Reject the Misleading Agendas of Musk and Ramaswamy: Combat Corporate Bailouts, Tax the Wealthy, and Invest in the Future

Key Chapter Title List

1. Introduction
2. The True Face of Efficiency
3. Ending Price Gouging in the Pharmaceutical Industry
4. Terminating the Privatization of Medicare
5. Cutting Pentagon Waste and Curbing Contractor Greed
6. Taxing the Wealthy and Corporations
7. Taxing High-Income Earners and the Wealthy
8. Eliminating Fossil Fuel Industry Subsidies
9. Regulatory Efficiency
10. The Cost of Deregulation
11. Investing in the Care Economy
12. Investing to Avert Climate Disaster

Document Introduction

In November 2024, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced the establishment of the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), co-chaired by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, claiming it would cut $2 trillion in government spending, streamline bureaucracy, and deregulate. However, the agency is essentially an advisory body with no direct decision-making authority. Its core agenda is not genuinely to enhance government efficiency but to pursue ideologically driven policy rollbacks that benefit corporate interests.

This report directly challenges the impracticality of the DOGE plan—total U.S. federal discretionary spending is less than $2 trillion, making the proposed cuts unachievable in reality. The report further argues that true government efficiency should not be about pre-set spending reduction targets or weakening regulatory protections. Instead, it should focus on eliminating waste, optimizing resource allocation, raising revenue fairly, and maximizing the economic return on public expenditures.

Based on detailed data and case studies, the report proposes a series of policy interventions that could save the United States hundreds of billions of dollars annually and generate hundreds of billions more in revenue. These include: saving $200 billion annually on prescription drug costs by strengthening government bargaining power and promoting generic competition; saving $100 billion annually and improving healthcare quality by ending the privatization of Medicare; saving $100 to $200 billion annually through moderate cuts to the Pentagon budget; saving approximately $20 billion annually by eliminating fossil fuel industry subsidies; and generating an additional $500 billion in annual revenue by imposing fair taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

The report also systematically demonstrates the economic value of regulation, pointing out that major regulatory measures yield positive economic returns, whereas deregulation has led to catastrophic consequences like the 2008 financial crisis, resulting in trillions of dollars in economic losses. Simultaneously, the report emphasizes the high efficiency of investments in social areas such as early childhood education, healthcare, and nutritional support, as well as the critical importance of public investment in addressing climate change to protect economic security. These investments not only deliver significant economic returns but also generate broad social and environmental benefits.

This report provides policymakers and researchers with an evidence-based policy framework. It exposes the potential harms of ideological agendas pursued under the guise of "efficiency" and offers an important reference for building a fair, efficient, and sustainable public policy system.