Wealth redistribution programs are great and urgently needed. Medicine needs to be largely socialized. But doing that is not going to fix it overnight… all the inefficiencies and leeches stuck to the system will get worse unless they are progressively, individually addressed.

And cutting military only goes so far.

I am trying to reiterate that these social programs are not a magic bullet, and a little bit of that deficit hawk gutting and even “breaking” things is kinda needed too, especially in places neither party will like. Realistically, gutting the military would not cover it either.

Axios broke this down much better than I could: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-department-government-efficiency

Social Security: This popular program eats up 20-25% of total federal spending. It supports retirees, disabled individuals, and survivors. Trump has promised to never cut it. In fact, he wants to eliminate taxes on benefits, which would increase the deficit.

Health care: Think Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for low-income individuals). This is another 25% of the budget. Trump has promised to protect Medicare and a lot of his working-class base benefits from these programs.

Defense: The Defense Department and related military spending constitute about 13-15% of the federal budget. Republicans typically want more defense spending, not less. And it’s hard to see the shift to space-based warfare costing less.

Interest on the national debt: This one sucks the most for America because you get nothing in return. Interest payments are growing rapidly, now around 8-10% of federal spending. The only way to save money here is to radically cut the debt. Trump’s agenda does the opposite.

Safety-net programs: Programs like food benefits (SNAP), unemployment insurance and housing assistance collectively make up about 10%. Trump won with the support of people who get these benefits, so cuts could be a hard sell.

Case in point: The expense for entitlement programs goes almost entirely to the benefits themselves, not any administrative bloat involved in issuing checks. For example, the administrative cost of Social Security is only about 0.5% of outlays, $7.2 billion last year, Neil Irwin points out.

So even if somehow you magically cut that in half, you’ve only cut $3.6 billion in spending — trivial in the context of the federal budget.

The article points out the futility of doge, but it also applies to “finding” money for massive increases of these programs.