Written by Jonah Halpern

Argentina’s Economic Success and America’s Wasteful Failures

For the first time in a long and painful one hundred and twenty-three years, Argentina is in an economic surplus; this means that the country has fully paid off its national debt and now generates more revenue than its expenses. At the helm of this historic accomplishment is President Javier Milei, the libertarian who won Argentina’s 2023 election. His approach has been quite unconventional, closely resembling that of Congressman Ron Paul, famous for coining the term and authoring the book End the Fed, in which he criticized central banking for being “immoral, unconstitutional, impractical, promoting bad economics, and undermining liberty.” Likewise, Milei is widely known as the man who brandishes chainsaws at his rallies, a symbolic gesture representing his commitment to cutting government overspending. 

Countless times throughout his campaign, Milei promised massive reductions in the size of Argentina’s federal government, and not only did he deliver, but he did so with remarkable success. For instance, he slashed monthly inflation from a staggering 25% to just 2.7%, proving the effectiveness of his bold reforms and earning the trust of a population long burdened by economic instability. Moreover, the “country risk,” a measure of bond prices, has dropped to a five-year low, meaning that investors have confidence in the government to repay them. Although poverty, unemployment, and inflation still remain top issues, Milei’s 56% approval rating suggests that most Argentines support his drastic reforms. 

Now let’s shift to a concern that hits closer to home: how can Argentina’s success serve as a model for similar reforms here in the U.S.? As mentioned earlier, Milei’s ideas have already been considered here at home, such as by Ron Paul; however, it will prove more useful to examine a climacteric currently unfolding, not statements made 16 years ago with virtually no relevance today. Let’s shift our focus to something more current: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (although Ramaswamy has since parted ways). These are two billionaires, each with successful businesses of their own – and they hope to emulate how they run their businesses in the way they run our government. That is to say, zero-based budgeting, as Ramaswamy has advocated for on numerous occasions and throughout the course of his 2024 presidential run. As well as firing 80% of employees—as Musk did with Twitter when he first acquired the platform, and not spending in areas where you don’t necessarily need to. Whether it’s the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocating $2.3 million to inject beagles with cocaine to study its adverse effects, spending $28 million on licensing fees for Afghan camouflage uniforms that proved unsuitable for the desert environment, or wasting $1.7 billion to maintain unused and empty buildings, we clearly have an unpayable debt of gratitude to the federal bureaucrats making these fiscally responsible decisions on behalf of the American taxpayer. . . . 

Since we can always trust our very responsible government, this next report may seem even more shocking than the last few. 

Per a report from Openthebooks.com, “More than $1.3 billion U.S. tax dollars were sent to Russia and China over the past five years (since 2017)…” Moreover, the report states, “This amount likely doesn’t reflect the total amount because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars to their final destination.”

 A breakdown of this spending includes:

• “$58.7 million from Department of State, including $96,875 for gender equality through exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons
• $51.6 million from Department of Defense, including $6 million for tech support of the military “deployment and distribution command” software – delivering equipment and supplies anywhere our military is deployed, even though the DOD Inspector General warned the Pentagon about using Chinese IT companies on DOD projects
• $4.2 million from Health and Human Services, including $770,466 to a state-run lab in Russia to put cats on treadmills
• $2.4 million on Russian alcohol and addiction research
• $2 million funneled to China’s state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses and transgenic mice
• $1.6 million to Chinese companies from National School Lunch Program, which means taxpayer dollars from the CARES Act meant for American farmers went to Chinese Agriculture exporters
• $1.45 million for pandemic virus tracking in Russia”

When you sift through all the inefficiency and examine the underlying issue, you’ll find that the only reason DOGE exists is due to the bureaucracy that refuses to curb its lavish spending. Since a bureaucracy cannot and never will be held accountable for its mistakes (as it cannot be voted out), it becomes necessary to address the issue at its root. This means dismantling the bureaucracy—a task that can only be achieved through the executive branch. Obviously, DOGE is not the executive branch; however, although it’s not a cure for the root cause, this does not mean that it can’t be a cure for at least the symptom of government overspending. For the root cause to be unraveled, our President must step in—as Milei has done for Argentina. The insightful Lao Tzu reminds us, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” For the U.S., the first step of that thousand-mile long journey—the journey to eradicate our federal bureaucracy—could very well be the inception of DOGE.

There’s one last important point. Musk and Ramaswamy are both believers that government agencies ought to expire after a certain date or once their purpose has been served. Thus they have set an expiration date for DOGE — July 4, 2026. The way this department has been set up is kind of amusing as well. The acronym DOGE resembles the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, and its expiration date marks the 250th anniversary of the Fourth of July! 

So, if DOGE can help reduce our wasteful spending habits—and even if they fail, they expire in less than two years from now anyway—then it seems their existence certainly cannot hurt and, in fact, will likely help. Their goal is noble, but will they be able to execute effectively? Given Musk and Ramaswamy’s previous successes, it would seem so, but only time will tell. 

NOTES:

$1.7 billion maintaining empty buildings, (https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-jeff-denham-government-property-bill-20160303-story.html

$2.3 million allocated by the NIH injecting beagles with cocaine to determine its adverse effects (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1483248/nih-spent-millions-on-experiments-in-which-puppies-were-injected-with-cocaine/)- $28 million on licensing fees for Afghan camouflage uniforms that didn’t match the desert environment. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/21/pentagon-blew-28-million-uniforms-afghan-soldiers-report-says/413219001/