If Elon Musk were to get his way, President Donald Trump would preside over an economic overhaul befitting a fellow 1980s icon: Margaret Thatcher.
In his fast-moving attack on the role of government in America, Musk has targeted $1 trillion in cuts in the next year — a figure many economists and budget experts see as highly unlikely. That’s in part because of how difficult it’d be to slash that much spending without gutting entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security that Trump promised to protect.
But the $1 trillion figure shows the scale of their ambition, and a willingness to undertake what effectively amounts to economic shock therapy. In fact, as a share of gross domestic product, the annual pace of cuts Musk envisions would surpass Thatcher’s in the 1980s, when the Iron Lady dramatically cut UK government spending to close budget deficits and fight inflation and ended up triggering a recession for which she was unrepentant.
A big deal being that Thatcher had a lot more to cut.