Efficient irony
Donald Trump has promised to appoint Elon Musk as the chair of a new government efficiency commission. That's ironic for at least two reasons.
First, Trump isn't making a credible promise. He's the same guy who promised to eliminate the national debt, and instead set an all-time record for deficit spending per year.
Second, Trump is making a classic mistake of wasteful government; creating a new function that duplicates an existing function, because the existing function doesn't work.
Who has been monitoring efficiency?
The US federal government has been monitoring its efficiency since 1921 through the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In spite of being a form of self-policing, the GAO does a surprisingly good job. For example, it discovered and publicized extraordinarily wasteful spending in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. But there's a fatal flaw with the GAO as a function. Nobody cares.
The GAO is effectively ignored by both the Executive and Legislative branches. That has been true for a long time, regardless which party is in power. That's because nobody in power is incentivized to spend less. In fact, they're incentivized to spend more, even if it's deficit spending, to benefit the special interests that get them re-elected. So the GAO does good work to uncover wasteful spending and gets ignored like a financial planner at a football game.
How do we make the government more efficient?
We don't struggle to identify wasteful spending, it's everywhere. We struggle not to spend even when we know it's wasteful. A new government efficiency commission won't solve that problem. It will be ignored like the GAO, because it's just like the GAO. The only way to solve the problem is by changing the incentives.
We must punish legislators for deficit spending, because what they are doing is actually quite evil. They aren't just crowding out lending, promoting inflation, and suppressing GDP growth. They are selling our children and grandchildren into debt slavery. That's not an exaggeration – as of 2024, every future taxpayer is born owing an average of $273k of the national debt. Future generations will pay much higher taxes and interest rates, and suffer higher inflation and slower income growth, all because politicians continue deficit spending today. Our children will, in short, have worse lives than they otherwise would. So what should we do?
Not only should we refuse to accept new spending, we should reject anyone who isn't actively reducing spending. The government is running a massive deficit. It is riddled with waste, and even outright corruption. All this excessive spending will undoubtedly be defended by the old guard, who generally benefit from these excesses. We must expel these cronies from their comfortable offices, then elect and appoint people who will cut spending actively.
After we've cut spending, we must put safeguards in place so this doesn't happen again. That will require honestly considering how the government became so expensive and wasteful. In other words, that will require acknowledging we allowed our government to cascade far outside its Constitutional mandate.
Through adversity, inaction, and ignorance, we allowed a government that was supposed to be strictly limited to expand into every part of our lives. The only way to constrain spending, and for that matter abuses of our rights in general, is to re-impose strict limits on our government.
Our government was never intended to provide retirement savings, healthcare subsidies, poverty programs, or anything else that does not directly relate to protecting individual rights using the specific powers authorized by the Constitution. Most of what it does today would be unanimously rejected by the founders. It is almost completely out of bounds.
We would be heroes to future generations if we compressed our government back down to a size fitting within its Constitutional mandate. It would be 10% or less of its current size. Then we would be far more free, prosperous, and happy than ever before. So would the generations who will inherit this unparalleled success.
What is most likely to happen?
Unfortunately, in recent decades both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of increasing deficit spending. For decades, both sides have set spending records when they take power. Now, both parties are digging a deeper hole by refusing to adjust expensive programs headed toward default, most notably Social Security which is projected to default in 2033. Again, nobody cares.
It's unlikely ordinary Americans will begin taking our federal finances seriously before our situation becomes irrecoverable. We probably won't have the national will to change until we feel serious economic pain. By then it will be too late.
Most likely, we will discover what lies down this road to national financial suicide. Expect to find impoverishment, civil unrest, and likely even fragmentation of the union into regional blocs – the end of the United States.
Reason for hope?
Thankfully, there is opportunity for renewal in that sad collapse; a chance for new experiments in limited government. In fact, this may be the best hope for human freedom for the next 1,000 years.
The United States was the first great experiment in limited government in the modern era. If we can succeed in seizing opportunity in the upcoming financial calamity, the United States will come to be seen as the prototype that led to even better governments. Governments that, for the first time in human history, do not collapse under their own corruption, but rather persist indefinitely because they benefit peaceful society rather than exploit it. Governments that don't spend recklessly, and are strictly limited to protecting individual rights. Governments that create an environment for peace, prosperity and happiness.
The United States showed us how it's possible, like nothing else in human history. The United States is proof we can do it, at least for a while. That alone is a tremendous reason for hope.
