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The chaos of DOGE is not about savings or efficiency [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-26
Elon Musk, maybe or maybe not the head of the uncertified or legally sanctioned Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to run rampant through Washington like an out of control wrecking ball, terrorizing federal employees and confusing the devil out of everyone, all in the name of downsizing the government and making it more efficient. Or, at least, that’s the lie they hope we’ll all believe. The problem is, though, when you pull the curtain back on DOGE, like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ the wizard is pulling a fast one.
DOGE’s claim on its ‘Wall of Receipts’ website, for instance, shows that the cancellation of 417 federal contracts, nearly 40 percent of those cancelled, will not save the government any money. Experts, evaluating DOGE’s slash and burn approach to cutting contracts say that it’s claim that the overall contract cancellations are expected to save more than $7 billion is inflated. In addition, some of the canceled contracts were intended to modernize and improve the way government works and cancelling them seems at odds with DOGE’s stated cost-cutting mission.
The veil of secrecy, uncertainty, and outright misinformation surrounding DOGE is also cause for alarm. On social media and at rallies, billionaire Elon Musk has taken credit for leading DOGE, and Trump in public statements and highly visible actions—such as inviting Musk to a joint press conference in the Oval Office—has supported that claim. In a court hearing in a case trying to block DOGE access to Treasury Department systems, however, when pressed by the judge on Musk’s role in DOGE, the DOJ lawyer responded, “I don’t have any information beyond close advisor to the president.”
Except for highly public and publicized actions, such as demanding that government employees report their achievements to OPM or risk being terminated, DOGE’s activities are ‘behind a curtain of secrecy.’ While some agencies pushed back and advised employees not to respond, word out of the White House, and from Trump himself, appear to contradict the agencies, and add more to the confusion. Musk has also bragged publicly of his role in shutting down USAID and halting all aid programs, all without consulting Congress or following established procedures for terminating employment of federal workers.
The cuts being made by DOGE and touted by Musk and Trump have been more hype and political theater rather than real cost savings and seem designed more to intimidate than achieve any real efficiency or savings. Arbitrarily terminating thousands of employees without first doing an analysis of what jobs are essential, how many people are needed to do them, and what the short, medium, and long-term costs of reducing staff will be is like sending a monkey with a weed whacker into your flower garden with instructions to cut the weeds. Unless the monkey knows the difference between a weed and a flower that should be retained, you end up with a destroyed garden. The termination of aid programs is an example. In addition to ending some life-saving programs overseas, it also means lost income for American farmers who sell USAID 41 percent of the food it provides to people in need, or some $2 billion from states across the country.
It's not inaccurate to say that farmers, mostly Trump supporters, will be hurt significantly by this poorly thought action. The terminations and lost income will have an economic impact across the nation and will be costly in terms of unemployment benefits or subsidies to farmers—offsetting any savings.
In addition. Workers who sue for wrongful termination, or who apply for termination benefits will cost the government a pretty penny. There’s also the economic impact on local communities where the federal government is often the largest employer, and this is just in the short term. Long term impacts on national security and service to the public, and the cost of rebuilding what the DOGE thugs are tearing down, could be DOGEing us for decades into the future.
What we have now is fear, anger, and confusion, with even hard-core Trump voters discovering that his actions aren’t hurting just Democrats, but them too. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that savings and efficiency are not the main objectives for the release of the DOGEs of chaos. The only ones who seem to be benefiting from the current mess are the mega-rich who have bent the knee to Trump and his co-president, the unelected South African immigrant who has no fashion sense or empathy. The rest of the country can ‘eat cake’ as far as they are concerned. Now that they’ve served the purpose of getting the Kakistocrats in power, their services are no longer needed. They are as disposable as toilet tissue.
Sadly, We the People, or at least those who stayed at home in November and those who were seduced by the unfulfilled promises of two of America’s premier con men, have ourselves to blame. They aren’t getting what they voted for. I’m tempted to say, though, that they’re getting what they deserve. Unfortunately, those of us who saw this coming and were ignored, are having to suffer along with them
Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.
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