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So AMC is def happening this week...
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It's what we need now. Fed govt is a mess, so much corruption and waste. Finally, we are doing something about it. I think there will be consulting contracts coming to transform the departments for the long run. KPMG is well positioned for this work. Check out the deal Accenture just did in Japan.
They are desperate but not that desperate!
It’s way overdue. Government is too big. It’s painful in the short term but healthy in the long term. There is unfortunately some collateral damage but those folks will be fine given the low unemployment rate.
Spot on. 70 percent of all jobs created in the past four years was in the Federal Government. We have 36T in debt.
We need cuts.
It will hit all of us including in the consulting sector, unless we can tie our fees to value. Right now consulting engagements in the public sector take multiples of time as they would in the private due to unions, regulations, need for “change management” and other things that make the public sector far less impactful and productive. Cuts should hit red and blue states.
Our interest costs are higher than is our spend on defense spending.
Debts matter; deficits matter, we need to bring deficits in line with GDP growth.
Arbitrarily cutting departments and roles en masse is stupid for private corporations and especially stupid for governments. There's no way they did any study on impact on both government revenues and the people/states that they serve. All of these agencies were designed to serve the people of the US (including USAID). Even if you thought there was a ton of waste the answer isn't slash and burn on day one. Way way too many people get negatively impacted. Just because it doesn't affect your job as much in private industry, doesn't make it any less devastating.
I wasn't insulting you. Just making the point that if ANY random person was a POS, they're not thinking through all the financial impacts. I can see how you thought that was directed at you. Sorry for that.
DOGE is problematic for a number of reasons:
Focus: there is a degree of federal waste, I just wish they’d focus on that rather than slash areas of govt that are problematic for Trump/Musk’s business interests.
Process: boiling down key functions of federal government to a tweet-sized justification that can be understood by a 22yo is not smart.
Impact: government is not meant to be profit making, so looking at costs alone is asinine. Cutting USAID entirely basically removes one of the three pillars of foreign policy - China must be salivating. Lots of other areas too with a domestic impact.
Yeah, sucks. I was hoping there would be massive spending cuts - but that’s a pipe dream. These clowns will just keep on the deficit.
Give me a bipartisan reporting group to measure DOGEs actions, and I’d be willing to believe the numbers
I believe it.
I’m all for cutting government spending but it needs to be slower and more orderly. The firing of leaders of each military branch, all Biden era federal prosecutors, all the JAG leaders, all the Inspectors Generals, and cozying up to Putin is super scary. He’s eliminating all checks and balances and legal limits on his power. This can’t be the way we reduce the deficit.
What bothers me is the randomness and the lies. If we want to say the have to make tough decisions and cut $2T, fine. But I haven’t seen a penny of actual fraud or corruption yet and they keep saying that they have found so much fraud and corruption. And they talk about all the 200 YO people getting social security. The press secretary repeats lies. Musk says that he knows something isn’t true and then the next day repeats that same lie. Let’s just come up with a budget reduction number for each department and give them 90 days to execute but stop lying about everything.
Left wing activists are heavily dependent on government and NGO salaries all on the govt's dime. Trump is going after waste but it will also decimate the left's ability to undermine the administration's agenda. Congress and the Courts are supposed to be the system of checks and balances on the Executive, not a Deep State bureaucracy. The spoils system had problems with competence but it had accountability. Now we have neither competence nor accountability with our Civil Service. Needs to be gutted and reformed, if it's constitutional at all.
DOD waste is totally rampant, with huge sums going to incompetent, heavily monopolistic prime contractors, who have fallen woefully behind China in terms of capacity delivered per dollar, which materially puts our national security at risk.
Any serious effort at government waste or DOD effectiveness would look at DOD.
It is a joke.
From the 3X back and forth fire/hire for the NRC staff in a single week to the IRS cuts who were already way understaffed to zero experience clowns with the self-chosen nickname Big Balls to now "...give me 5 bullet points of what you did last week...".
Add-in unauthorized access, run by a group not vetted or background checked, the claimed $100M in condoms to Hamas, and the leader with very likely significant conflicts of interest, it reeks. And yet they claim it was all DEI and woke.
Clown central.
This is what chatGPT suggests for an all out, aggressive, debt reduction plan with the below defined constraints… probably picking from some CATO white paper. What do you think?
We all know that compounding means we don’t have much longer to address the debt stuff. If you were to address 10yr solvency, what would you do differently?
——-
As of early 2025, the U.S. national debt is approximately $34 trillion and growing due to persistent budget deficits. Balancing the budget and eliminating this debt within five years—while minimizing the impact on entitlements and inflation—would require an extremely aggressive combination of spending cuts, revenue increases, and economic growth strategies.
Key Constraints
1. Minimal impact on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits)
2. Minimal inflationary impact (avoiding aggressive money printing or excessive taxation)
3. Timeframe: 5 years (extremely short for such an ambitious target)
The Aggressive Strategy
1. Budget Deficit Elimination (Year 1-2)
• Defense Spending Reduction (-$400B/year)
• Cut redundant military bases and reduce overseas deployments.
• Reform procurement processes to eliminate cost overruns.
• Corporate Tax Reform (+$300B/year)
• Close major loopholes and eliminate wasteful subsidies (e.g., fossil fuel and unnecessary green energy subsidies).
• Implement a 15-20% minimum effective corporate tax rate on large corporations.
• Targeted Discretionary Spending Cuts (-$200B/year)
• Eliminate inefficient federal programs, especially in bloated agencies.
• Merge redundant departments to streamline operations.
• Public Asset Sales (+$200B one-time, then $50B/year ongoing revenue)
• Sell underutilized federal land, spectrum rights, and certain government-held assets.
2. Growth-Oriented Revenue Increases
• Pro-Growth Tax Reform (+$300B/year by Year 3-5)
• Simplify the tax code while capping deductions for high-income earners.
• Introduce a modest financial transaction tax to reduce speculation.
• Encourage repatriation of U.S. corporate overseas profits with a one-time low tax rate.
• Immigration Reform (+$100B/year by Year 5)
• Expand high-skilled immigration to boost GDP growth and tax revenue.
• Privatization of Certain Government Functions (+$50B/year)
• Shift services (like USPS) toward private-sector models.
3. Debt Paydown Strategy
Once the budget is balanced (by Year 2), aggressive debt paydown starts:
• $3 Trillion Annual Paydown
• With a $6-7 trillion budget, dedicating ~40% to debt repayment is aggressive but possible.
• By Year 5, $15 trillion is repaid, while economic growth reduces the real burden of remaining debt.
• GDP Growth (~3-4%/year) reduces debt-to-GDP ratio further.
Challenges & Risks
• Political Feasibility: Extreme cuts would face resistance from both parties.
• Economic Impact: Rapid deficit reduction could slow growth if not carefully managed.
• Global Stability: Cutting defense spending too sharply could affect U.S. global influence.
Would this be politically feasible? Probably not. But in theory, such a strategy could eliminate the debt while preserving core entitlements and minimizing inflationary shocks.
It’s actually a very smart chess move on his part, straight from the autocratic playbook. He immediately begins by weakening agencies or any authorities that could hold him accountable or prevent him from extending his rule. Putin, Erdogan, and the others would be proud.
It is worse.
1. Recinded cabinet ethics pledge on day one (check out EO 13989, recinded Jan '25)
2. Fire oversight
3. Flood the zone with distractions
4. Get the South African clown on point
5. Re-write rules
6. Downsize gov agencies that help police the most complex topics (i.e. firing IRS)
7. Trying to change the Constitution with an EO
8. Unvetted, not screened very junior staff
9. Releasing judges family names
10. Trying to bully
11. Imposing tariffs
12. Insulting allies, institutions
13. Villifying select groups of people
14. Freeing the prisoners
15. Incompetent Cabinet Clowns: A dog killer, A Vax Denier, The Wife of Professional Wrestling and they tried to get Marry for AG
It will implode all over Republicans.
P5: ah yes, the ever-mysterious Deep State, the go-to explanation for anything inconvenient. Meanwhile, the proposed solution to 'lack of accountability' is bringing back the spoils system, a historically corrupt approach that prioritized loyalty over competence. Because nothing says ‘good governance’ like replacing experienced professionals with political appointees whose main qualification is unwavering allegiance. But sure, let’s ignore real issues like budget inefficiencies and wasteful contracts and instead focus on gutting the very institutions that ensure government functions smoothly. That’ll definitely end well.
Meritocracy 😜🤪
McKinsey must be shaking in their boots
Not central to this very poor argument on why McKinsey would be most impacted (it won’t), but McKinsey makes more than 100m a year still and I think still larger than BCG. This doesn’t capture all of the revenue from subcontracting. Which, if you did have a “stain” on your reputation you would be doing more of…
I’m fine with the concept as it is common knowledge the Fed government is bloated; but the “ready, shoot, aim” approach is bound to fail. My guess is most of you do transformational work (as I do) and we all know this is not the way to approach it. I’m am stunned at the level of incompetence and lack of any true diligence.
Yeah, but traditional transformation work almost always sucks in outcomes if the outcome you want is slash the org to only the minimum critical mass.
The country is $34t in debt. The role of govt in the GDP is the most bloated it has been in 50years. Clearly everyone associated with govt is empire building. We need a wood chipper.
The government has a natural desire to grow every year. It needs periodic purging to trim the fat. It hasn’t had a good cut since Reagan.
"....left wing activists..."
"....deep state...."
Here's a coi summary & I hope it helps you see the issues. And the $$ they're talking about? Rounding errors. DEI was less than $50M. Meanwhile, interest alone on our debt is $600B/year, of which 38% of it is from 45**.
Of note:
https://www.economist.com/business/2025/02/19/elon-musk-spells-danger-for-accenture-mckinsey-and-their-rivals
How about those eggs tho
https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-fdd6495cbe44c96d471ae8c6cf4dd0a8
Burn it all down, anarchy!
They’ll add back a lot of what they cut after a few more catastrophes. It will be much more expensive to build back than it was in the first place. Most federal consulting firms will lose contracts for a year or two and then have boom years in the recovery.