I just do not "get" the fetishization of "entitlements." Mainly they are pretty pure transfers and do not create any wealth destruction. There is very little inefficiency in them. If they were financed with a consumption tax the deadweight loss of the wage tax would reduce the deadweight loss of FICA. The problem of entitlements is that Congress will not raide revenue to pay for them.
I'm not a Libertarian, but if I were I'd be highly offended that concerns about breaking laws is called a "Libertarian quibble." I'm all for discovering expenditures with NPV < 0, but DOGE is simply not set up to do that. And of course the great problems of government inefficiency is probably not in expenditures (except some subsidies) but in bad regulations, regulations that do not pass cost benefit analysis.
I just do not "get" the fetishization of "entitlements." Mainly they are pretty pure transfers and do not create any wealth destruction. There is very little inefficiency in them. If they were financed with a consumption tax the deadweight loss of the wage tax would reduce the deadweight loss of FICA. The problem of entitlements is that Congress will not raide revenue to pay for them.
I'm not a Libertarian, but if I were I'd be highly offended that concerns about breaking laws is called a "Libertarian quibble." I'm all for discovering expenditures with NPV < 0, but DOGE is simply not set up to do that. And of course the great problems of government inefficiency is probably not in expenditures (except some subsidies) but in bad regulations, regulations that do not pass cost benefit analysis.