{"id":786736,"date":"2026-05-10T14:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786736\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T14:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:55:14","slug":"this-is-the-way-elon-musk-endorses-warren-buffetts-famed-5-minute-plan-to-fix-the-national-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786736\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is the way\u2019: Elon Musk endorses Warren Buffett\u2019s famed 5-minute plan to fix the national debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The national debt is set to reach $40 trillion<\/a> in the near future if it continues to grow at its current pace. That has caught the attention of the richest man in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elon Musk has joined the likes<\/a> of Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in supporting a solution to lowering the national debt, made famous by former Berkshire Hathaway<\/a> CEO Warren Buffett.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can end the deficit in five minutes,\u201d Buffet said in a 2011 interview with CNBC<\/a>. \u201cYou just pass a law that says that anytime there\u2019s a deficit of more than 3% of the GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection. Now, you\u2019ve got the incentives in the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan received Musk\u2019s full endorsement. \u201cThis is the way,\u201d he wrote in June, sharing the interview in a post<\/a> on X<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, the national debt ballooned by $2.6 trillion<\/a>, and currently stands at $38.9 trillion, or 124% of the economy, according to the U.S. Treasury<\/a>. Recently, the country\u2019s public liabilities, the portion of the national debt the federal government owes people outside the government, exceeded the size of the economy<\/a>\u00a0for the first time since World War II. Then, there\u2019s interest<\/a> on top of that, which costs more than $22 billion a week, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO). <\/p>\n

Buffett is far from the only one sounding the alarm on the national debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, the nonpartisan think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) warned<\/a> the average interest rate on the national debt could exceed economic growth by fiscal year 2031.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce interest rates exceed the growth rate\u2026primary deficits will lead debt to grow indefinitely,\u201d the CRFB warned in a blog post<\/a> on March 9.\u200b The committee also endorses the 3% of GDP target.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While members of Congress haven\u2019t warmed to the idea of being replaced over the national debt, a bipartisan group of representatives in January introduced a resolution<\/a> to lower the deficit to 3% of GDP.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What capping the deficit would actually do<\/p>\n

In 2024, under the Biden administration, Buffett predicted higher taxes were coming for businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may decide that someday they don\u2019t want the fiscal deficit to be this large, because that has some important consequences. And they may not want to decrease spending a lot, and they may decide they\u2019ll take a larger percentage of what we earn, and we\u2019ll pay it,\u201d he said<\/a> at Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in May 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that point, the national debt was more than $34 trillion, or 122% of GDP. Buffett has rebuffed companies that search for the smallest loopholes to reduce their tax burden. Since the first Trump administration, corporations have paid a maximum tax rate of 21%, compared to 35% previously. This tax rate was not changed the Biden administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best speculation is that U.S. debt will be acceptable for a very long time, because there is not much alternative,\u201d Buffett said.<\/p>\n

A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on March 17, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The national debt is set to reach $40 trillion in the near future if it continues to grow…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":786737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[13236,64,20009,79,66,209550,40634,18244,18246,67,132,68,4327],"class_list":{"0":"post-786736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-budget-deficit","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-deficit","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-evergreen-refresh","14":"tag-national-debt","15":"tag-scott-bessent","16":"tag-u-s-department-of-the-treasury","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-warren-buffett"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116550862609306914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}