'Biggest parasite of all': Ex-Clinton official lays waste to Musk lie about cost-cutting
27 February
Elon Musk reacts, on the day he meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025.
Musk is trying to downplay the chaos he’s creating by saying it’s much the same as the cost-cutting efforts of the Clinton administration.
“What @DOGE is doing is similar to Clinton/Gore Dem policies of the 1990s,” he posted on his X platform.
Rubbish.
I cut costs in the Clinton administration. The contrast with what Musk is doing couldn’t be sharper.
As secretary of labor, I took the Department of Labor down from 18,500 employees to 16,600 — but did it without any layoffs. No chainsaws. No meat-axes.
And we were careful to improve the services we were providing the public.
For example, when people lost jobs in an industry that was shrinking, we devised a way to get them job-training and job-search assistance in addition to unemployment insurance. This helped move them into new jobs faster — which also saved the government over $1 billion a year in unemployment payments.
We plowed that $1 billion back into job-training and job-search assistance, making the whole economy work better.
In Musk’s attack on the federal workforce, thousands of federal workers have been fired without warning. Or they’ve been offered fake “deferred resignation” buyouts that were never authorized by Congress and may not be legal.
Entire agencies have been gutted without legislative authorization, forcing judges to intervene.
Our “Reinventing Government” effort was authorized by bipartisan congressional legislation. We worked carefully over several years to identify areas where government could be more efficient, notifying Congress of what we were doing.
But the Republicans who control Congress today have allowed Musk to race ahead without them, even though the Constitution states that the legislative branch approves spending and federal law prohibits the president from cutting programs Congress has authorized without its permission.
Clinton sought that permission, and Congress accepted $3.6 billion in cuts he proposed.
We also involved federal workers, because they knew better than anyone what could be improved and how best to do it.
We introduced performance standards, we encouraged our workers to embrace the internet, and we gave out awards to employees who came up with ways to cut red tape and improve service.
“There was a tremendous effort put into understanding what should happen and what should change,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, which seeks to improve the federal workforce. “What is happening now is actually taking us backwards.”
We were deliberative and careful. Musk is the opposite.
Musk sees government workers as the enemy — as costs to be cut.
We saw government workers as assets to be developed, our partners in getting better services to the public more efficiently.
Musk also calls people who benefit from government programs the “parasite class.” Presumably that’s why he’s eager to cut back Medicaid. But Medicaid’s beneficiaries aren’t parasites. Half of them are children.
Oh, but if we’re talking about people who depend on government, Musk is the biggest “parasite” of all.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits, often at critical moments, helping seed the growth that has made him the richest person in the world.
That he views public servants as his enemy and the people who benefit from public programs as “parasites” tells you all you need to know about Elon Musk.
When you hear Musk say his effort is similar to what I and others did in the 1990s, know he’s lying. When you see him call people who benefit from public programs “parasites,” know he’s a hypocrite.
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Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/