Writes Dom Armentano:

The Dems (and some Republicans) are in a near-frenzy over  possible Federal budget reductions and the elimination of some agencies and departments. Heavens. The end of the world as we know it has surely arrived.

Well not exactly.  In the current governmental climate of endless warfare, social welfare entitlements and lawsuits over everything, if Elon Musk and his team can propose  (let alone accomplish) even a 2% reduction in Federal spending, it will be hailed as near-historic by Trump and most conservative lawmakers.

But would it be near historic?  Not even close.

Contrast  the current budget-reduction hysteria with what budget cutters were ACTUALLY able to accomplish between 1945 and 1950. I know this seems impossible, but Federal spending was actually reduced from $106.8 billion in 1945 to $44.8 billion in 1950.  Consequently, the $57 billion deficit in 1945 fell  to just $1.3 billion in 1950; and federal government spending fell from 45% of GNP in 1945 to but 15% in 1950. Now those, dear reader, were budget reductions!

I am aware of course that those years were special circumstances ( but aren’t they all);  nonetheless, they are illustrative of the fact that despite political hysteria, government budgets CAN be cut, deficits CAN be reduced, and a relatively free economy CAN adjust and expand smartly as it did after WW2. The Keynesians and other court intellectuals  predicted economic disaster from those cuts but they were wrong, as usual, in both theory and practice.

Memo to Elon Musk. Think bigger, way bigger.  History is actually on your side.