While 75% of Democrats tell Pew that they prefer a bigger government providing more services,
fewer than a quarter of Republicans say the same.
This divide is a persistent feature of modern American politics
and can make it seem like government reform efforts like civil service reform
and getting rid of costly,
inefficient regulations are the purview of the Republican Party.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy certainly think so.
They aim to cut $2 trillion from the roughly $6 trillion federal budget
under the banner of the Department of Government Efficiency,
or doge.
This could be a nearly impossible feat,
seeing as discretionary spending by the federal government was only $1.7 trillion in 2023.
Perhaps realizing this conundrum,
Musk and Ramaswamy have negotiated against themselves
and revised the number to 1 trillion or 500 billion.
We'll see.
I'm a bit tired of how reasonable sounding concerns around government efficiency
and effectiveness get shoehorned into a witch hunt for government waste.
There are serious problems with how the federal government's processes
and regulations harm economic growth and the effectiveness of important social welfare programs.