The sad thing is that after all this, and all the steam vented on both sides of the aisle, nothing is going to meaningfully change on the bottom line. The Federal Government writes checks for fixed expenses. The Pentagon "wastes" lots of money in an absolute sense, but on a balance sheet the DoD pays for salaries and maintenance and fuel and replacement equipment. You can't make a difference by pointing and laughing at some oddball science grant.<p>And the same goes for the rest of the government, which to first approximation exists to write entitlement checks and issue health reimbursements. Everyone <i>wants</i> to believe that there's a magic line item that will balance things, but there isn't.<p>Write it down: the deficit as a fraction of GDP will be <i>higher</i> at the end of this Trump term than it is now, not lower.
Hold on, I need to go place a bet on polymarket that Palantir and Anduril will donate $1M to Trump. I'm confident they will then get to step in and fix this mess for everyone. That money will surely start flowing again, just slightly diverted.
Last time when Trump was president somebody said he is akin to Netflix's 'Chaos Monkey' for the government but it didn't last long. It became boring. It seems he is living it this time as the true one. /s
As opposed to sentiment the article was likely written with - I warmly welcome the initiative.<p>The organization that digests humongous amount of taxpayers money, consistently fails audits for years in row, participates and encourages global wars - should be dismantled or severely reformed at bare minimum.<p>Whether Trump administration be able to achieve that remains to be seen, but hopefully it's a start.