ArcaMax

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy -- at the request of President-Elect Donald Trump -- are looking for high-IQ Americans to address the strategic security threat of Big Debt.

The EV dynamic duo can start with Dwight Eisenhower -- former president of the U.S.

EV: Forget electric vehicle. Elon-Vivek. Far more energy and economically efficient.

Don't underestimate the threat. Big Debt could destroy America -- slowly, but in terms of ultimate outcomes, it may be more deadly than a pandemic or a nuke.

As for Ike, I know. He's no longer with us. But his 1953 National Security Council 162/2 document is. That's the official name of Ike's refinement of the Truman administration's containment strategy. Ike conducted a war game (now named Solarium). The strategic guidance Ike's study of the game produced ultimately defeated the Soviet Union (Russian empire) and stymied Communist China (still Communist China, but now has money and remains an enemy).

We will get to 162/2.

First, quick background on Big Debt. In my Jan. 5 column, Big Debt was America's No. 4 Strategic Challenge, behind:

1. Expansionist imperial powers (e.g., China).

2. Radical dictatorships and terrorists seeking nukes.

3. Pervasive internal corruption in democracies (including corrupt U.S. institutions, like those waging lawfare, etc.).

Here's how I summarize Big Debt's deep state threat. From the January column: "Inflation is embedded in all U.S. economic action. Big Debt has become unsustainable." Add this from a column in 2023: "America's own structural debt is the biggest self-inflicted threat the U.S. faces."

Remember that point when we get to Ike.

But let's flash forward to a possible solution: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon and Vivek, is being created to attack Big Debt by stopping Big Waste and Big Scam. According to everything I've read, DOGE will use no taxpayer dollars. It's a private-sector effort rescue to solve America's $36 trillion (or is it $37?) economic debt crisis led by two Americans who know how to run efficient, profit generating businesses.

In a Wall Street Journal essay, the EV duo wrote: "We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won't just write reports or cut ribbons. We'll cut costs."

Glory be. A private-sector rescue to solve a huge economic crisis. Who'd a thunk it?

Let's go to some choice quotes from Ike's NSC-162/2.

In the section titled "Defense Against the Threat to the U.S. Economy and Institutions":

"A strong, healthy and expanding U.S. economy is essential to the security and stability of the free world. In the interest of both the United States and its allies, it is vital that the support of defense expenditures should not seriously impair the basic soundness of the U.S. economy by undermining incentives or by inflation."

Paragraph C: "Barring basic change in the world situation, the Federal Government should continue to make a determined effort to bring its total annual expenditures into balance, or into substantial balance with its total annual revenues and should maintain over-all credit and fiscal policies designed to assist in stabilizing the economy."

Paragraphs D and E: "Every effort should be made to eliminate waste, duplication, and unnecessary overhead in the Federal Government, and to minimize Federal expenditures for programs that are not essential to the national security ... The United States should seek to maintain a higher and expanding rate of economic activity at relatively stable price levels.

Paragraph F, a real killer: "The economic potential of private enterprise should be maximized by minimizing governmental controls and regulations, and by encouraging private enterprise to develop natural and technological resources (e.g. nuclear power)."

Want clean power? You'd better support nuclear energy.

Finally, Section 19 of 162/2: "The United States must maintain a sound economy based on free private enterprise as a basis both for high defense productivity and for the maintenance of its living standards and free institutions."

Ike's Money Talks strategy won the Cold War.

In their WSJ essay, EV wrote they would start by cutting "the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended." Defense is the federal government's Job 1. But the EV Duo wrote: "The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent."

DOGE exists to Make America Stronger Now (MASN).

========

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate, Inc.