To the editor:
Recently, I had a piece published in The Berkshire Edge that provided my analysis of Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), charged by President-elect Donald Trump to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy.” Musk promised “to find at least $2 trillion of cuts in federal spending.” I provided chapter and verse of how difficult and unlikely it would be to find $2 trillion of savings in government expenditures. I did receive one comment on my article which said “More fear mongering.”
Well, that was then; this is now. In case you weren’t glued to your set, you might have missed this week when Elon Musk backtracked on his promise to find $2 trillion, saying now that he thinks there is still a good shot at getting half that amount. Maybe.
But Trump (and the unelected Musk) are going to learn that campaigning is far easier than governing. While Trump would like to get his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extended, to do so through the process of reconciliation (which means the bill cannot be filibustered in the Senate), he needs to offset the cost of his tax and other proposals estimated by the Committee for a Responsible Budget to be between about $7.75 trillion and $15.55 trillion over 10 years, 2026 to 2035. To do this without breaking his promise not to change the full benefit retirement age for Social Security and Medicare, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are going to have to make some kind of deal with the Democrats. This will not only be hard to do with the dollars at stake but will threaten Johnson’s speakership with the Republican House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee’s target of Social Security and Medicare.
I will go out on a limb here and suggest Johnson may abandon the reconciliation process and accept a net cost for Trump’s proposals if he can assure the Democrats that Social Security and Medicare retirement ages won’t be touched, ideally for all of Trump’s time in office. When, after all, has Congress not increased the debt and deficit (something that in my view is not necessarily all bad) to get through desired tax cuts and spending increases?
I am not sure what fear I was mongering, according to my reader’s comment, but I will say my fear is that Trump might fold on his promise to protect Social Security and Medicare. It wouldn’t be the first time he folded.
Edward Lane
Stockbridge
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