The stark numbers documenting Washington’s shameful profligacy should petrify anyone concerned about financial sanity and America’s future. The shortfall between revenues and spending in the most recent fiscal year exceeded $1.8 trillion, a sum larger than the entire federal budget in Ronald Reagan’s first year as president. Interest on the national debt now consumes more taxpayer dollars than national defense. Total federal debt, which blew through $36 trillion a few months ago, is rising like a rocket.The DOGE project of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is the first serious attempt in decades—maybe even America’s last chance—to tame the spending monster. This is not the first time that someone called the private sector in to fix a chronic public sector problem. Indeed, Musk and Ramaswamy should take inspiration from an American who fostered necessary fiscal discipline in no fewer than three countries—Germany, Japan, and the United States. His name was Joseph Morrell Dodge.
