President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are all concerned about the $6.7 trillion federal budget and believe they can cut $2 trillion. Musk says that Americans need to be ready for some “economic hardships” to get control of our nation’s debt. Meanwhile, his wealth since the election of Trump has increased by nearly $200 billion.

I will remind them, however, that roughly 25% of our nation’s debt was added during Trump’s first term in the White House, primarily due to tax cuts that mostly benefited Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy, and other billionaires.

Interestingly, these guys ignore that the U.S. budget is partly out of balance because they and their fellow billionaires pay little to no federal taxes. Instead, they want us to believe that the U.S. government is spending too much on education, early childhood programs, infant nutrition programs or monitoring the safety of our food and water.

What “hardships” are Musk and Ramaswamy willing to endure as Trump extends their tax cuts in 2025 while they advocate to cut food and health care programs for American children?

Still, they are looking for more. Trump wants to cut taxes for his billionaire friends further. Pretty soon, we’ll be paying them. Actually, we are already paying them as they enjoy the benefits of the taxes ordinary Americans pay each year.

Musk receives millions of dollars in federal contracts and grants each year. Do you think any of these programs are on their list of cuts? With an estimated net worth of more than $400 billion, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world. Does he need loans and grants from the federal government? Talk about waste.

Musk has received about $20 billion in federal investments for his SpaceX program. If federal spending is so out of control, do we want to spend our tax dollars on space missions to Mars? How about we take care of the basic needs of ordinary Americans here on planet Earth? For people trying to afford food and find childcare, space adventures to Mars are hardly a priority and of little benefit.

Musk asked the Federal Communications Commission for about $900 million in federal subsidies to provide rural broadband access through his Starlink satellite network. He was denied. However, it will most likely be approved when his friend, Trump, gets into the White House in a few weeks. For the sake of all the rural citizens of the United States, most of whom voted for Trump, couldn’t the wealthiest man on the Earth donate access to his Starlink satellite network?

Musk also has Starlink contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with the U.S. military. He also benefited from the $7,500 tax credit the government provided to people who bought his electric vehicles. That sounds like a federal subsidy we can no longer afford. Can’t the wealthiest man in the world offer his electric vehicle subsidies and incentives?

Tesla, owned by Musk, is receiving at least $2.8 million in federally funded grants to provide EV charging stations in Pennsylvania. Tesla has received over $600,000 in federal contracts to provide vehicles for the U.S. embassies in Singapore, Iceland and Thailand. I hope these are on the list of items to cut before we start cutting American school lunch programs.

Musk and Ramaswamy will also be looking at reducing regulations that they believe are hampering American businesses, especially those they run. As stated by Robert Reich, they will “want to cut the enforcement of antitrust laws, securities laws, workplace safety laws, labor laws, civil rights laws, laws against consumer fraud, laws mandating vehicle safety, tax laws, and environmental laws.”

All of these regulatory cuts will increase Musk and Ramaswamy’s profits. However, none of these regulatory rollbacks will benefit ordinary Americans and will, in most cases, cause them significant harm. As stated by Reich, getting rid of regulations “will make workplaces less safe, products more dangerous, our air and water more polluted, national parks less welcoming, travel more hazardous, and financial transactions riskier for ordinary people.”

Not known as a boss who cares about his employees, Musk is trying to convince the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), formed by Congress in 1935, is unconstitutional. The NLRB has received many complaints from Musk’s employees about working conditions. Do you think the NLRB will be on the list of federal cuts that Musk and Ramaswamy present to Trump? You bet it will be, and near the top, too.

Neither Musk nor Ramaswamy understands the complexities of the U.S. government. Ramaswamy recently said that the federal government could fire 75% of its employees and “not a thing” would change “for the ordinary American.” This statement tells you how uninformed these guys are about the federal government workforce. In 1984, about 2.96 million full-time federal civilians, including postal workers, served about 236 million Americans. Today, about 3 million full-time federal civilians serve about 346 million Americans. While the American population has grown by 110 million over the last 40 years, the federal workforce has grown by just over 40,000.

Ramaswamy has listed programs he thinks could be cut, such as money for veterans’ health care, NASA, the Department of Education, and early education programs for young children. There you go, folks: Programs for veterans and young children will pay for the next round of tax cuts for Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy. Note their priorities.

There are legitimate ways to evaluate and modify the size and scope of the U.S. government to identify and cut waste. But Musk and Ramaswamy don’t have a clue and, importantly, have too many conflicting interests in many of the U.S. agencies that monitor their businesses. The Government Accountability Office already does a lot of what Musk and Ramaswamy are trying to do but has deep institutional knowledge of government agencies, how they work, and what they do. Musk and Ramaswamy don’t have any of this institutional knowledge.

Musk has not learned anything from his quick and sloppy staff reduction exercise at Twitter, now called “X.” He had to hire many of them back. What kind of manager fires staff before knowing what they do? As a result of his recklessness, the social network is now worth about a fifth of the $44 billion that Musk spent to buy it.

With these three stooges in charge, what could possibly go wrong?

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.