New Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

[LevelUP]

Fortunately they need 60 votes for that to happen. With 53 Republicans, they'll be short by at least 7 votes. I just don't see any Democrats voting in favor.

I agree that a president can't eliminate a branch of government through executive order or by declaring an emergency. However, there is the reconciliation bill process, which requires only 50 votes in the Senate.

Here are some key rules for reconciliation bills:

1. Discretionary Spending: Reconciliation can include changes to discretionary spending, such as the Department of Education and military spending.
   
   
2. No Mandatory Program Cuts: Spending cuts to mandatory programs like Medicare or Social Security are not allowed.
   
   
3. Byrd Rule Compliance: Provisions must adhere to the Byrd Rule, which prohibits extraneous measures and ensures the bill does not increase the deficit beyond 10 years.
   

The dirty secret in politics is that both parties exploit reconciliation bills to pass tax cuts or spending increases with little regard for balancing the budget. As long as these tax cuts or spending hikes expire before 10 years, it’s considered legal—a loophole in the process. The cycle continues: let the debt explode, raise the ceiling, and repeat under every president.

I don’t see anyone in Congress with a real plan to balance the budget. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy seem to be brainstorming ideas with DOGE.

To balance the budget, you either raise taxes or cut spending—it’s simple math. If you do neither, you hope the economy grows enough in the future to stabilize things, but that comes with the risk of inflation and, eventually, the collapse of the U.S. dollar, as seen in countries that have printed money recklessly for years.

In my opinion, the solution is to raise taxes by half and cut spending by half. The fairest way to raise taxes is probably through the payroll tax, increasing it by 2% to balance spending for Social Security and Medicare. (Employers would pay 2%, and workers would pay 2%.)  Also, the top individual tax rate should be raised back to 39.6%.

On the spending side:

• Cut military spending by $150 billion (a hard sell for Neocons).
  
  
• Cut all other discretionary spending by 10% across the board or freeze spending for several years.
  

However, it’s unlikely Republicans would support a reconciliation bill that only includes tax increases and spending cuts. They’ll want tax cuts as well, no matter the consequences.