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Comment by FlamingMoe | Hacker News Reader

One good reason? Look at the financial state of the country. We’ve been running trillion-dollar deficits, ballooning debt, and unsustainable spending for years. If Musk’s appointees are doing the opposite of what got us here—cutting waste, streamlining bureaucracy, and questioning sacred cows—that’s at least some indication they might be acting in taxpayers’ interests. The real question isn’t why assume they are—it’s why assume the status quo was working in the first place.

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I'd feel better about this effort if they just benched the kid and replaced him with someone else. DOGE of all people should know that people are replaceable. Why did they put him specifically, with all that baggage, inside a cybersecurity agency? This doesn't feel right.

>>> why assume the status quo was working in the first place.

Spending has been "unsustainable" for 40+ years, ever since Reagan gave up on trying to get his own party to reduce it. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that the status quo was working well enough.

Pretty sure the US had a surplus in the 90's!

So the problem is the reason to assume goodwill from the people tasked with fixing it?

Again, this is so easily disproven. How are you buying this at all?

Musk and Trump are not concerned about debt or spending. If they were, Trump and Republicans wouldn't be rushing a billionaire tax cut bill that will add tens of trillions of dollars to the national debt.

If Trump cared about debt he wouldn't have run up $8 trillion in debt his last term with PPP helicopter money and more billionaire tax cuts.

There is a cult that believes every word their demagogue says, even if they are contradictory to each other or his actions.

Or proposing a bill to add Trump to Mount Rushmore.

Or proposing to create a PIF-like Sovereign Wealth Fund while gutting USAID, an organization with approved budget for many many years that actually provides assistance efforts globally.

Or proposing to invest $500B on AI development, which, coincidentally, just so happens to be the amount Sam Altman asked for to develop Stargate.

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