ACTION ALERT: Tell Elon Musk’s Department of
Government Efficiency: “Cut Military Spending!”
Greta Zarro / World BEYOND War
(November 27, 2024) — Elon Musk wants volunteers to work 80 hours a week gutting the U.S. federal government. He’s supposedly going to run something called the Department of Government Efficiency, and is looking for super brilliant ideas on what to cut from U.S. government spending.
Given that some 60 percent of federal discretionary spending goes to one item, the war machine, and we all know about the harm it does, we’ve launched a campaign to tell Elon’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash the military budget.
ACTION: Use the tools below to send a message to Elon to defund war!
According to 2023 data, a staggering $1.1 trillion – or 62% – of the U.S. federal discretionary budget is spent on militarism and war. Here’s what those tax dollars could have paid for instead (thanks to the National Priorities Project for these stats!):
- 11.34 million Elementary School Teachers for 1 Year OR
- 8.66 million Registered Nurses for 1 Year OR
- 114.27 million Public Housing Units for 1 Year
When we hear arguments about the need to reduce government spending, the elephant in the room is the military. Instead of cutting back on vital needs like healthcare and education, we could divert a fraction of what the U.S. spends on militarism towards programs that would improve Americans’ quality of life.
THE PETITION
To: Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency
From: [Your Name]
Here’s how to improve government efficiency and cut spending: Audit the Pentagon, stop handouts to military contractors, and slash the 60% of federal discretionary spending that goes to the war machine.
Here Are Some Specific Ideas for Things to Cut:
Spying, $80 billion.
Funding other countries’ militaries, $51 billion.
Homeland Security Dept., $69.2 billion.
Nuclear Weapons, $24.8 billion.
Overseas Contingency Operations Slush Fund, $174 billion.
Military bases in other countries, ca. $100 billion.
Pentagon Base Budget, $544.5 billion.
Visit our Dear Elon campaign webpage here for shareable graphics like those below and other resources. Help us make the #dearelon campaign go viral and get Elon’s attention to #defundwar!
Musk and Ramaswamy Want To Cut Trillions
— So Why Not Start With the Pentagon?}
Mehdi Hasan / Team Zeteo
(November 27, 2024) — By now, you’ve probably heard that Donald Trump has appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE, a reference to the 2013 meme that has since been co-opted by a lot of crypto bros and incels.
The duo have their sights set on wiping two trillion dollars’ worth of US spending to make the government more efficient. And nothing screams “efficiency” like creating a whole new department and hiring two people to do the same job.
But as Elon Musk goes on tweet sprees about how ridiculous government spending can be, Zeteo is riding to the rescue. In the spirit of the US coming together post-election, Mehdi lays out four ways Vivek and Elon can help save taxpayer money and make the US government more efficient.
By cutting from America’s ginormous and bloated defense budget!
Watch the full video here to learn how the US could save over a trillion dollars by cutting from just one government department, but also why Musk may not be keen to do so.
