Is this Kari Lake’s least serious proposal yet?

US Senate candidate Kari Lake on Wednesday stood firm on her vague proposal to cut the federal budget in half, a move that would decimate the defense budget, eradicate veterans benefits, and terminate nearly 3 million jobs.

Lake has repeatedly advocated for slashing the federal budget by 50% — going as far as to call for a 75% reduction during a meeting with the Payson Tea Party, according to Payson Roundup.

“Democrats, and some politicians in DC, they have overspent,” Lake said. “They passed $1.9 trillion budgets—or, not budgets, spending packages, to buy all kinds of things we don’t need. So we’ve got to cut a lot.”

The spending package referred to by Lake—more commonly known as the American Rescue Plan (ARP)—was a one-time spending package passed in 2021 to offset the negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it temporarily increased inflation, the long-term benefits of the spending package are still being felt. In October, a new affordable housing community opened in Phoenix as a result of a $2.5. Million investment from the ARP.

Removing trillions for jobs, security, defense

But Lake’s proposal would do more than simply trim the fat—it would grind the federal government to a halt and tank the US economy. While promising to cut the budget by 50%, Lake has also stated that she would not touch funding for Social Security and Medicare.

That, coupled with the 12% necessary to pay interest so the government doesn’t default on loans, would leave only 5% of the currency budget—or $435 billion—to fund the entire government, if Lake’s cuts went into effect. Those funds would need to be divided between:

• National Defense, current budget $1.4 trillion
• Health services, current budget $1 trillion
• Income Security—including federal retirement benefits, housing, and unemployment—current budget $677 billion
• Government administration, current budget $400 billion
• Veterans benefits and services, current budget $331 billion
• Education and social services, current budget $228 billion
• Commerce and housing credits, current budget $150 billion
• Transportation, current budget $133 billion
• Natural resources and environment, $121 billion

All that is along with community development, international affairs, agriculture, science, space, technology, energy, and the federal justice system, which currently have a combined budget roughly equal to what Lake would leave for the entire government.

Cuts at this scale would also terminate the jobs of nearly 3 million employees who work at these agencies, along with funding that would go towards their retirement and unemployment benefits. If Lake were to cut spending by 75%, as she aspired to in July, the federal budget would be slashed to $2.1 trillion. After paying off interest from debt, that would leave $1 trillion to fund Social Security and Medicare—which require a combined $2.9 trillion to function—while also completely defunding every other federal government agency, program, and court.

Lake’s proposal is even more extreme than what’s called for in Project 2025, a conservative instruction manual for Donald Trump should he regain the presidency. In it, massive cuts are mandated for the US Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services Departments.

Essentially, Lake is promising to far-right activists on the campaign trail that she would collapse the federal government—or, perhaps, she is simply lying to them, knowing such a drastic move would never work or actually get passed.