Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

DAVID BOSSIE: Musk, Ramaswamy’s DOGE Must Make America Solvent Again

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk with President-elect Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at the launch of a SpaceX Starship in Cameron County, Texas, Nov. 19, 2024. (Screen Capture/CSPAN)

President-elect Donald Trump’s bold and innovative decision to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the leadership of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy could not have come at a more critical juncture in our nation’s history. Our fiscal trajectory has gone largely unchecked for more than 25 years, when Democrat President Bill Clinton and Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich put the country first by negotiating a balanced budget agreement.

Now, after decades of poor stewardship of our hard-earned tax dollars by career politicians, it is time once again for our new leaders in Washington to make tough decisions regarding our country’s ongoing federal spending catastrophe. We should all be thankful and encouraged that a once in a lifetime trio of leaders like Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy who possess a “do it all, do it now” approach are willing to do whatever is necessary to Make America Solvent Again.

Trump, along with Musk and Ramaswamy, are already working to save America from bankruptcy. However, with a narrowly divided Congress, this effort will take bipartisan support just like in the 1990s. Make no mistake, getting our nation’s fiscal health back in working order for future generations will not happen overnight.

Anyone who thinks America is too divided for Republicans and Democrats to roll up their sleeves and work together on something of this magnitude is dead wrong. When Clinton and Gingrich were compromising on balancing the federal budget, the president and speaker were also locked in a bloody political battle over Bill Clinton’s impeachment at the same time. You see, returning to fiscal responsibility isn’t something that should happen, it’s something that must happen – and it must start now.

The only thing more staggering than our deficit spending is the sheer arrogance and irresponsibly of the failed status quo in Washington over the past 20-plus years. Right now, our federal budget deficit is bumping up against $2 trillion and our out-of-control national debt is over $36 trillion.

I remember a short 15 years ago when I produced a documentary film with Steve Bannon entitled Generation Zero about the 2008 fiscal crash and our nation’s bleak financial outlook, we were in shock that the national debt had just reached an unbelievable – at the time – $10 trillion! Even more jaw-dropping is the fact that it took 211 years – from 1789-2000 – for the national debt to reach $5 trillion, and then only a quick 24 years for it to explode to today’s $36 trillion. There’s no other way to say it: This is unsustainable and truly an emergency of epic proportions.

And since the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal spending bonanza has only gotten worse. Consider this; President Trump’s last budget proposal of his first term in 2020 totaled $4.8 trillion. By contrast, President Biden’s budget blueprint in 2024 came in at $7.3 trillion. So, over the course of just four short years and after the COVID emergency was long gone, Washington continued to spend money like drunken sailors. This is a grand larceny of taxpayer dollars, plain and simple.

Washington’s deadly spending habits are hiding in plain sight, but sadly only a small number of courageous leaders talk about it, much less do anything to solve it. That’s where Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy and DOGE come in.

For decades, the corrupt mainstream media and career “uni-party” politicians in Congress have mostly ignored our nation’s dire fiscal situation. A toxic mix of deep-pocketed lobbyists, entrenched left-wing ideologues, corrupt powerbrokers, and unimaginable arrogance are to blame for the abject failures. Appropriating $500 billion on federal programs that have expired is a total dereliction of duty; as is spending billions on office space that sits virtually empty. And it should go without saying that spending billions on woke DEI grants and policy should be stopped permanently and immediately.

The belief in Washington that the American people simply don’t care, and that nothing can be done about our broken federal government is coming to an end with outsiders like Trump, and his team of Musk and Ramaswamy. The days of continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills must come to an end. The days of federal workers not showing up for work but continuing to get paid must come to an end. And members of Congress should not get paid unless appropriations bills are passed on time with an open debate and transparent process.

A return to fiscal sanity must come to our nation’s capital. DOGE must commence with this century’s Apollo program. It is a mission to balance our federal budget — and keep it balanced — and to realize the dream of reversing our nation’s debt clock instead of charging us into oblivion. This vitally important undertaking will take vision and guts and thankfully our incoming leaders have both.

David Bossie is the president of Citizens United and served as a senior adviser to the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign. In 2016, Bossie served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President and deputy executive director for the Trump-Pence transition team.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.