Not at all. I'll wait and see what the recommendations are.
There is plenty of room to cut and streamline. Musk has already said though that their plans "necessarily involves some temporary hardship". Obviously no way to know what the plans are yet, but I do worry about an over correction and the overall impact to the economy. I hope we make cuts where we can while minimizing the broader economic hardship.
I am curious to see how this is going to roll out and where it fits in with timing given the other priorities. Have to think the three top initiatives for Trump are going to be:
- Tax cuts/threats of tariffs to demonstrate he is addressing the concerns about cost of living.
- Illegal Immigration/Border Security. Just judging by his picks, and that they are some of the first ones, this will be a combination of executive actions and prioritizing legislation with a Republican House.
- Inserting himself in Ukraine/Russia war and Middle East conflicts.
I can see Musk as an advisor sending teams into each government agency over the next 1-2 years and publishing recommendations (that he can also provide directly to the public on X.
- What is the agencies charter and is it still relevant - what changes?
- Office space - Have to think there is a lot of excess office space in the government inventory.
- Headcount - To your point, this needs to be done in a way that does not have a material impact on the economy. I'm sure there will be legal hurdles given that these are mostly organized labor.
- This could be a "drip/drip" strategy that gets implemented slowly over the four years of his term.
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