Musk, Ramaswamy outline ‘drastic’ cuts as US gov’t efficiency tsars

Trump allies say they will ‘liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress’. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, United States President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming “efficiency” tsars, have outlined plans for a “drastic reduction” in regulations and “mass head-count reductions”. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would rely on two recent Supreme Court rulings that limited the authority of federal regulatory agencies to “liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress”. Musk and Ramaswamy said they would work with legal experts within government agencies and use advanced technology to identify regulations that Trump could “immediately pause the enforcement of” and subject to “review and rescission”. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies.” Musk and Ramaswamy, who have been tapped by Trump to lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency, said they would target more than $500bn “authorised by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended”, including $535m in funding for public broadcasting, $1.5bn in grants to international organisations and nearly $300m given to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.