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<\/p>\nElon Musk fired back at critics of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last week by sharing a resurfaced clip of former President Barack Obama announcing a nearly identical initiative over a decade ago<\/p>\n
Taking to his X platform, Musk reposted a 2011 video of Obama launching the \u201cCampaign to Cut Waste,\u201d an effort to reduce unnecessary government spending. Musk captioned it, noting the similarities: \u201cSounds exactly like DOGE.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the video, Obama even joked that he was putting then\u2013Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the campaign, saying, \u201cNobody messes with Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Obama highlighted several examples of what he called \u201cpointless waste and stupid spending that doesn\u2019t benefit anybody\u201d uncovered early in the campaign\u2014including the continued funding of a website for a folk music group called the \u201cFiddlin\u2019 Foresters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo amount of waste is acceptable, especially when it\u2019s your money,\u201d Obama said. \u201cJust as families are living within their means, government should too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facing criticism that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is taking a chainsaw approach\u2014slashing entire agencies and laying off thousands\u2014Elon Musk shared the Obama clip in an effort to draw parallels. He framed it as a reminder that even Democrats once praised making \u201ctough decisions\u201d to cut government waste.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows that getting rid of the deficit will require some tough decisions, and that includes cutting back on billions of dollars in programs that a lot of people care about,\u201d Obama said in the newly resurfaced video.<\/p>\n
While some praised the comparison, others on X pushed back, arguing that Obama\u2019s cost-cutting efforts\u2014such as reducing spending on unused federal buildings\u2014were not equivalent to Musk\u2019s more aggressive, slash-and-burn strategy.<\/p>\n
The clip of Obama was originally recorded as he prepared for his 2012 re-election campaign. Some commenters on Musk\u2019s repost argued that the initiative ultimately had little impact on curbing federal spending.<\/p>\n
Podcaster Joe Rogan responded to the clip by noting that it \u201ctook 14 years and Elon Musk and Donald Trump for the talk to become action.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his announcement, Obama stated that the initiative was aimed at \u201cgetting rid of the deficit.\u201d However, during his eight years in the White House, the federal budget deficit rose by 58 percent, adding more than $6.7 trillion to the national debt. He went on to say in the clip that some spending the U.S. \u201cshould be getting rid of even if we didn\u2019t have a deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 44th president went on to spotlight additional targets for cuts, including \u201cthousands of buildings across the country that no one uses,\u201d as part of his effort to reduce government waste.<\/p>\n
After Obama said his then-vice president was being put in charge of the initiative to \u201chunt down misspent tax dollars in every agency and department of this government,\u201d Biden appeared in the video pledging to tackle spending with a \u201crelentless focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re holding ourselves accountable, and we\u2019re deeply committed and focused on making government function better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The resurfacing of the clip comes as DOGE continues to spark sharp debate in both Washington and across the country.<\/p>\n
Supporters of Musk and President Trump have applauded the elimination of costly, low-impact programs, viewing the cuts as a long-overdue effort to rein in government excess. Critics, however, argue that the sweeping reductions have also slashed essential and legitimate spending.<\/p>\n
Also, several lawsuits have been filed by government unions and various left-wing organizations in an effort to block Trump and Musk from slashing agencies and personnel. Most of them have been successful thus far, but the Trump administration is in the process of appealing several, with some cases expected to eventually be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
As for the mood of the country regarding the cuts, polls show most Americans are in favor of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk fired back at critics of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last week by sharing a resurfaced clip of former President Barack Obama announcing a nearly identical initiative over a decade ago Taking to his X platform, Musk reposted a 2011 video of Obama launching the \u201cCampaign to Cut Waste,\u201d an effort to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449\/revisions\/2450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}