Penny Pinching

Just weeks into Trump’s second term, Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has stormed the corridors of Washington, scouring spreadsheets for any item that can be sliced, downsized, or scrapped. There’s no shortage of grand gestures or flamboyant rhetoric, but the real question is whether a thousand minor victories can replicate the sweeping fiscal turnarounds last seen in the Clinton-Rubin era. With a ballooning deficit, a hostile demographic shift, and a president itching to cut taxes rather than raise them, the cost-cutting game is only getting started—yet whether all these snips and snips add up to a meaningful dent in America’s deepening fiscal hole remains dubious.