Elon Musk F-ed Around In Politics Now He's About To Find Out

Elon Musk is about to find out the hard way that the United States government can't be run like one of his businesses.

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After Elon Musk and Donald Trump pushed Republicans to cut $190 million for pediatric cancer research funding, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointed out that they won’t cut from the military budget because Musk gets his money from defense contracts.

AOC wrote, “They’re cutting healthcare to kids because Elon gets his money from Defense contracts so they’ll never touch the military budget.”

She posted this over a tweet reading:

“Thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans cut $190 million for pediatric cancer research from the funding bill. Congrats to DOGE on their first victory.”

The party that claims to be for “small government” and to care about “spending” isn’t looking to make any cuts to the defense budget that critics say is bloated. But they are fine making cuts to pediatric cancer research.

Of course, no one who has been paying attention will be surprised at the idea that Donald Trump doesn’t care about kids’ cancer. Trump “shifted” charity money for kids cancer into his own business.

And this is hardly new. Trump tried to slash NIH funding by 18% in the beginning of his first term as detailed in this quote: “The budget proposed by United States President Donald Trump calls for “massive cuts” to spending on medical and scientific research, public health and disease-prevention programs, and health insurance for low-income Americans and their children.”

It’s so easy to clown on bloated government funding, but slashing budgets without knowledge or curiosity has the potential for disaster. For example, Trump slashed CDC staff inside China over two years prior to coronavirus outbreak, with Reuters reporting in an exclusive: “The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show.”

That turned out to be a devastating decision that impacted the entire world.

Part of America being seen as “first” and “best” has been it playing an important leadership role in areas like using its resources in a positive way. Republicans no longer seem interested in playing that role globally, however.

We Are Still Paying For Trump’s First Term

ProPublica noted on January 14, 2021 that Trump’s first term exploded the deficit with “the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration” and that it added “$23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.”

In other words, we are ALREADY paying. We are still paying for the first term. And now they want more.

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.

That man somehow convinced the public that he intended to “drain the swamp” in his first term, but somehow managed to funnel money to his family and supporters while shoving debt onto the American people.