President Donald Trump exchanges gifts with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Thursday, June 5, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
In his Contra Corner, David Stockman chastizes President Trump and his administration for not going after entitlement spending, where the budget really gets inflated. Stockman notes that Trump & Co. have targeted “waste, fraud, and abuse” in entitlements, but that there isn’t enough of that to make a difference to the impending debt tsunami facing America. He explains:
And, no, you are not going to save more than nickels and dimes by attacking “fraud, waste and abuse”, which the Donald apparently claims to be his alternative. Indeed, we know from first hand experience that “waste, fraud and abuse”reduction is the go to hiding place for chicken shit politicians who don’t want to face the fact that there are only two levers to save real money when it comes to the major entitlements. To wit, you must change the statutory language to either reduce the number of people eligible or cut the level of benefits per person. And since these kinds of measures save real money, they also generate angry constituencies. The truth being, of course, that there is no politically antiseptic way to cut the budget.
In the case of Medicaid, there were about 80 million recipients in 2024 and average spending per capita was $11,400 overall, of which the Federal share was $7,300 per person. So if you just eliminated the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid, which most Republicans have advocated ever since its 2010 enactment, the recipient rolls would total 40 million, not 80 million; and, all other things equal, you could save $325 billion per year or about $4 trillion over the budget window.
That’s real money, of course. It could pay for the $2 trillion cost of extending the most important part of the TCJA—the marginal rate reductions—and still provide another $2 trillion for reduction of the $22 trillion baseline deficit over 2026-2035.
Read more here.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.
