Vivek Ramaswamy: belief

Transcript context

…Who do you think is more hardcore on the cutting, you or Elon? Well, I think Elon’s pretty hardcore. Because I said 75% of the federal bureaucrats, and while I was running for president, he said, “You need to put, ‘At least 75%’.” So I agree with him. I think it would be a fun competition to see who ends up more hardcore. I don’t think there’s someone out there who’s going to be more hardcore than he or I would be. And the reason is, I think we share in common a willingness to take the risk and see what happens. The sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. That much I guarantee you. Is there are going to be some broken glass and some damage? Yes, there is. There’s no way around that. But once you’re willing to take that risk, then it doesn’t become so scary anymore. And here’s the thing, Lex, so it’s easy to say this, let’s talk about where the rubber hits the road here. Even in a second Trump term this would be the discussion. President Trump and I have had this conversation, but I think we would continue to have this conversation, is where does it rank on our prioritization list, because there’s always going to be a trade-off. If you have a different policy objective that you want to achieve, a good policy objective, whatever that is, you could talk about immigration policy, you could talk about economic policy, there are other policy objectives, if you’re going to trade off a little bit, in the short-run, the effectiveness of your ability to carry out that policy goal, if you’re also committed to actually thinning out the federal government by 75%… Because there’s just going to be some clunkiness there’s just going to be frictional costs for that level of cut. So the question is, where does that rank on your prioritization list? To pull that off, to pull off a 75% reduction in the size and scale of the federal government, the regulatory state, and the headcount, I think that only happens if that’s your top priority. You could do it at a smaller scale, but at that scale, it only happens if that’s your top priority. Because then, as President, you’re in a position to say, “I know in the super short run, that might even make it a little bit harder for me to do this other thing that I want to do, and use the regulatory state to do it, but I’m gonna pass on that. I’m gonna pass that up, I’m gonna bear that hardship and inconvenience because I know this other goal is more important on the scale of decades and centuries for the country.” So it’s a question of prioritization. And certainly, my own view is that, now is the moment where that needs to be a top priority for saving this country. And if there’s one thing about my campaign, if I was to do it again, I would be even clearer about… Actually, I talked about a lot of things in the campaign, and we can cover a lot of that too. But if there’s one thing that I care about more than anything else, it’s dismantling that bureaucracy. ut… Actually, I talked about a lot of things in the campaign, and we can cover a lot of that too. But if there’s one thing that I care about more than anything else, it’s dismantling that bureaucracy. And moreover, it’s an assault and a crusade on the nanny state itself. And that nanny state presents itself in several forms. There’s the entitlement state, there’s the welfare state, presents itself in the form of the regulatory state, that’s what we’re talking about, and then there’s the foreign nanny state where, effectively, we are subsidizing other countries that aren’t paying their fair share of protection or other resources we provide them. If I was to summarize my ideology in a nutshell, it is to terminate the nanny state in the United States of America in all of its forms; the entitlement state, the regulatory state, and the foreign policy nanny state. Once we’ve done that, we’ve revived the Republic that I think would make George Washington proud.…

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