Comment by jalapenos

Because the whole thing wasn't actually wanted. They just needed some theatre to make it look like they were fulfilling their campaign promise.

Trying to get a government to reduce its spending from within is stupid and naive.

There is no scenario, no matter who is voted in, where government spending goes down. They just talk about it, and then increase spending on the things they like (e.g. the last "big beautiful bill").

This was the primary cause of the Trump-Musk spat: former promised the latter a cost cutting campaign, but it was just a trick, used only to destroy those parts of the government he disliked like USAID, after which he promptly neutered it and signed a massive spending bill, basically having conned him.

If it has actually been wanted - something that's literally impossible unless it was say created through an Article 5 convention - it would have been effective.