In the spirit of Festivus (if you are a Seinfeld fan), one of the first “Feats of Strength” of the incoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a direct hit from Musk via his platform X against the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government.
“This bill should not pass”, Musk said when the 1547-page, pork-filled bill was introduced. Some say a single 5-word post on X (Twitter) by an unelected person, Elon Musk, tanked the bill and threw Congress into chaos. Others say, ‘No’, Musk channeled the will of the American people who are tired of business as usual and want their tax dollars spent more wisely. Either way, the original bill is dead and that is a good thing.
President Trump was elected with a mandate and defeating the CR bill was a necessity. The deal collapsed because it was not in the best interest of the American people. It is not what was voted for and Donald Trump was not going to support it. Full stop!
Musk used X to telegraph the message about the bad CR bill to the American public. Before Mush bought X, which was heavily censored, it is likely this message would have been muted if heard at all. X, now being an open and uncensored platform, changed all of that. Common-sense messaging is no longer buried or canceled, and regular moderate and conservative users have a voice.
A CR is a stopgap bill that funds the government instead of Congress passing a budget. Friday, December 20 was the day the government ran out of money and Congress had to do something by midnight.
There was a clean CR bill that funds the essentials that is 15 pages long. And, there is the 1500-page bill that has pork in it for everyone. Some say this is the price of getting agreement on a bill, but it is you, the taxpayer, who pays that bill.
The growing refrain is that Congress should have passed the clean CR and allowed incoming President Trump to handle the rest after the inauguration. The idea that the Biden administration and their Democratic allies want to load the CR with pork for their friends and funders moments before they lose power is anathema to the taxpayer. It certainly goes against the very clear mandate the voters gave to President Trump.
Predictably, Swampy Senators, Congressmen, and the bureaucratic state are having heart attacks at the prospect of not being able to spend lavishly on their pet projects. And, the industries that have become fat and happy from non-stop feeding at the public trough are panicking. Not only are they all about to be exposed by Musk’s DOGE, but many are about to get cut off.
“This chaos would not be happening if we had a real president. We will in 32 days!” said Trump and Vance on X.
Congress has been so derelict in its basic duty to pass the nation’s budget that they have not passed all 12 appropriations bills on time since 1997. In 2006, they passed the budget bills through the regular process, but not on time, and relied heavily on supplemental bills after the fact.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are empowered by President-elect Trump’s mandate to take a good look at how the government spends your tax dollars. DOGE can and will do good things for America and the taxpayer. A government overhaul is long overdue. Musk’s X will continue to help get the message out to the voters.