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Notes -
I don't think those really are comparable - all of them were reactions to concrete fiscal crises/shocks which absolutely needed a short-term budget correction. Our current problems are ballooning costs, and while I think this has significant long-term negative effects, it doesn't have that immediate necessity. But I'll grant that I myself was being hyperbolic - it would be more correct to say that governments rarely manage to limit spending with long-term foresight in mind, but only purely reactively after a crisis has already happened and desperately requires action. DOGE is attempting the former.
On the second point, I completely agree, but in my view this makes reducing welfare spending for the old a foregone conclusion, it's only a question of how long we can kick the can down the road. And mind you, Americans have a comparably rosy situation - here in Germany the old / young ratios are much more grim.
Canada/Sweden were. Sequestration was a response to an entirely artificial crisis (it was part of a deal to increase the debt ceiling), and Margaret Thatcher could have spent the North Sea oil money on spending increases instead of tax cuts.
Musk has always attempted to justify what he is doing at DOGE on the basis that the deficit and debt are a near-term crisis.
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