It's one thing to slash costs (like what Ng Yat Chung did to companies), it's another to fire people working in the US profit centres like the IRS.
Or Inspectors General as another notable example. Or selling government real estate (with its low imputed rents) which simply leads to paying higher market rents for space — and selling now, in this real estate market, when there’s a glut of commercial space. Or firing the crack, small, elite (and inexpensive — low civil servant salaries) IT team called 18F that was doing fantastic work across government to automate and streamline processes, for example helping the IRS deliver simpler direct tax filing so they could collect more tax.
There’s also the fact that it’s illegal to reduce or eliminate appropriated spending. Doubly illegal when an unconfirmed presidential “advisor” does it. It costs more money to halt spending you’ll have to pay back, with interest and penalties — plus court-related costs. Plus if (more likely when) you tank the real economy, government spending automatically increases and tax receipts automatically fall. And if you do it in a way that’s inflationary (“stagflationary”), interest on debt increases too.
On top of all that, go take a look at workforce size as a percentage of population. It was already really low! Lower than it’s been in at least half a century. If there was an overall problem it was an over reliance on contractors rather than direct employees. But that problem gets worse when you fire direct employees.
It’s certainly possible to cut spending as much or as little as a president might desire. The President can simply go to Congress, negotiate and agree on a new budget, and reduce spending that way. The President’s party has numerical majorities in both houses of Congress, and they can pass a budget without opposition votes if they want to pass a budget. Whereupon their boards of directors (voters) will retain or fire them as soon as 2026.
