Donald Trump, a billionaire, has filled his administration with other billionaires, the most high profile of which is his political benefactor and “first buddy” Elon Musk. Musk has taken it upon himself to drastically reorganize the federal government through an initiative he’s dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, a recent poll found that a majority of Americans don’t approve of DOGE, don’t like Musk, and are generally against billionaires having an influence on the presidential decision-making process.
The poll, which was conducted by AP-NORC, found that only approximately 30% of Americans were supportive of Musk’s DOGE effort. Meanwhile, the poll found that 52% of Americans had a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Musk. Only about 36% of poll respondents said they had a very or somewhat favorable view of him. 39% of Americans said they strongly or somewhat disapproved of Musk’s DOGE program; 12% said they neither approved nor disapproved of the effort. Another 19% said they didn’t know what they thought.
Additionally, the poll showed a majority of Americans (60%) think it is “very” or at least “somewhat” bad for the U.S. president to rely on billionaires or their own family members for the purposes of government decision-making. Close to half (40%) said it was very bad. When broken down by political affiliation, Republicans were much more likely to say they supported billionaire influence than Democrats.
The poll also found that, contrary to DOGE’s goal of cutting large amounts of government spending, a majority of Americans believe that the federal government isn’t spending enough on certain areas. “Do you think the U.S. government is spending too much, too little, or the right amount on each of the following?” the poll asked, with a number of categories. According to the poll results, 67% of Americans believe that the government isn’t spending enough on Social Security, 65% believe it isn’t spending enough on education, and 61% believe it isn’t spending enough on Medicare.
By contrast, Trump has espoused plans to abolish the Department of Education (which provides funding for schools), and key supporters of the president (including Musk) have floated the idea of making cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare as a way of achieving DOGE’s absurd fiscal goals. Some analyses of Musk’s DOGE program say he would have to cut pretty much all spending with the exception of defense and mandatory spending to reach his goal of eliminating $2 trillion from the federal budget. Politically speaking, many commentators have dubbed this impossible.
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