For all the Democrats engaged in a weeping and gnashing of teeth exercise, let’s remember that President Trump is just following Bill Clinton’s bureaucracy-cutting example.

Here are some stats from Google AI: In 1990, the U.S. population was 250 million. Today it is estimated to be 335 million. That is up 34%.

In 1990, the federal budget was $1 trillion. Today it is around $7 trillion. That is up 600%. Inflation between 1990 and 2024 totaled 140%, meaning inflation averaged 2.61% over the 34-year period. So the budget went up four times the increase in inflation. I would say it’s pretty clear that out of control spending is the problem.

Total federal revenue in 1990 was $1.03 trillion; in 2024, total federal revenue was $4.92 trillion. That is up 378%, or up 2.7 times the rate of inflation. Revenue is clearly not the problem. It should be noted that capital gains rates were cut in the 1990s, and Bush and Trump both cut federal tax rates, yet revenue still increased 2.7 times the rate of inflation.

The federal debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion; today it is $36 trillion. That is up over 1,000%.

It is easy to see that federal spending and debt are out-of-control even if you adjust for a 34% population increase.

Here are a few things Bill Clinton did in the 1990s because of what he considered a bloated and inefficient federal bureaucracy:

It’s true that during his presidency, Clinton reduced the federal government’s workforce by more than 377,000 employees as part of an initiative called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (initially called the National Performance Review, or NPR). However, there's a key difference between how Clinton's NPR cut jobs and what Trump and Musk are trying.

In March 1993, just two months into his presidency, Clinton announced the creation of the National Performance Review, led by his Vice President, Al Gore. Its goal, according to Clinton’s announcement, was ‘to make the entire Federal Government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.’

[snip]

[I]n 1994, Clinton signed a bill that offered federal workers buyouts of up to $25,000 in an effort to reduce the workforce by 272,000 employees. According to an April 1995 statement from Clinton, the buyouts were largely offered to management positions in an effort to ‘reduce the layers of bureaucracy and micromanagement that were tying Government in knots.’

He cut the number of federal workers by 377,000, which was more than 10%. He also offered buyouts of $25,000 to try to reduce the workforce by 277,000.

I do not remember lawsuits by Democrats or Republicans to block Clinton from doing this. I also do not remember the media being outraged and seeking to destroy Clinton. They supported him.

I do not believe the reduction in workers harmed the economy, which did very well during the 1990s.

Trump is using DOGE to audit federal spending. It is clearly his right and responsibility to do this. He is trying to save America from cascading towards bankruptcy. It is a shame that every president doesn’t review how the taxpayer money is spent for propriety. The legislative and judicial branches of government should also do these audits. We as taxpayers and citizens are entitled to know how all our money is spent.

The media should support transparency and audits instead of seeking to block Americans from seeing the truth.

Image: YouTube video screen grab, edited.