Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s ‘budget cuts’ could spark constitutional clash in Trump presidency: Report

When Elon Musk first proposed a new initiative to reduce the size of government, Donald Trump didn’t seem to take it seriously. His eventual name for the idea also seemed somewhat playful: the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a reference to the popular internet meme featuring a surprised-looking dog from Japan.

But now that Trump has won the election, Musk's fantasy is becoming reality, with the potential to spark a constitutional clash over the balance of power in Washington, reported AP, citing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal(WSJ).

Trump put Musk, the world's richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate, in charge of the new department, which is really an outside advisory committee that will work with people inside the government to reduce spending and regulations.

Elon Musk to encourage impounding

Recently, Musk and Ramaswamy stated that they would urge Trump to make cuts by refusing to spend money allocated by Congress, a practice known as impounding. This proposal directly contradicts a 1974 law designed to prevent future presidents from emulating Richard Nixon, who withheld funding he opposed.

“We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an opinion piece in WSJ. ”We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action."

Trump has already suggested taking such a big step, saying last year that he would “use the president's long-recognised impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”

According to the AP, it would be a bold effort on Trump's part to expand his powers, especially with the support of a Republican-controlled Congress and a conservative-majority US Supreme Court. This move could quickly become one of the most closely scrutinized legal battles of his second term.

“He might get away with it," said William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “Congress' power of the purse will turn into an advisory opinion.”

(with inputs from AP)