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Thank you so much. 
The Department of Government 

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efficiency is gone. 
DOGE quietly disbanded in 

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November, eight months ahead of 
schedule, and the final numbers 

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are now in Elon Musk promised to
cut at least $2 trillion in 

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waste, fraud and abuse. 
That target dropped to about a 

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trillion dollars, then 150 
billion. 

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The actual result, government 
spending went up, not down, up 

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by about $250 billion compared 
to the same period last year. 

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But there's another number that 
tells a different story. 

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Doge cut 271,000 federal jobs in
less than 10 months. 

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That's the largest peacetime 
reduction in federal employment 

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since World War 2. 
So what actually happened here? 

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We're going to walk through the 
data of what Musk himself now 

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says about the experiment and 
what are reveals about the 

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limits of disrupting the 
government the way you might 

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disrupt the company now. 
The Keto Institute, a 

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libertarian think tank, 
published A detailed analysis 

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this month. 
They looked at Treasury 

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Department spending data and 
Bureau of Labor Statistics 

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employment figures. 
The conclusion is very blunt to 

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the point. 
DOGE reduced federal employment 

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enormously, but it did not cut 
spending in. 

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It could not possibly cut 
spending just by firing people. 

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This cuts to a fundamental math 
problem that Musk either did not

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anticipate or chose to 
completely ignore. 

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Federal salaries account for 
about 10% of total government 

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outlays. 
The overwhelming majority of 

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federal spending goes to 
transfer payments, things like 

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Social Security, Medicare, 
Medicaid, and interest on the 

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national debt. 
None of that changed because 

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DOGE laid off workers at the 
Department of Education or the 

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USAID. 
Let's get into that right after 

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this break. 
And the employment numbers are 

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crazy. 
Federal civilian employment fell

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from about 3.015 million in 
January to 2.744 million in 

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November. 9% decline. 
The pace of reduction has not 

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been seen since the military 
demobilizations at the end of 

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World War 2 and the Korean War. 
So Alex Nowrista, senior vice 

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president for policy at the Keto
Institute, put it very bluntly, 

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said this is a faster and 
steeper decline in federal 

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employment at any time since the
demobilization of the US 

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military and economy at the end 
of World War 2, at the and at 

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the end of the Korean War. 
It's the biggest peacetime ever 

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decline in federal workers over 
a 10 month period. 

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DOGE brought federal employment 
back to levels last seen in 

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2014, and it did so in less than
a year. 

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Nearly 60% of that decline 
happened in one month, October, 

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driven by a civil service buyout
offer the Musk had initiated 

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earlier in the year. 
The deferred resignation program

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gave workers the option to leave
with pay through September if 

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they agreed to just quit and 
depart voluntarily, and 

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thousands took that deal. 
But here's the spending side. 

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The federal government spent 
$7.6 trillion in the 1st 11 

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months of 2025. 
That's approximately $248 

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billion more than the same 
period in 2024. 

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It also exceeds spending in 
20/23/2022 and 2021 under 

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President Biden. 
And according to the Cato 

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analysis, there is no visible 
structural break in spending 

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that coincides with Doge's start
date. 

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An observer who did not know 
when DOGE began could not 

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identify it in the data. 
The trajectory of federal 

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outlays continued almost exactly
as the Congressional Budget 

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Office had projected before DOGE
existed. 

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Doja's own website claims $206 
billion in savings, but multiple

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outside sources and analysis 
have found those claims 

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overstated, full of errors and 
difficult to verify. 

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Actually, NPR reported that some
listed contract cancellations 

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were not actually cancelled, 
were worth far less than 

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claimed, and had already been 
spent. 

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One example, DOGE claimed $4.3 
million in savings from 

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canceling a $4.4 million FAA 
consulting contract. 

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The contract was not terminated,
was worth about $150,000, and 

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almost all the money had already
been spent. 

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So Musk addressed this at a 
recent podcast interview with 

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Katie Miller, a former DOGE 
spokeswoman. 

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When asked if DOGE was the 
success, Musk said We were a 

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little bit successful. 
We were somewhat successful. 

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And when pressed on whether he 
would do it again, he said, I 

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don't think so. 
Instead of doing Doge, I would 

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have basically worked on my 
companies, he added, almost 

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wistfully. 
They wouldn't have been burning 

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the cars. 
Now that's a reference to test 

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the vehicles being vandalized 
dealerships during the height of

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public backlash against Doge's 
cuts. 

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Now, the timeline of Musk's 
involvement tells its own story 

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here. 
He was sworn in as a special 

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government employee, or SGE, in 
January, which legally limited 

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his 10 year to 130 days. 
He left at the end of May, right

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on schedule, but his departure 
was not quiet. 

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In an interview the day before 
he left, Musk called Trump's 

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signature legislation the One 
Big Beautiful Bill, a massive 

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spending bill that increases the
budget deficit and undermines 

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the work that the Doge team is 
doing. 

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Within days, Musk was on X 
calling the bill. 

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It is gusting abomination. 
He urged supporters to kill the 

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bill and threatened to fire 
every politician who voted for 

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it. 
Trump responded by saying that 

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Musk had lost his mind and that 
he was not interested in 

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speaking to him. 
And the two feuded publicly 

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through June and July, with 
Trump at one point telling a 

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really crowd maybe it's time he 
went back to where he came from 

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now. 
Musk even formed his own 

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political party, the America 
Party, in response, but by 

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September changed his mind. 
The two in reconciled publicly, 

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preparing together at a memorial
service for conservative 

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activist Charlie Kirk. 
And the bill passed anyway. 

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The Congressional Budget Office 
estimated it would add roughly 

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$3.8 trillion to the deficit 
over the next decade. 

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Indoge itself no longer exists 
as a centralized entity. 

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When asked about his status in 
November, Office of Personnel 

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Management Director Scott Cooper
told Reuters that doesn't exist 

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now. 
OPMOPM has absorbed many of 

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Doge's functions. 
Some of Musk's former 

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lieutenants transitioned to full
time government roles at the 

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agencies they were originally 
detailed to. 

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Joe Gabia, an Airbnb Co founder 
who led Doge's overhaul of the 

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federal retirement system, now 
runs something called the 

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National Design Studio, 
responsible for government 

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websites, including the new 
Trump accounts program. 

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00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:21,000
Now what does this all mean? 
Though the Cato analysis frames 

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it quite plainly, Doge failed to
cut spending because most 

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federal spending is for 
entitlement programs that remain

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on policy autopilot. 
Only Congress has the authority 

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to change those programs. 
Firing bureaucrats does not 

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touch Social Security. 
Canceling grants does not touch 

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Medicare. 
The math never worked out. 

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A 10% cut in the federal 
workforce saves roughly $40 

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billion annually. 
That's a lot of money in 

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absolute terms, but but it's a 
rough rounding error in a $7 

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trillion budget. 
DOGE reduce federal employment 

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enormously. 
It did not cut spending, and it 

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couldn't possibly cut spending 
just by firing people. 

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The only likelihood to close the
deficit is by cutting the 

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biggest programs and the biggest
programs, Medicare, Social 

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Security, Medicaid, and also the
military. 

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They're not going to cut 
military spending. 

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Some agencies did not see 
spending cuts USAID saw. 

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The biggest, though, was spent 
over $30 billion in 2024, was 

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slashed and folded into the 
State Department before 

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November. 
The Department of Education is 

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on pace to spend over $40 
billion less in 2025, and the 

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FCC is on track to spend about 
1/3 of as much this year as last

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year, with those savings were 
dwarfed by increases elsewhere. 

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Defense spending is up. 
Homeland Security is up. 

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Commerce is up. 
In the mandatory spending 

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categories, the one that's 
actually drive the budget kept 

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growing on autopilot. 
Social Security payments alone 

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are set to be over $100 billion 
higher in 2025. 

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Interest payments of the 
national debt will also be about

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00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,120
$100 billion higher. 
The national debt grew by more 

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than $2 trillion during Trump's 
first year back in office. 

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Musk came to Washington with the
same playbook he uses at his 

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companies Move really fast, cut 
aggressively. 

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Ignore resistance. 
And that works at a private 

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enterprise where you own the 
equity and can fire anyone who 

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disagrees with you, and does not
work in a government constrained

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by laws, courts, civil service 
protections, congressional 

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appropriations and public 
opinion. 

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Musk acknowledged as much in his
interview with Miller, said he 

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had underestimated how hard it 
would be to remake the federal 

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government quickly, and he noted
that his businesses had suffered

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because of the time and 
controversy that Doge consumed. 

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Now the irony is that Musk's 
political involvement may have 

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cost him more than he saved 
anyone. 

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Tesla's brand took a beating. 
Sales slowed. 

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Cars were vandalized, caught on 
fire. 

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00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:03,120
Dealerships were fire bombed. 
Investors pressured him to 

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refocus on the company. 
Meanwhile, government spending 

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rose. 
The deficit crew in the national

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00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:14,240
debt crossed $38 trillion. 
DOGE cut jobs but not costs and 

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made headlines. 
But it didn't make any savings. 

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And in the end, even the man who
ran it said he would not do it 

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again. 
There's a broader lesson here 

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about the difference between 
running a company and running a 

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government. 
In a company, the CEO has 

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00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,840
authority that can fire people, 
cancel projects and redirect 

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resources at will. 
In government, power is 

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distributed. 
Courts can block actions. 

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Congress controls 
appropriations. 

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Civil service rules protect 
workers. 

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Public opinion shapes what is 
politically possible. 

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And Musk ran into all of these 
constraints and seemed genuinely

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surprised by them. 
The same tactics that made him 

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successful at Tesla and SpaceX, 
moving fast, breaking things, 

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ignoring objections, generated 
lawsuits, political backlash, 

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and ultimately limited results 
when applied to the federal 

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bureaucracy. 
Now the agencies that Doge cut 

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are now rehiring workers. 
Some employees who took the 

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buyout have been asked to 
return. 

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Operations stalled out. 
Patient basic functions broke 

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down. 
The Labor Department, the Social

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00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,160
Security Administration and 
other offices struggled to serve

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the public after losing 
experienced high value staff. 

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Whether those service 
disruptions were worth the 

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political statement is a 
question. 

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00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:32,040
Depends on your politics, but 
from a pure spending 

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00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:34,520
perspective, the answer is very 
clear. 

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The cuts did not produce 
savings, the deficit kept 

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growing, and the experiment 
ended 8 months early, quietly 

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00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:46,080
absorbed into the Office of 
Personnel Management as if it 

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never. 
Hey, thank you so much for 

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00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:50,120
listening today. 
I really do appreciate your 

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00:12:50,120 --> 00:12:51,680
support. 
If you could take a second and 

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00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:54,600
hit the subscribe or the follow 
button on whatever podcast 

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passing on right now, I greatly 
appreciate it. 

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00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:00,680
It helps out the show 
tremendously and you'll nip and 

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00:13:00,680 --> 00:13:04,200
each episode is about 10 minutes
to get you caught up quickly. 

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00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:10,040
And please, if you support the 
show, evenmore.com/stage Zero 

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00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:12,280
and please take care of 
yourselves and each other and 

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I'll see you tomorrow.