by Navigator » Fri Jun 06, 2025 12:55 am
Some thoughts on Trump and Musk.
I believe that Musk thought that Trump would do something to reduce government debt. He also knew that if he helped Trump, a lot (and he did), that Trump would owe him some favors. And he could get into the government to help reduce its spending, which is an existential threat to the overall economy. Musk has more or less sucked up to every administration, of both parties. He was very chummy with Obama. He built his empire on the back of government subsidies and contracts and tax breaks, and he certainly wanted to control what happened to those. I don't think that he anticipated the backlash Tesla would receive as a consequence of his support of Trump. His current backlash may, in part, be due to his needing to distance himself from Trump.
Trump is not a fiscal conservative. Far from it. Neither is the Republican Congress (as a whole). The "big beautiful bill" is as full of pork as any federal budget in the last 65 years (that is, since JFK). The reality is that there is no hope of solving the government debt crisis, and it just gets worse every year, dragging the rest of the economy down with it.
Radical fiscal action is needed, and it can only be done by congress. Yet it is politically unfeasible. The general public does NOT understand that there is a limit to how much the government can borrow, and we are well past that point. Take the now notable town hall in Iowa where people were shouting at their Senator that any reduction in Medicaid would mean that "people will die" (to which she replied "we are all going to die"). The logic of limiting how much should the government spend on someone is lost on the vast majority. Should the government spend $50M to save the life of someone (who, by the way, did nothing to earn such a benefit)? What if everyone needed that? Where would these funds come from? Far too many think the government can just "wave a magic wand" and take care of it all.
We passed the point of "no return" fiscally as a nation in 2009.
Some thoughts on Trump and Musk.
I believe that Musk thought that Trump would do something to reduce government debt. He also knew that if he helped Trump, a lot (and he did), that Trump would owe him some favors. And he could get into the government to help reduce its spending, which is an existential threat to the overall economy. Musk has more or less sucked up to every administration, of both parties. He was very chummy with Obama. He built his empire on the back of government subsidies and contracts and tax breaks, and he certainly wanted to control what happened to those. I don't think that he anticipated the backlash Tesla would receive as a consequence of his support of Trump. His current backlash may, in part, be due to his needing to distance himself from Trump.
Trump is not a fiscal conservative. Far from it. Neither is the Republican Congress (as a whole). The "big beautiful bill" is as full of pork as any federal budget in the last 65 years (that is, since JFK). The reality is that there is no hope of solving the government debt crisis, and it just gets worse every year, dragging the rest of the economy down with it.
Radical fiscal action is needed, and it can only be done by congress. Yet it is politically unfeasible. The general public does NOT understand that there is a limit to how much the government can borrow, and we are well past that point. Take the now notable town hall in Iowa where people were shouting at their Senator that any reduction in Medicaid would mean that "people will die" (to which she replied "we are all going to die"). The logic of limiting how much should the government spend on someone is lost on the vast majority. Should the government spend $50M to save the life of someone (who, by the way, did nothing to earn such a benefit)? What if everyone needed that? Where would these funds come from? Far too many think the government can just "wave a magic wand" and take care of it all.
We passed the point of "no return" fiscally as a nation in 2009.