smaller government unless they have the purse strings which they don't.
If you want smaller government, as all sane people do, then you must defund all unnecessary, expensive, wasteful and bloated bureaucracies...something both sides of the aisle will refuse to do.

[JasonT20]

If you want smaller government, as all sane people do, then you must defund all unnecessary, expensive, wasteful and bloated bureaucracies…something both sides of the aisle will refuse to do.

Well, you're calling most of the OECD insane then, since most nations in that group of developed economies spend more as a share of their GDP than the U.S.

Also, "both sides of the aisle" haven't done anything to reduce spending because voters haven't demanded it. They have the power to make Congress and the President cut spending, but only if: there is a majority that actually wants that, such a majority could agree on what to cut, and they are willing to prioritize cutting spending in how they vote. We get the government we deserve, because that is what we vote for.

[Chumby]

Deport the federal employees along with the illegals.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Bingo.

[Chumby]

Abolish their citizenship.

[JasonT20]

Why stop there? How about we round them up and put them in concentration camps? No point in stopping with blatantly authoritarian and unconstitutional suggestions that only go halfway.

[Chumby]

Just kick them out. No need to establish some stupid camp system that would require staffing and other resources.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Agreed. And far more effective than a ‘national divorce’ which would create a hostile neo Marxist state on our border. Just kick the democrats out, forever.

[CE]

No, they can still be citizens. But only net taxpayers should get to vote.

[Don't look at me!]

a listener asks the editors why it is acceptable to allow unrestricted border crossings into the United States without penalty.

No grasshopper, it is not.

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

The Schengen zone in the old EEC was an example of an open border policy that worked. The pre-9/11 system of just showing your driver’s license to travel between the USA and Canada also worked. Open borders between governmentally and economically similar countries works just fine.

But when you have a country with all kinds of government provided social assistance programs and a failed state, open borders do not work. Half-libertarianism is stupider than socialism.

Get the US government’s social safety net back to where it was in the 1800’s and then you can have all the open borders you like.

[Vernon Depner]

Half-libertarianism is stupider than socialism.

Whole-libertarianism is an adolescent daydream.

[JasonT20]

a listener asks the editors why it is acceptable to allow unrestricted border crossings into the United States without penalty.

Loaded question - Are there "unrestricted border crossings into the United States without penalty"? Have to answer that before answering the listener's question. Or, they could just ask the listener why it is acceptable for him to beat his wife.

[Vernon Depner]

Are there “unrestricted border crossings into the United States without penalty”?

Yes, by the millions. Have you been off the planet for a while?

[JasonT20]

Unrestricted obviously implies anyone that wants to cross can cross. Without penalty obviously means that they get to stay indefinitely. Are either of those true?

[Vernon Depner]

You're talking about what the law says and I'm talking about what actually happens. But you know that.

[JasonT20]

I am talking about what actually happens also. And if you say that it does, then how do you know that it does? I'm just wondering if you have more reliable information on that than talking heads on "news" talk shows and social media influencers.

[Vernon Depner]

Playing dumb with me will get you a grey box.

[JasonT20]

This is not playing dumb. This is me demanding that you back up claims with evidence and not social media talking points. Facts matter, and what is really going on matters. Rumors, propaganda, fearmongering,... that is how you get people to vote for authoritarianism. If you want to just take the word of politicians, people you see on cable TV pseudo-news, Twitter, and elsewhere on the internet, that's your business. But I'm not going to ignore that your choice is to not know if you are being lied to or not.

[Vernon Depner]

OK, gray box for you. 'Bye.

[JasonT20]

Right back at ya then

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

What the fuck are you talking about? Its well documented that upwards of 20 million illegals have crossed into the US since your overlord Biden usurped the presidency.

[Vernon Depner]

He knows that.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

What's your definition of restricted? 1% get caught and turned away is too restrictive? "We don't let everybody in, just 99%". So restrictive.

[JasonT20]

At a literal level, unrestricted means exactly that. No restrictions. 0% restricted. But if we want to make a subjective judgement about what is restricted enough, it would be helpful if someone would say what the actual numbers are, taken from verifiable sources. Then, we can discuss what would count as restricted or unrestricted in a subjective sense.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Holy shit! Is Reason going to be strategically and reluctantly red pilled? Tune in tomorrow at the same Koch time on the same Koch station.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Perhaps they’ll follow the Scarborough’s example and all head down to Mar-a-Lago and bend a knee for our once and future rightful president.

[IceTrey]

That's simple, prohibit government coercion.

[Vernon Depner]

Wouldn't prohibiting government coercion be government coercion?

[JasonT20]

A more to the point question is how can government even exist if it can't "coerce" people into following the law?

[sarcasmic]

Society is based upon violence against those who disobey. Yet it also only moves forward unless people disobey. Norms are norms until they aren’t.

We live in a feudal society. New toys and new costumes, but it’s still the same. Norms change, but the structure doesn’t. Lawyers/priests/pundits (or game show hosts) in suits decide things while thugs in armor enforce it. Same shit. Different century. Or millennia.

[LIBtranslator]

Same mystical altruism justifying the initiation of force, that's feudal collectivism.

[sarcasmic]

quis custodiet ipsos custodes

[JasonT20]

The responses here so far are about as serious as Musk's comment about being able to reduce federal spending by $2 trillion easily.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Listener question to the round up

Whats it like to be a bunch of hypocritical subhuman faggots? How do you change your views on a person mid-sentance without changing your conviction? Why would anyone take what you retards have to say at face value, seeing as you all change with the wind and have no principals?

[SRG2]

Having Musk running a department like this is a good idea. It plays to his strengths - organisational skjlls, process management, etc.

If he gets it into his head that he's also supposed to come up with new and creative ideas to reform say social security or the health system, that would be foolish.

Can he cut as much as he claims? Strongly doubt it, but that's merely puffery.

[JasonT20]

Can he cut as much as he claims? Strongly doubt it, but that’s merely puffery.

It used to be that politicians would throw out numbers that weren't realistic, left out important context or second-order effects, and the like. But Trump has now made it so that hyperbole and "puffery" is expected, so that no one can talk numbers anymore because no one believes any numbers given are real. $2 Trillion is literally only achievable if all discretionary spending, including the military, is completely eliminated. And even then, there would probably still need to be some cuts to entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That is because the spending that is not mandated by law without needing an annual appropriation totals less than $2 Trillion.

Musk isn't just engaging in hyperbole or puffery. He is either totally ignorant of that basic fact, or he is lying.

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Nick Gillespie, normally you are somewhat reasonable, but your are 100% completely unreasonable. You are behaving like a hurt person who didn't like the outcome of the election. You seem to be unwilling to wait and see if the DOGE approach to reducing waste/increasing efficiency in government.

You seem to be holding out for the "PERFECT", which you should be old enough to comprehend that "PERFECT" does not exist.

I want chaos in Washington DC because being "GROWNUP" is not working and "GROWNUP" is simply a synonym for "CORRUPT". The picks are not perfect, but many are outside of the typical picks which produce more of the same "GROWNUP" corruptness.

You do realize that much of the corruptness is not talked about and hidden from view. We want to be heard and although the messengers are far from "PERFECT", they are a darn sight better than more of the same.

Stop being an alarmist idiot and get a grip on the reality instead of rewriting history.

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Fix the number of people who are flowing into the country first.
If that means changing back to the Remain in Mexico, then do it.
If that means deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, the do it.

The second step is to drastically improve and streamline the legal process and getting illegal immigrants who have been law abiding to go through the legal process. The idealistic notion of open-boarders that Nick is promoting is not viable within the current concept of a nation state and there isn't any conceivable way to implement this concept without terrible ramifications that even Nick would detest.

Unfortunately, we all have to live in reality and not the idealistic fantasy where Nick resides. I get not liking Trump as I don't like Trump and similar to Nick, didn't vote for him. I however, unlike Nick am willing to give Trump a chance and see what he can do instead of spewing BS like the propagandists in the corporate media.

I may not have lofty hopes for Trump, but I don't believe that Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler that Nick apparently believes. Please Nick, take a pause and collect your thoughts instead if becoming a raging fanatic believing all the propaganda.

[LIBtranslator]

Great podcast! Takeaways are:
first the DOGE, then the DUCE.
Nice book club Katherine's got there.
We GET that Nick thinks Tulsi is hawt, and that RFKJ has some good acid. So... where's the Reason Roundtable discount coupon for some o' dat?
Oh, and good flashback to Dr Strangelove.