“At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement … I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York. “We need to do it. Can’t go on the way we are now.”
Trump and congressional Republicans have long pointed to combating waste, fraud and abuse as ways to save the federal government money. But that refrain is “often an excuse to do nothing,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Trump’s proposed government efficiency commission would have to be given a broad mandate to review the largest federal spending programs – Social Security, Medicare and defense – to be most effective, Goldwein said.
The commission proposal follows a recent conversation between Trump and Musk on X, during which the Tesla CEO suggested that the former president should create such a group in an effort to tackle inflation and appoint him to it.
“I’d love it,” Trump responded at the time.
Trump has promised another tax rate cut for businesses if he is elected again, as well as the elimination of taxes on tipped wages. He has also proposed sweeping tariffs across the economy in hopes it will generate revenue to pay for these new cuts and encourage more investments in the US.
As CNN and others have reported, many economic experts warn that a broad and unprecedented hike in tariffs could cause considerable harm and lead to a sharp spike in prices on goods for Americans and kill jobs.
“But Donald Trump is denying this broad, bipartisan consensus, ‘hoping that most economic analyses of his ideas are dead wrong’ and blatantly lying to the American people about the severe costs and consequences of his economic plans,” Nelson, who until recently served as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, wrote in the memo released Thursday.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/politics/trump-economic-plans-musk-government-commission/index.html