On November 14th, local time, Musk, who had just been appointed by Trump as the head of the Government Efficiency Department, began to "recruit troops". The main purpose was to streamline the US federal government and improve administrative efficiency, so that after implementing tax cuts, the US fiscal expenditure could be reduced. In fact, Musk carried out similar reforms after acquiring Twitter and renaming it "X". In half a year, he laid off 90% of the employees, leaving only about 1,000 full-time employees.
After taking office, Musk and his deputy Ramaswamy said that 75% of US spending could be "easily cut", at least about 2 trillion US dollars in budget could be cut. This situation has triggered extensive discussions across the United States. Apparently, after the reform of the "X" platform, Musk is very confident and is ready to apply his strategy to the US government system.
Indeed, looking at U.S. fiscal expenditure, Musk has considerable room for maneuver. In 2023, the fiscal expenditure of the U.S. federal government was $6.4 trillion, equivalent to about 46.03 trillion yuan. In contrast, China's fiscal expenditure for that year was 27.513 trillion yuan. Considering that the land area of China and the U.S. is roughly similar, but the total population of the U.S. is only a quarter of that of China, and its public infrastructure level is far inferior to that of China, the fact that fiscal expenditure is 60% higher than that of China already indicates a lot.
Moreover, this is only the expenditure of the U.S. federal government. It should be noted that the United States, as a federal country, separates its tax and expenditure statistics at the federal and state levels, while China calculates them uniformly. In 2023, the tax revenue of U.S. states was $2.5 trillion, and local governments collected $1.5 trillion. The federal government's deficit reached $2 trillion, and state and local deficits were also at this level, so U.S. expenditures exceeded $12 trillion.
In an apparent attempt to prove his claims were accurate, Musk began posting all DOGE movements on his 'X' platform, announcing several items of 'stupid expenditures,' which included funding to various LGBTQ, diversity, and historical and cultural organizations in multiple countries. Among these funds, projects related to China not only had the highest number but also the largest amounts, with the highest announced expenditure reaching $2.4 million. It must be said that Musk's move indeed represents a significant benefit for China.
However, to achieve Musk's grand goal of 'cutting $2 trillion,' eliminating these expenditures alone will not suffice. This is because the largest expenditure in the U.S. budget is 'discretionary spending,' which accounts for up to 30%, with military spending being the highest. Currently, U.S. military spending has exceeded $900 billion. However, Musk cannot touch this expenditure easily, as it involves the interests of the U.S. military and the defense industry. Moreover, if Musk wants to cut military spending, he can only address aspects like military procurement and new weapon development, which could also benefit China at critical moments.
