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Seven years ago, President Trump and the Republican Congress enacted tax reforms that benefited the top 1% of America, which is made up of corporations and multi-billionaires. In January, Republicans will again control all levels of the federal government and are committed once again to prioritizing tax cuts for billionaires. These tax cuts come with a big price tag, and Republicans will have to pay for them either by exploding the deficit or cutting programs that communities like ours depend on. 

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), extending these tax cuts would raise the national debt by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years. That’s enough money to fund the Pentagon almost five times over. The people who will benefit the most represent a small percentage of Americans, people like Elon Musk, who President-Elect Trump has tapped to “cut government funding.”

Earlier this year, Musk pledged to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, representing almost a third of our government funding. As this New York Times piece lays out, Musk doesn’t have many viable options:

About a third of federal spending [for the 2023 budget] went to Medicare and Social Security, programs that aid older Americans. Mr. Trump has said explicitly that he will not cut those. Another 13 percent of the budget went to national defense. Based on his track record, Mr. Trump seems unlikely to make major cuts there, either. He massively boosted military spending in his first term, and has promised to “strengthen and modernize” the military in his second.

Another 10 percent of federal spending went to pay interest on the government’s existing debts. Mr. Musk has already cited that as an area of wasteful spending, recirculating an X post from his America PAC that identified interest payments as something the commission could “fix.” But it would be a risky place to pursue any cuts. The government already committed to making these payments, when it first borrowed the money. If the U.S. suddenly stopped paying them, the result could be a default that creates higher interest rates for average Americans and a potential recession.

While it’s unlikely Musk or his co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy will touch any of this spending, they have given us ideas about where the cuts may come from.

Based on the criteria set forth by Ramaswamy, agencies and departments that could be “deleted outright” or “expect mass reductions” include those responsible for veterans’ care, housing assistance, healthcare programs, drug development and research, and even Head Start, the program that bolsters early childhood education for children in need.

The Washington Post recently reported that Trump aides are already discussing significant cuts to Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and other critical safety net programs.

This all raises so many questions Republicans cannot (or do not want to) answer. Do the cuts mean that Republicans will limit how many children are enrolled in Medicaid even further? In El Paso County alone, over 138,000 children under the age of 21 were enrolled in Medicaid in 2022. This critical funding helps children with disabilities, for example. How will their families pay for their healthcare? What about for food? There’s over 136,000 El Pasoans eligible for SNAP. Will families be kicked off the program or will all families be given less funds? Will the students attending Head Start programs in our region no longer receive any funding? The El Paso Head Start program is one of the most important for El Paso families and serves over 4,000 children and expectant mothers. Will the VA’s funding or number of employees be slashed, leading to longer wait times for healthcare? We have over 50,000 veterans in El Paso who depend and deserve their access to healthcare.

Most importantly, do we trust people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to make these decisions? Do we trust them to be deliberate and fully consider the enormous consequences their decisions will have on the thousands of El Pasoans and millions of Americans nationwide that will be affected by these cuts?

I do not. The reality is, the deeply unqualified people President-Elect Trump is placing in key positions or giving vast influence are not here to serve you or work on your behalf. They are working for their self-interests at the expense of many people in our community.

Protecting the programs El Paso depends on will be very challenging given the special interests driving these decisions. Each program, each cut impacts real people – hard-working El Pasoans – who will have to face the consequences of these decisions. But please know I will always fight for our community’s best interests and the resources our community deserves. And along the way, I am committed to keeping you informed.