The Trump administration is making billions of dollars of cuts in federal spending under the leadership of the new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its head, Elon Musk.
The project is badly needed and long overdue. At the time of this writing, the federal government is over $36,220,620,557,281 in debt—and rising. Oops, it just went up again.
This debt is unsustainable—it amounts to $106,120 for every person in America—and rising. Just paying interest on it has become a burden.
It would be almost impossible to tax our way out of the debt, as tax rates are already too high and burden individual and business taxpayers. Cutting our way out of the problem with congressional action is somewhere between improbable and impossible. Congress could have already done this long ago.
Getting us out of the national debt problem demands radical executive action. That’s what we are getting from Trump-Musk.
What about federal cuts in Alabama?
A number of Alabamians are concerned about cuts to federal programs inside our state. Some of those concerned are politically critical of the Trump administration. Others are just citizens with legitimate concerns about the particular Alabama programs that may be cut.
Either way, those concerned about DOGE cuts in Alabama may be relieved when I explain that Musk has a procedure for handling things that need to be restored after being cut out. He developed it in his efficiency surges in his innovative businesses. He calls it one of his “algorithms.”
I learned about this approach reading the biography, “Elon Musk,” by award-winning biographer Walter Isaacson, who also wrote the biographies of other difference-makers including Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci.
Anyone losing sleep over Musk’s role in federal cuts needs to read the Musk book.
Musk’s approach to cutting the unnecessary boils down to this: “If you don’t restore at least 10% of the things you cut, then you didn’t cut enough to begin with.”
That is a concept as fascinating as it is simple. It tells us:
- Musk is well aware that a radical wholesale-cutting process will inevitably cut out some useful and not wasteful things. When cutting that many different programs, getting it 100% right is impossible.
- Musk and DOGE fully intend to review their cuts afterward and listen to any objections to specific cuts.
- When the Trump administration restores cuts, it does not mean it is doing a bad job. It means that needed restorations are part of the job.
Regarding Musk’s radical purge of the unnecessary in his business, Solar City, Issacson said this:
When Musk arrived at 9 p.m., they showed him why they needed a second nail, and he nodded. It was part of the algorithm: If you don’t end up having to restore 10 percent of the parts you deleted, then you didn’t delete enough.
The same approach – comprehensive waste cutting followed by careful and specific restorations – was part of his success at Tesla, SpaceX, NeuraLink, StarLink, X/Twitter, and PayPal. That approach – cut now, tweak later – is apparently being used in his management of DOGE and its mission to save our federal government from financial ruin.
The Musk 10% restoration algorithm can be used to safeguard needed programs at:
- Huntsville aerospace programs
- Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Historical programs
- Any Alabama federal program
To spot, point out, and lobby for Alabama programs that need to be restored from DOGE cuts, we have two Republican U.S. Senators and five Republican congressional members who are strongly pro-MAGA and can gain the attention of Musk and the Trump administration.
With Alabama’s Republican congressional delegation, our federal programs will be just fine.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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