What's your experience now two weeks in are there is there actually a fourth branch of government?
Most definitely is this is actually really what BIG's saying is really goes to the heart of the problem. In order for us to be a true democracy, a functioning democracy, the government must be responsive to the people. That's literally
what democracy means. However, when you have a vast unelected bureaucracy that is not answerable to the public, and where the and if the elected officials, if the president, the people in Congress and the Senate actually don't have if they don't have the power to affect the bureaucracy, and it's actually extremely difficult to affect the bureaucracy, then you do not have rule of the people. You do not
have democracy. You have rule of the bureau bureaucracy. And this is obviously wrong, It is unconstitutional, and it is imperative therefore that we return power to the people of the country and not have attorney of the bureaucracy, which we most definitely have had to follow out to a degree that is absurd as fire this. It's not just that there's an unconstitutional fourth branch of government, but it is arguably the most powerful branch of the government.
Johnny, I see you're back.
Yes, can you hear me?
Now? I can? Yes?
Oh, I apologize, gentlemen. Ya hop to my laptop. I've been working on this for as a long set, over a decade now with my Squeal Awards, and there are many in Congress that actually really do care.
About this absolutely.
The problem I think is there there are not enough of us, yes, that have And so while I highlight a lot of the abuses, and you wanted some anecdotes, al and I've shared a number of those with you and familiar.
Oh, it's hard to resonate. It's hard for the public to resonate with statistics because but people can really resonate with powerful anecdotes.
Joey had a bunch of them. Yeah, you had a bunch of them, Jony.
Yeah, I did.
Sending kiddies to spas to find out whether they produce less ferbals, hack up less ferbiles. So yeah, we've spent taxpayer money on that. We put shrimp on a treadmill to see how fast they run.
I'm sorry.
All of these things, while they may be fun, why are we spending taxpayer dollars on them? And it goes to the point of we've sent millions of dollars to China to study what COVID.
We saw how that ended.
In fact, it's it's pretty outrageous that the COVID, the virus was developed in what a labin Wuhan, and yet it was funded by US tax dollars, which was simply routed through the fake nonprofit EcoHealth because the government US covin can't give it directly to China, and they just gave to EcoHealth knowing that it would go to China. So our US tax dollars were used effectively to in the end kill Americans, which is insane.
Absolutely insane.
And I know, Elan, you have been on aid, you have, really and for sure.
This was another one of my efforts.
And this began years ago when we were trying to figure out what they were doing with our American taxpayer dollars that were going to support humanitarian efforts in.
Ukraine.
So I wanted to know exactly how those dollars were being spent and not just read yes, oh my gosh. And I shared this with you earlier, Elan, just privately, but we got all kinds of threats from USAID because I was trying to exercise my oversight capacity in Congress.
So they just shock, how it's outrageous that a taxpayer funded organization would threaten a US senator who is simply trying to figure out if American tax payer money is being spent correctly and not.
Fortunately yes.
And so what my staff and I had estimated was that thirty to forty percent of the USAID's awards would go to indirect costs, so they're overhead their rent employees.
That the time, okay, okay, after.
Months and months of obstruction where you had wouldn't let us in, they told us the NIGRA, the negotiated indirect cost rate Agreements. It's a lot of government jargon, but anyway, the indirect cost They said that the database, oh.
It doesn't exist. That was a lie. That was a lie.
It was false because we found it, and then we were told we weren't allowed to access.
The data base.
And then that's when Congressman McCall and I came together and we launched an official congressional investigation so that we could gain access to the rates. And then after about six more months of negotiations, then my staff was finally allowed to access very limited data. They were allowed to go into a room and they couldn't take notes, they were on camera the whole time, they couldn't remove any of the information.
But what my staff found is.
You were laughing at that thirty to forty percent, because that is outrageous.
That was understated.
In some of the cases, the niper rates were upwards towards anywhere from fifty to sixty percent, and that doesn't include the cost for subcontractors, what the subcontractors were adding on. So this is the problem with USAID. And that's why Elon, I'm just I'm with you on this because so much of that taxpayer money is not even going to we love to feel good about helping starving children and name your country, but it's not going there. It's going to
pay rents in Paris. It's going to support somebody's fancy dinner to entertain whoever.
Yeah, exactly.
So to be clear, in shutting down, which we're in the process is doing shutting down your said the reason for that, as opposed to simply trying to do some minor house cleaning, is that as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a bowl of worms. And so at the point which you don't really have you go to apple and has got a women, it maybe can take the worm out. But if you've got actually just a ball
of worms, it's hopeless. And U s id is a bowl of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, this you've just got to basically get rid of the whole thing.
That is why got to go. It's beyond repair.
So yeah, there's a solution to this, which is that let's say something's cut that the people of this country just demand needs to exist again. It can always be voting back into existence by senator or instent colleagues. Totally, the fact that isn't going to happen. It feels exactly why many of these agencies really Deletion is the only answer that's left.
Yes, exactly right.
If it turns out we really need such an organization, if you should, we've just created pro solved by the people. Yes, by the people, answerable and answerable to the people and to the people's elected representatives.
That is the way that GUMMT is supposed to work.
That I agree, and more transparency. Sunshine is the best disinfectant out there.
And sunshine that tells you something.
Yes, we really we need to be able to exercise our oversight, and this is where we have been blocked so long in Congress. You can go on to my official website on the Internet. You can look through my priorities,
go to my squeal area, you can go back. I've got the last several years on there of efforts, whether it's USAID, NIH, the National Institutes of Health, those taxpayer dollars that were going to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, snap over payments through USDA and the states, you name it, the gosh.
Just even back to work.
My back to work report, the out of the office that we've talked so much about, and on day one, the President came in and said.
Hey, everybody, back to work.
I don't think most Americans understand that only six percent of our federal workforce shows up to work in the office every single day.
Only six percent.
Yes, And it's truly insane effect.
And one of the most insane things I've seen was that I was speaking with the well hopefully I seemed to be Attorney General hand boundy, and she was telling that the US engraving is actually I guess we was used to the US MINT, which is actually the building that is an historic building, actually a beautiful building. Is it's here in d C and the windows are all broken and has turned into a homeless encampment. That means
like this, somebody like this. No one comes to work to such a degree that this beautiful building has all the windows broken and it's been turned into a homeless encampment in downtown d C. That's how absurd it is. It's beyond belief.
Yeah, and that's why so many of these buildings. If we could repopulate them, that would be great. And that way we can have oversight and make sure employees are doing what they're supposed to do. I'm going to hammer on USAID one more time. Yeah, So we talk about the locality pay a piece use, and that's what happens when people aren't working in the office what they're doing in DC and not everyone. I don't want to accuse every federal worker of being a bad actor, but I
have seen so many examples of this. We had a USAID employee that was falsely using an office supply retailer's mailing address. I think like Staples and places like that, using that address in Virginia to defraud the taxpayers by claiming higher Washington, DC locality pay. But they were actually living in another state full time, and they had the full knowledge and assistance of their supervisor in pulling off
this scam. And then and then the IG, the USAI d IG blew off my request for an investigation.
Did they give that?
Seems how can they do that?
They can see them.
This is the problem we have is that there are checks and balances in place where we can write letters all day and we can request IG oversight. But if that IG says I'm not going to investigate, I'm not interested. I, as a United States Senator, don't have the power to force.
Them to do it.
And this is why I'm so excited that we have DOGE and that we have a president that's willing to back us up.
Absolutely so really, none of this could be done without the full support of the President. And with regard to the usa I D stuff, I went over with them in detail and he agreed with the that we should shut it down. And that's want to be clear, that's and I actually checked with him a few times.
Are you sure, like yes, so we're shutting it down. Yeah.
It's also incredibly politically partizant and has been supporting radical left causes throughout the world, including things that are anti American, which is insane, right, And.
That's why there are probably some arguments to be made about what could be important work that falls under USAID. But the fact of the matter is that it's been it has been overshadowed by these bad actors. Yes, if there are truly good pro American programs, then let's move them to the State Department exactly. Let's make sure we have proper oversight. Let's make sure that when senators and congressmen are asking for documents that they provide them.
In a timely manner.
Yes, let's make sure the igs are upfront and honest and wanting to be the watchdog over the agencies that they are charged with. This is not rocket scientist, and you're a rocket scientist.
This is simply common sense and being responsive to the electorate. And you just can't have these these sort of institutions which are taking let's tax payer money but then are not answerable to elected representatives of the public.
Then they're totally disconnected.
So I caull it like we must move away from the rule of the bureau to rule of the people at demos.
And I would sink I'm hopeful that some of this creates momentum with interns, with some of your colleagues as well. In passing the Rains Act, right, half of this is decades of Congress effectively just punting off the responsibility to avoid accountability.
Not you, but many of your colleagues over the years.
And hopefully if this is a catalyst to say Congress and the Senate say we may take the lawmaking power back to the elected representatives of the people and get the kinds of things done that haven't gotten done for years, like the Rains Act and other mechanisms to say lawmaking power comes back to Congress. Think that could be one of the best things to come out of all of this. I'm hopeful that happens this time. I know you're supportive.
Yeah, Like, fundamentally there's going to be a feedback loop to the people. You can't have these organizations that are just disconnected from the will of the people like you just fundamentally do not have a democracy in that situation. You have tyranny of the bureaucracy, which is just inappropriate and needs to end.
By the way, and you know who's pumped up about you bringing everybody back to work is actually Muriel Bowser, mayor of DC. You're talking about the homeless encampments. I talked to her maybe last month or month and a half ago, And that's a Democrat, doesn't matter. It's basically the base principle of a self governance and b saving money and making sure that our buildings aren't being infested by homeless invasion, but instead is actually creating a thriving capital.
I think is shockingly a bipartisan idea if we give people the permission to come out as Democrats and say those things make sense, which I think we're seeing some of which I think is cool.
No, you're absolutely right.
The lack of people showing up for work in d C has actually made DC look like a ghost town. In fact, parts of Really it looks post apocalyptic in parts of DC because once people start coming to work, then the restaurants close down. Then the stores closed down, and then you just have boarded up stores and restaurants, and it destroys the small businesses in downtown d C. Yeah, and there's a reason where people come to work and are more effective and more collaborative. In one place, they
were rediscovering why do you have offices? Oh, it turns out there's a reason, and the President has made it more clear.
Return to work. That's it, end of story.
I think the first two weeks has been pretty massive, and if it continues at that rate, even if you think about one of the big economic questions right now is the ten year treasury rates, right, they're going up.
Bond markets don't like our national debt. If this is the pace of what cutting looks like presented in a coherent plan, I'm hopeful that bond investors and credit investors in the US government debt can at least say, Okay, this is positive progress which actually will bring down not only the costs that you're cutting directly, but also our interest rate costs. Yes, and I think that's really when we hit a you know, virtuous cycle here, which I think could happen soon.
No, I agree, Actually, the bond marks do not currently reflect the savings that I'm confident we can achieve. And I'm actually I'm giving a talk later this week with JP Morgan Chase and Jamie Diamond and this little bit obviously with financial audience and really to just to say, look, if you're shorting bonds, I think you're on the wrong
side of the bet. It's basically seriously, yeah, it's really basically the bond will there will be less debt needed as we as we stop wasting taxpayer money on crazy things.
Whatever.
The fifty million dollars for condoms to Gaza, which I suspect didn't actually end up being condoms in Gaza, that's a lot of condoms, guys.
What is it a super bank or condoms? I mean, who, oh my gosh, you guys, that's the real line item.
I don't doubt if we did have those items going to Gaza.
I don't know if it was that many.
But this is.
The problem.
It was probably that line item, but god knows what exactly. But that's the problem we have with the budget and why when moneys flow through all of these entities. We may have a line item that goes to say USAID and or maybe goes through USAID to the United Nations, and then from the United Nations it goes to a subcontractor and from that subcontractor it goes to someone else. It is a nightmare trying to follow that money and
to understand what it's actually being used for. So again going back to the transparency, we just we need to make sure that we have our eyes on it and that it's easily accessible and maybe not just by members of Congress, but also the public as well.
I agree it should be.
If it's public money being spent, it should be in full view of the public. And when they want to hide this stuff, frankly, it is the reality is because there's massive fraud and abuse.
That's the reality.
Nobody needs to hide something unless they have something to hide.
Once in a while you've got something that's say.
An intelligence operation or that actually needs to be classified, but that's a rare situation. That's a tiny fraction of expenditures. The vast majority of these things, it's unfortunately a truands amount of fraud and abuse. And the reason that it's so extreme with the federal government is that the checks never bounce for the federal government. Okay, so the federal government can always make more money, and the problem is
that in doing so, that's what creates inflation. Something that I really want to reinforce for people is that it's government spending that creates inflation. So when you see prices go up at the grocery store, it's because government spent more money than broad in taxes, increased the money supply, deluted the value of money, and made you made your paycheck go be less valuable. It means it meant like the prices are going up because of government induced spending.
Of government spending that results in inflation.
So now it's just very important to connect those dots because people don't. They think maybe the supermarket is taking advantage of them, and they're not. You can look at the financials of the supermarket. They have two percent margins. It's going to do with price scouting the supermarket. It's just that the government spent too much that increased the money supply and diluted the value of somebody's paycheck, and that's why the prices go up at the grocery store.
So the good news is if we solve government over spending and the money supply grows at the same rate as the output of goods and services, there will be no inflation and the prices in the supermarket now will be the same as the process supermarket in a year, and that's a super big deal, and that really affects people's lives. That's what we're aiming for, and we're going to do everything possible to succeed in that goal.
And I think every dollar saved.
The problem you just mentioned, Elon is exactly why in your interest rates on US treasuries are persistently going up, even if the government's trying to make them go down,
the market's bidding them right back up. But conversely, for every dollar hard dollar actually saved, right, so how many ever billion it was in the first two weeks, there's actually it's almost like a two to one saving because that means that the interest rate that lenders to the US government charge will go down at a time when the interest rate payment itself on our national debt is one of the biggest items of our federal budget. Yeah, so that automatically comes down for every one of these
other savings, exactly. And the only thing to be presented as a coherent plan, which I think you're already beginning to do that alone, I think will have a two to one savings for every dollar that's actually hard dollar that's actually saved, because you get the interest cost next year that comes down as a consequence as well.
Yeah, that's that's actually a very good point you just made. I just wanted to basically repeat that and reiterate that for the audience. When you get you actually get a double benefit when you bring down government spending, and it's a very important double benefit, which is that you stop inflation and interest payments go down because the government is no longer borrowing money. So if the govern is borrowing money, it's actually competing with everyone else to borrow money, and
that drives up the interest rate. So if we solve government spending in a nutshell, your grocery both days the same, your mortgage payment goes down.
And your call payment goes down, and your credit card bill goes down, exactly. I think that's what the people of America want.
Obviously agree, it's really important.
And I'm sitting here tonight in Iowa, and I took my mom to church this morning, and man, everybody at church, we all stand around afterwards and visit, and everybody's just really excited about the opportunity that the new administration is bringing because costs are just through the roof for people in my neighborhood in southwest Iowa.
It's hard.
These are folks just getting up every single morning trying to do their job and do the best, and yet we as a government have failed to listen to their needs and then to be able to cut the spending at the federal level to make sure that their taxes stay low and make sure that we are paying down our debt. No more deficit spending. Let's try and balance this budget as best we can. And we've heard plans from Ron Johnson and others in the Congress, but we've really.
Got to get serious about it.
Because every one of my constituents owes sixty seven thousand dollars to our national that's out great much.
And it's getting worse of a time. So really, if we don't do something about it, America is going to go bankrupt. That's the fact that so we must do something about imperative. Senator Mike Lee, I see you've joined. Would you like to add something to this conversation. You've got some great stuff as well to talk about.
Yeah, I'd love to, Thanks so much for the invitation. Look, I see this as an inflection point every seventy five to ninety years in Anglo American history, we've seen a major upheaval. We had one in seventeen seventy six, another one in eighteen sixty one, another one in nineteen thirty seven, twenty twenty five. We're due for one, and I think that's going to be the Doch Revolution. And I think it has to be about much more than just the individualized,
wasteful spending had projects. At the core of all this is a fundamental ailment, which is that we've missed the purpose of the United States government. It's supposed to be about just a small handful of things wait to night, trademarks, copyrights, and patents, regulating inters foreign commerce.
The founders of the country would it would blow their minds that the federal government has gotten so gigantic and is interfering with people's lives in so many ways.
That's exactly right.
And then we've compounded the problem once we lost track of what the federal government's purpose is, we put the wrong branch in charge of the wrong responsibilities. We've been making most of our law one hundred thousand pages a year through the executive branch, which the Constitution says you can't do. It says you cannot make a federal law unless you go through both houses of Congress and then give it to the president. So we've destroyed federalism and
separation of powers. I think for Dose to succeed, we have to restore both of those. In my view, the best way to start is by passing the Reins Act, which would require Congress to enact those laws. And I think to get that path this year, we've got to attach it to the dead Ceiling bill. I pass on that on my baselinke.
Lee, I absolutely agree with you percent. What you're saying just absolutely true that these vast amounts the federal regulation, which are the factor laws that are created. That it's an incomprehensible amount. It's literally no human could possibly even comprehend it. If you tried your hardest your whole life, you can barely understand a small fraction of the regulations. These regulations, if you look at them, there's millions of them, and it's not like any one regulation is the showstopper.
But it's the way I visualize it, it's like Gulliver, Like America is like Gulliver, tied down by millions of little strings, and we need to cut those springs and free the giant.
Exactly, that's exactly right. It's those laws, which they are laws. Those will put you in prison, those will shut down your business, those will ruin your life if you discreate them.
No different than any of the law. It's totally crazy.
It's exciting, Elan, isn't it true?
President Trump has has an executive order that says for every one new regulation that is put into place, ten have to be rescented.
Yes.
Yes, Now, of course the bureaucracy is going to try to gain that by having the one regulation when like he says, I have every one can ask one question, but then have a question in three ten parts. So it's possible to get it's possible, it's possible to gain the regulations. So I think in addition to that executi Order, which I certainly applaud, I think we need to go
and do wholesale removal of regulations. Like regulations basically should be default gone, default gone, not default there, default gone, and if it turns out that we missed the mark, kind of regulation always added back in. These regulations are
added willing nelly all the time. So we just got to do wholesale spring cleaning of regulation and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done and the government isn't it doesn't have a sort of boot on the neck of the average Americans, which is because one of the core founding values of this country, what has made America great, what will lead to further greatness, is a focus on merit, that you get ahead as a function of your hard work and skill,
and that you have freedom.
It's the land of freedom and opportunity.
And if the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, it's not freedom.
We've got to restore freedom.
And by the way, that's copied, multiplied and fiftyfold higher. Where each of the fifty states then do the same thing, and many of these federal regulations are duplicative of the states doing the exact same thing, where the bureaucracies in each of the states are.
Behaving like the federal government.
So you think about the impact of people's lives, it.
Just layers one on top of the other.
And like you talk about zero based budgeting, I really like this concept of zero based regulations or the default is nothing and build.
Back exactly, and that's what our founders wanted.
Yeah, absolutely, used to be like an not that long ago. If you wanted to start a business, you just start a business. You just go you just no license. You can just do it. The government's not like prying into every hard to get the license for this, do the license for that.
Get to seventeen thousand permits.
You look at LA and like how when I lived in LA, it was hard to get a permit to remodel your kitchen. And now with this disaster that's happening in LA, this terrible tragedy, just a sheer number of
permits required to build a house are staggering. Basically, they've made it illegal's but we've got to saw somewhere on the regulatory front, and certainly at least if we addressed federal regulation, then people can choose to move to it from one state to another and still remain in America and move to the state that has less regulation with
the government. Is gives you more freedom, and you've got that competition between states, You've got that federal system that was meant to be the case, that was how the country was created. Let the states compete, and if your state is being oppressive, you can go to a neighboring state and love there.
That's the whole idea.
Federalism is the answer, no doubt.
You've got two things going for us right now in the country that haven't happened in a long time. One is a willing President Donald Trump who actually believes everything that all four of us have just said, which is a beautiful thing, and without that it wouldn't be possible.
The more I butt know President Trump, the more I like him. Frankly, I love the guy. He's great.
Yeah, and he's full bore, more than any president we've had since the creation of the administrative state.
So I think that's number one. I Number two is thanks Sam.
Actually in his first term, you've got a Supreme Court that six to three vehemently agrees with everything we've just said.
Yes, and so I think it's possible. Yeah, it's actually possible.
Yes.
In fact, if it's not possible now, it'll never be possible.
This is our shot.
This is the best handed cause we're ever going to have, and if we don't take advantage of this best hand of cause is never going to happen.
So we're going to do it.
I agree that whatever, yeah, now ur an effort, and I do think you're right. With the first administration of President Trump, and Lesson's learned through that administration, and now in the second administration, the stage is set and he knows how to aggressively tackle a lot of these issues that have plagued us for years. And folks asked me, oh, Trump's first one hundred days, what is that going to be like?
And I'm like, forget the hundred days, folks.
It's going to happen a lot faster than that, and he needs to continue to be aggressive. And we all know there's going to be bumps along the way. Of course there are, because we're moving at the speed of relevance here.
But we've got to.
Get in there and make an impact so that our constituents can actually see the benefit because we've got a tough mid cycle or mid presidential year election coming up in twenty twenty six, and we cannot lose the House or the Senate because then the president will be dead in the water and we just need to move out.
Yeah.
I think that's really the people will judge the performance and whether actually we've got things done and whether things are better off and in two years, and I think if people feel like, yeah, they're better off, the country is working better, they feel, is the reward for hard work is there, that their their paychecks going further than it used to, that that their stand up living is better, Their mortgage is lower, the credit card bills lower, the
prices at the at the stores are the same, haven't risen dramatically. Then I think there's no problem. We will win the next election. The people will reward that. So I think that's that's what needs to happen. And if I think if it does happen, there will be a Republican win in the mid terms, and which is usually
which is unusual. But I think if we make these goals happen, I think it will actually have an increased majority in the House of Senate and be to continue to, as we would say, make America great and even greater.
So love it the case.
The blanket that Dylan, you and I have talked about this, Mike Lee, you and I have talked about this, might as well just say it here as well.
Is when in doubt push it to the states.
Right, if there's some doubt about Okay, we're not sure about this regulation.
You got a whole nuclear energy framework at the Federal level. You have an entire one in each.
Of the fifty states, same thing for spending or some other program. Are people going to really suffer if this is taken away? Federalism is the answer. Just push it to the states. And I think that's a big part of obviously what I'm looking to do in next But it's governors across the state whatever. Let them bear the load of what the federal government needed, because that's actually
what the founder's envisioned in the first place. Mike, you've been a crusader for this since day one, now, that is right.
That is the whole reason I ran to this job fifteen years ago. The fact is that people of our country are upset. They're upset about our government because it manages things poorly. And what a lot of people are starting to grasp is that it's not just a matter of changing from the red team to the blue teament back to the red team and making sure you've got better personnel on there, because better personnel won't make those same mistakes and won't fund the stupid studies about the
drunk Gerbils on a treadmill. The point is it's poorly run because when the US government is doing all kinds of things that it's not supposed to be doing that should be left to the states or to the people, in the words of the Tenth Amendment, it becomes very poor, very bad at doing you things that it is supposed to do. You can't be good at running the Pentagon and at making sure that traffic lanes lines of commerce are open.
When you are.
Doing all kinds of things that the federal government wasn't built to do, we're using it as the wrong tool. There are very few things that the federal government currently does that the federal government is itself uniquely whipped and constitutionally authorized to do. That's what we've got to get back to, and that's why this is going to be a painful, radical transformational change in many circumstances, but it's going to be a huge relief to the American people.
Once we get through the initial shock, and once we get through this stage where the media is telling us that the sky is going to fall, dogs and cats living together in the streets, apocalyptic stuff, once they realize that's not true, they're going to feel this huge burden lifted.
That's what we want.
We want a better future for America. We can't get to absolutely turning to our founding documentary.
Exactly, I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm actually pretty optimistic that, well, we're going to make it happen. It's going to this is I thing's gonna happen. So the progress is good so far, and if it keeps accelerating, then I think it's going it's gonna be awesome. Like the cost of excess regulation on economic growth and prosperity is like really underestimated. Like if you basically don't even permit allow people to do things like make it illegal,
you can't the builders can't build. America is a nation of builders, but we need to give the builders permission to build. And that's really what deregulation is all about, just letting people do things.
Deregulation and meritocracy go hand in hand. Actually, there are two sides of the same coin. And you want to actually measure Dog's success is not just the deficit reduction. I don't think that's the sole metric, although it's a really important one, and bringing down the national debt and the interest payment costs as a consequence, that's really important.
But actually a lot of these benefits of delivering economic growth won't be measured in this year's deficit reduction, but will be measured in long run GDP growth, long run economic growth, wrong run prosperity in the country.
Yeah, and I think that's equally important.
I actually I'm optimistic that we'll see a material impact in FY twenty six, which starts in October. A lot of stuff I think what will make significant gains in twenty five. I've got Government Financial Year twenty five which ends in September. But I think the sort of metric we're tracking startup style or just and we're going to be posting more and more detail on the dough website and dough handle on X is just in so people
can see in detail. This is where where we're seeing the delta and spending between current spending and Government Financial Year twenty five, which or twenty six, which starts in October.
And that number is really we think it's at.
This point over a billion dollars day, maybe two billion, maybe approaching three. And I think we can I think we can take a trillion dollars out of the deficit next year. Obviously this is going to require strong support from the President, but thus far that we certainly have that and also support of the Congress and support and also.
Hopefully support from the judiciary as well.
But it's basically the goal in the nutshells is pretty straightforward, is we have a two trillion dollar deficit, which is far an access to economic growth. If we can get that depthit in half from two trillion to one trillion, and we can get the economic growth to match that one trillion growth in the money's play, that means there will be no inflation and also that interest rates will drop, credit card interest down, mortgage interest down, car payment interest down,
and prices at the store stay the same. That is a great outcome for people, and I think I think we can do it.
People say it's unrealistic now, and people say its unrealistic.
It's the funniest part about this is just the hard number here and the four of us here know the answer, but people who are listening it might just be maybe eye opening. Where like, how much money did the federal government actually spend last year? Not the mumbo jumbo, not discretionary this and not just like how much the federal government spent.
Last year it was about seven trillion. It's just under seven trillion dollars?
How much did we spend in this like ancient time period known as twenty nineteen, right, not.
That long this year twenty ninetey, not that long ago.
Remember twenty nineteen four and a half less than four and a half four point four to five less than about four and a half trillion ninety that's two and a half trillion right there.
Yes, so if you just go back to twenty nineteen, that's.
Two and a half trillion exactly, which is insane actually that they think that's impossible, as twenty nineteen was not that long ago, and you nobody thought that they were exactly apocalyptic healthscape underway in twenty nine was pretty cool, actually, I like twenty.
Nineteen nineteen was not some nightmares healthscape exactly. In fact, we got and Mike thinks we're just fine in twenty nineteen.
Mike can vouch for this too, though.
What we saw with COVID as we were pushing all those dollars out the door, they started a lot of programs with those dollars, and people just continue to expect those dollars to come, even though we're way beyond COVID, Yes, way beyond COVID.
So often people will say you can produce stu sit that much because what about all the entitlement spending is the sort of guaranteed spending. But here's the thing, and especially during COVID as you're into, there was actually a massive growth, a massive increase in the amount of fraud and waste in entitlements with like fake people like collecting Social Security, like bogus payments to medicare. It is the level of fraud is actually staggering and just cutting back on that.
And by the way, it's not just even US fraud rnks.
I don't think if people realize this, But there's the esmens I've seen are between one hundred and two hundred billion dollars in foreign fraud drinks. There are professional foreign fraud rings operating that are taking somewhere between one hundred and two hundred billion dollars a year of US tax para money.
Out of the country. And a lot of people realize that it is.
And so the fraud in this in that case isn't even going to American fraudsters.
It's going to in other countries.
Come on, I sent that example to you the other day.
Sat down with a friend of yours works in ID technology, and he showed me that video of a deep fake where it was a Chinese scammer trying to receive US federal government benefits out.
It's outrageous, But.
So much of that money the Chinese scammers are taking out of the pockets of our taxpayers.
Yes, and I mean there's really there's American entitlements are being defrauded by people not even in the US and for many other countries because the fraud controls are so weak on the entitlements programs. The due diligence is so bad that it's actually possible to operate hundreds, if not thousands, of fake people and get entitlements said to you that you then take the money out of the country, out of the United States.
This is happening as we speak. It's utterly insane.
So this is why I'm actually quite optimistic that trillion dollars can be saved just by addressing waste forraorden abuse. While it's a lot of work, I don't think this is some insurmountable task. I am confident it can be done, and we'll do everything in our power to make it happen. And I think that'll be if we succeed, and I hope, I would like to ask for the support of the American people because we're going to get a lot of opposition.
Let me tell you from what I remember most from one of the things I remember from the PayPal days was that who complains the loudest is the fraudsters. Okay, so like the so when somebody is trying to come thraward of PayPal, where we would see the most amount of righteous indignation, like it would be like immediate, over the top righteous indignation was from the fraudsters, not from honest people, because honest people are like, I think there's
something wrong with my account. I guess, I wonder what's wrong, let me inquire, and but the fraustess will come at you immediately. This is it's like a tell that someone's actually doing fraud because the level of faux outrage is way over the top. So we're going to get a lot a lot of people claiming with fake outrage, claiming that they're a single mother with kids just trying to feed it. Meanwhile, it's like some dude operating a fraud
ring out of another country. Actually, that's what the kind of thing we'll see. So really, I would like to ask for the support of the American people in pursuit of this goal. And bear in mind that we're going to see some pretty outrageou stuff from the frauds as we crack down on fraud. They're going to be the loudest complainers to anyone in America listening to this. Your support in pursuit of this goal is very much appreciated.
Thank you, absolutely, and thank you Elon and Fifake.
I think we've got a ways to go, but I'm glad it's rolling along. And this just been the most aggressive effort really to downsize or write size our government since probably at least the Reagan Revolution. So just excited to be part of it, and half the support of the American people as we move through and make them squeal and wash to DC.
Yeah, thanks to dj T, Thank you Elon, and you keep kicking ass and went in doubt send to the States.
We'll take care of it there, exactly, all right, cool, Thank you, Thank you Senator necessarily for perhaps one day, Senator Romswami, Governor, Yeah, that's and and everyone who tuned in, And once again I'm asking for your support for for a noble goal and please help in any way you can.
Sometimes it's like the small things that happen on the side that is, the sort of small, thankless tasks that actually will result.
The dog is gonna win.
Dose will win if millions of people support it in ways that I wouldn't even know how they supported it, but just that you did, and people the unknown soldier.
Yeah, definitely, And hey, Elan, before we all break out here, I do want to acknowledge the I've founded the Senate Doge Caucus on my side of the Roadtanda. We've got some great co chairs over in the House as well, with Pete Sessions and Aaron Bean and Blake Moore. They have got now I think over one hundred members of Congress that have joined the Doge Caucus, and we've got eighteen and climbing in the United States Senate as well.
You and the President and Vivek have all really gotten everybody to come together, and I'm just really grateful that we have an outlet and are able to do this.
Thank you all so much.
That sounds good, and we'll be doing this this every week, so I look forward to having members from the House and other contributors and try to keep the people informed of the progress.
And I think it'll be very interesting to follow along. So thank you. Thanks everyone, Thanks so much, you long, Thanks nice well the Long