Rand Paul gives Elon Musk's plans a major reality check

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is warning Elon Musk that a rude awakening is coming.

Fox News reporter Chad Pergram interviewed the Libertarian-leaning Republican, who discussed his ongoing crusade to reduce government spending, which he acknowledged so far have been fruitless.

"Ultimately, it takes Congress," he explained. "Congress has to get rid of the spending."

Musk and former Republican Party presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are set to lead a new government bureaucracy that has yet to be created. The new bureaucracy will be named the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short.

Only Congress can authorize an official department, so experts anticipate DOGE will operate more like a blue-ribbon panel with little power. However, it will have the ear of returning President Donald Trump.

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"DOGE can point out the spending problems and the waste the same way I've been pointing it out," Paul said. "But the reason it's not eliminated is they don't have the votes to get rid of the spending. So, I am very hopeful that DOGE will draw attention to this. The same way I've been drawing attention to it."

His example was President Joe Biden's bill to subsidize microchip semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. It also increased funds for the National Science Foundation, which funds research and education in non-medical fields of science and engineering, their website says.

Paul complained that the National Science Foundation is studying whether "tequila or gin makes people more aggressive." This is one of more than 12,900 projects annually out of 46,500 proposals in 2024. Out of $11 billion, Paul complained to Fox that it was spending $10,000 on a drag show on ice. It calculates out to 0.000091% of the NSF budget. That's 0.0000005% of the $2 trillion federal budget. Meanwhile, an overwhelming number of contracts given out by the Department of Defense don't bid for lower prices from a competitor, a National Bureau of Economic Research revealed.

"Most of the terrible, wasteful projects are crazy stuff and experiments are going on," complained Paul. "Is National Science Foundation in the Chips Bill? All the Democrats and half the Republicans voted to double the size of the National Science Foundation. So why is there more waste? Because the idiots in Congress keep giving them more money."