by James A. Bacon
Dwayne Yancey, founding editor of Cardinal News, may be the most prolific purveyor of commentary in the Old Dominion (although I try to give him a run for his money). He loves making deep dives into the data. He’s often insightful and his tone is always reasonable. I do quibble, however, with the way he has framed his commentary today.
“Those of us who live in rural areas like to think of ourselves as independent and self-reliant,” he writes. Ironically, the data show that rural American communities are among the most dependent in the country upon government transfer payments.
Yancey is too stout of an advocate of rural/western Virginia interests to draw the same conclusion that some of our friends on the left do: that such dependence marks residents of “red” flyover country as hypocrites. He notes correctly that the dependence upon federal largesse reflects the fact that rural populations are older than suburban/urban populations and, therefore, a higher percentage qualifies for Social Security and Medicare — which, I might add, they have been paying into their entire lives.
“This isn’t a case of lazy, shiftless Americans milking the system so they can live on the dole, the classic tale of the “welfare queen,” Yancey says.
Where Yancey goes astray is suggesting that rural residents cast ballots against their interests by voting overwhelmingly for president-elect Trump, who has tasked Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut $2 trillion in government spending. “To reach that goal — or near it — would require cuts to transfer payments like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” he writes.
The voters who most strongly supported Trump are the ones who would most keenly feel the impact of one of his campaign promises, to slash government spending. Trump voters may not care if some six-figure government worker in Northern Virginia loses their job (although perhaps they should, since income taxes from Northern Virginia that help subsidize rural schools, but I digress); what are they going to think if their Social Security check winds up on the chopping block?
Here’s the thing: Trump has vowed not to cut Social Security and Medicare. He has no intention of alienating his core constituencies. This simply won’t happen.
Does this mean that Musk’s goal of slashing $2 trillion in spending out of a $6.75 trillion budget while continuing to make nearly $900+ billion a year in interest payments on the national debt and bolstering U.S. defense capacity is a pipe dream?
Yes. Yes, it does.
That’s the real disconnect.
The U.S. national debt is $36 trillion, and Uncle Sam faces $2 trillion-a-year deficits as far as the eye can see. The nation is in a fiscal box. Boomergeddon looms. The only prayer the nation has of preventing the collapse of the democratic welfare state is to throw a Hail Mary pass: slash spending and use deregulation to stimulate economic growth in the hope that economic output can grow faster than deficits can add to the national debt. If long-term growth (adjusted for periodic recessions) averages 3% annually while payments on the national debt grow only 2.5%, we might conceivably muddle through the 21st century. That, as I see it, is Trump’s plan.
By proclaiming the goal of cutting $2 trillion in spending, Musk is aiming big. If he can achieve a quarter that sum, $500 billion, the effort will be an unprecedented achievement and perhaps enough to alter the fiscal glide path to disaster. But reaching that goal by cutting Social Security and Medicare payouts to rural Americans is a political nonstarter. It won’t happen.
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