Presidential Hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy Touts 'Zero-Base Budgeting' As Fix For Staggering US Debt: 'That's How Any Good CEO Would Handle This Mess'

Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who is rising up in ranks in the Republican presidential primary, emphasized the need to have “zero-base budgeting” in the second GOP debate held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California Wednesday note.

What Happened: “Starting in 2025, we will apply *zero-base* budgeting to the entire federal government: start from scratch in each department & ask what (if any) spending is required, rather than using last year's budget as the default starting point,” said Ramaswamy in a post on X, formerly Twitter, echoing his comments in the debate.

Ramaswamy, who has experience founding and running businesses, including the publicly traded pharma portfolio company Roivant Sciences, said, “That’s how any good CEO would handle this mess.”

He highlighted the U.S. debt, which currently stands at a staggering $33 trillion.

‘We need a true outsider to fix it: the real problem is that *both* parties know no way to budget other than to continue spending on everything without real review of what works,” Ramaswamy said.

In Wednesday’s debate, the presidential hopeful said, “There isn't a single red or blue state in this country that actually does it.”

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Why It’s Important: Venture capitalist and SPAC sponsor Chamath Palihapitiya said in a podcast last week that only contender who understands that there should be no more wars and the need for ZBB for the U.S. government will get many votes. He reasoned that zero-budgeting would prevent the country from going broke.

A Wall Street Journal story published in early September delved into ZBB and its increasing adoption by corporations in a highly uncertain economic environment. Robert Willems, a senior managing director at Accenture reportedly said, “We are seeing a lot of people starting with a clean sheet because they can't rely on their budgets from previous years due to the impact of the pandemic.”

The interest in ZBB, which was first applied to consumer-facing companies, has now been adopted by industrial, technology, and media companies, the report said.

General Motors Corp. GM, Honeywell International, Inc. HON, and Coty, Inc. COTY are among the companies, that have successfully adapted ZBB, it added.

Although all of the presidential hopefuls from the GOP have shown intent on reducing spending and cutting deficits, none, except, Ramaswamy have pledged allegiance to ZBB.

Read Next: Vivek Ramaswamy Doesn’t Want To Be Trump’s Vice President: ‘I Would Not Take That Job’

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