We can only speculate about the real motives prompting Trump/Musk to take a hatchet to the federal government. That motive is clearly not efficiency–indeed, in any logical world, it would be universally seen as insane, as would the betrayal of Ukraine, which undermines America’s global interests. (That betrayal is more than likely prompted by Trump’s continuing anger over Zelensky’s prior refusal to be blackmailed into accusing Joe Biden of invented crimes. Trump holds grudges.)
As I’ve watched Musk’s illegal DOGE wreak havoc with the federal government and put millions of Americans at risk, I revisited an article from Governing published just before that “department” began it’s slash and burn operations. The author, who had participated in several state-level efforts to root out “fraud and waste,” noted that there are proper–and improper– ways to go about that task.
Before sharing the persuasive insights of that article, however, I want to point to a truly foundational issue–one that has become far more evident as DOGE continues its destructive path through our federal government. Most Americans reject what we now understand to be Musk’s definition of “fraud and waste.” Anyone who thinks that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” is clearly incapable of providing an evidence-based definition of either fraud or waste. (Evidently, to Musk, if a government program benefits millions of Americans–or if an agency’s operations interfere with the ability of Musk’s businesses to rip off taxpayers–that function is wasteful, if not fraudulent…)
The linked article begins by agreeing that efforts to streamline government and root out inefficiencies are always appropriate. It then points to some pesky facts about federal expenditures–facts that should guide any legitimate efforts.
Musk and Ramaswamy have promised a 30 percent cut in the federal government. Roughly 60 percent or so of federal spending, however, consists of interest payments on the national debt, Social Security, Medicare and national defense — largely (though not entirely) untouchable. The projected savings therefore purport to come mostly from wiping out everything else: cutting government regulation, eliminating large numbers of government programs and firing even larger numbers of employees.
Gutting regulation does little to reduce government spending, however, while employee compensation makes up only 4 percent of the federal budget. Firing every single federal employee would barely make a ripple. Whatever the merits of all this as policy, in reality it has little to do with efficiency.
In fact, in many ways, the proposed DOGE approach illustrates how not to pursue actual efficiency in government.
The author then suggests realistic ways to make government more efficient.
Be honest and realistic. Thirty years ago, the massive National Performance Review produced recommendations shaving nearly 7 percent off federal operations… it’s possible to reduce spending by as much as 10 percent annually — although not without severe political repercussions.
The “annually recurring” part is important. It’s easy to fake savings through accounting gimmicks and one-time asset sales. Sure, you can close a budget hole by raiding dedicated funds, postponing needed infrastructure repairs or construction, or even doing a sale-leaseback of the state capitol… Real, meaningful “efficiency” recurs year after year. In fact, so should the search for efficiency.
It would be easy to cut government spending by 30 percent by eliminating all health and welfare spending. That may be the goal under DOGE. Unfortunately, about six months later, emergency rooms will be crammed, hospital systems will be incurring massive debts through charity care, workforce productivity will plummet, and communicable diseases will proliferate. Cutting just to cut generally costs more in the long term.
Very little government spending consists of actual fraud and abuse, and less still by beneficiaries filing claims for, say, medical care they never received. It is mostly committed, rather, by providers seeking reimbursements for care they never delivered, or by big-dollar private contractors (particularly in defense: know anyone who fits that description?).
Sometimes, spending saves money. That may sound counterintuitive, but you wouldn’t fire your accounts receivable department, would you? Hiring more revenue collectors is good “business,” even in government.
The author noted that the best way to save money is by improving service delivery, not performative gestures like slashing huge programs. Cutting inefficiency doesn’t require attacking the people who carry out the processes — it requires streamlining the processes themselves.
And rather than firing staff, if we really wanted to find ways to eliminate waste and inefficiency, we would ask the people who work for government–because those are the folks who actually know. “That’s how leaders, public or private, proceed if they’re serious about making their operations work better.”
But of course, making government work better is the farthest thing from Trump/Musk’s mind. They just want it to work better for them.
My speculation as to “why” Trump and Musk, et al, are doing this is simply because they CAN DO THIS. The previous somewhat bipartisan way of running the government, yes I know it was too one-sided at times, has been replaced by the strong nepotism and political patronage system of the tainted Republican party which has replaced the viable Republican party of the GOP. We often didn’t agree with the party results after elections but we did accept them as our government’s way of working. As wrong as the Bush dynasty was and is we accepted them as our presidential leaders till we could replace them. Looking at the list of our presidential leadership from Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, trump 1, Biden, trump 2…what I see is the harshest and most damaging form of racism in this country since the Civil War with trump’s retaliation for Americans electing our Black President…TWICE. Basing trump’s second term on old age was a distraction from his MAGA’s expanded form of racism to all others than white men.
As much as Trump claims to be against immigrants he married two immigrant women who bore him 4 anchor babies of his 5 children and has placed a South African immigrant in charge of our entire livelihood and our lives.
“But of course, making government work better is the farthest thing from Trump/Musk’s mind. They just want it to work better for them.”
Simply put, Trump is a Russian asset. It’s treasonous.
You wonder how long Elon Musk stood in front of the mirror touching his fingertips together trying to look intelligent. When you have a guy that can’t stop cranking out babies, or blowing holes in the ozone layer because he can’t build his starship correctly, how can he be trusted to ferret out waste using his self-created doggie Doo doggie don’t efficacy manual! Howz about not funneling in those billions of dollars in government contracts? WW’ doggie Doo? You would think the doggie doo would be hitting the fan by now! He’s nothing but a doggie doo huckster, just like his boss. An extra large pain in the ARSE.
JoAnn, in the second sentence of your post you used the word “nepotism”. I think the word “despotism” might be more fitting: “the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way”.
Russians!
Russians!
It’s no accident the first letter in both ROCK and RAP begins with an R.
Obviously those venues of expression are clearly developed by the Russian government!
When will their influence end?
Musk warrens. The future of pot holes in America!
Sam Carman, 7:14 a.m.; Let’s add “despotism” to my list, it does fit and thank you for your addition.
Rich bullies, that’s who we are watching dismantle our 250 year old government. Call it oligarchy, dictatorship, kakistocracy, whatever; we now know that the rulers of our nation are full-fledged malignant narcissists, childlike and ignorant of governance, not bothered in the least at the destruction they are leaving in their wake, enthralled by the enormous wealth they carry (trump’s is recent, the result of his ascent to POTUS; musk covers it all, along with the rest of the wealthiest bunch of billionaires to ever sit in a POTUS cabinet, by far). The courts must intervene or it will become irreversible, I’m afraid.
Two things well known about Donald Trump. He’s an extreme authoritarian, and has a human-class ego. Those probably seem incomprehensible for a man of such few accomplishments, but his father was well known for driving his kids nuts by demanding such demented beliefs.
Trump is getting even with the world over every slight he can remember. Perhaps he even keeps a little black book on them.
He doesn’t care about any responsibility that comes his way.
He attracted others who were similar in ego size and authoritarian nature. They made him President, not the average American. They were sharply motivated to get even with a country that slighted them.
Of course, their belief in authoritarianism and themselves over others made them a threat to American liberal democracy, and that was what they were slighted for. So they got even.
Waste, fraud, and abuse, three little words that everyone knows. Waste occurs when the various agencies of government don’t coordinate in their efforts to address issues that might be of concern to more than one agency. As an example, let’s look at clean water. Clean water is a central issue for EPA, USDA, NIH, DoD, and State. Coordination is voluntary. Should that be the case? I think it’s a good idea to require all interested parties to meet regularly to address issues and find the best solutions.
Fraud generally comes in relation to the people who use the systems to defraud the government. There might be a willing government employee participating as well. Our Senator Rick Scott can help us to see how this might happen. He is personally responsible for the biggest case of Medicare fraud in history. On the witness stand, he claimed that he couldn’t remember any of the documents that bore his signature. He got off “scott free” (pun intended).
I’m not sure exactly how to address abuse. I’ve seen it in relation to little power grabs by some whose egos far outweighed their authority. One woman who would hang people out to dry, because they weren’t good people. That is they were being treated for HIV or they might be addicted to drugs or they just weren’t middle class enough to warrant her attention. Fortunately she was retiring as soon as she trained her replacement, me.
As a government worker, in spite of people like my predecessor, you’ll generally take more abuse than you give.
Sheila mentions that Trump holds grudges, which is true of most people. He’s not enlightened or woke (the old definition). Trump believes that the deep state consists of government employees who resisted him during Trump 1.0, when he wanted to accomplish so much more destruction. If you remember, Milley even stated that the Pentagon would ignore Trump’s orders because he claimed to know more than all the generals.
Therefore, the government employees were a target of his and Project 2025. Musk did the same thing to Twitter when he bought it—remember the sink he brought into the offices after he purchased the social media company? He told Joe Rogan that the government is full of waste and that if it cuts too much or hires the wrong people, it can always hire them back. He’s not a leader by any stretch, and I don’t think anyone has ever accused him of being one.
The other dumb thing is why you would fire all the newly hired people on “probation”? They are the most critical minds on staff, and they aren’t set in their ways like old bureaucrats tend to be. They’re also much cheaper.
Neither one of these toadies knows what they’re doing. Period. Musk is still claiming dead people are getting social security checks, which has been debunked numerous times.
The deep state, Biden, and Trump may brag about taking out Assad in Syria, but look at what has happened since with all the murdered civilians. The EU has invited the mass murderer in Damascus to present at a conference. Brilliant! The psychopath we chose to lead has blamed all the murders on Assad, which is not even a creative lie.
These people, including almost all the Republican politicians in Washington right now, are clueless. Many in our statehouse are the same! They have an idea and then act on it without thinking it through. Consequences be damned!
Lastly, cutting off funding for Columbia University and threatening other higher education institutions will create all kinds of consequences. Threatening to deport a pro-Palestinian protester will backfire tremendously among the young people. They might have stayed home in 2024 but won’t be home in 2026. People are getting fed up with all the pro-Zionist Israel laws in this country. When was one class of citizens held up higher than all others? They are blasting DEI across the nation while creating a protected class of Jews. That will also backfire!
Again, one of the definitions of stupidity is not realizing that actions have consequences and pursuing wrong-headed actions anyway. This bit from the referred article illustrates this meaning again:
“It would be easy to cut government spending by 30 percent by eliminating all health and welfare spending. That may be the goal under DOGE. Unfortunately, about six months later, emergency rooms will be crammed, hospital systems will be incurring massive debts through charity care, workforce productivity will plummet, and communicable diseases will proliferate. Cutting just to cut generally costs more in the long term.”
I watched a state governor inform viewers that the destruction of Social Security is sinister in the extreme. He said that DOGE intends to dismantle the functions of SS and claim that it doesn’t work and must be privatized and liquidated. In other words, DOGE/Musk want the SS money funneled to THEIR accounts, not the peoples’.
Crooks, liars, thieves and scumbags by any other names …
People keep saying that the courts will save us from despotism. How would they actually do enforcement? He has replaced the heads of all enforcement arms of federal government with toadies and lackeys, the federal Marshals, the FBI, the Treasury Department (Secret Service) and Defense Department/Pentagon. All of those agents are now under his hand-picked leaders who apparently will do anything he tells them as the courts have given him free rein with the decision granting him immunity from prosecution for criminal acts related to his job.
Roberts’s court is responsible, but who will hold them to account? Several of those men should have been investigated and impeached for fraud and corruption but were protected by McConnell and his own corrupt cadre of Senators. All the while, voters were more concerned about the price of groceries than the loss of their rights. Ennui and entitlement/racism are at the root of our demise. Blood will follow, one way or another.
A recent article described a plan to sell off government buildings around the country at a price below their value. Private sector businesses would then lease the buildings from the private sector companies and continue to use the buildings just as they have. The result is that businesses get a bargain and charge the government for rent…and MAKE A PROFIT. The goal of government is to provide services, NOT make a profit. The way to stop this would be to require that the building never be used for government service again.
So many MAGA folks will go out of their way to thank a member of the military for their service and then support people and policies that betray everything military service represents. When even a former Marine, Todd Young, is willing to participate in the destruction of our Constitution, it is tempting to believe that there is no escape from the insanity. But there is. Resistance is our duty. It is the path back to the rule of law.
blatantly screw the people, you know,the ones who are dumb enough to follow the leader,because they cant live without being told what to do. gather the nuts and eat them. these rich SOBs have no other assignments in life except screw everyone who produces any profit for them,and anyone standing close to them.now were looking at eliminating the ones wjo dont produce,even after a lifetime of supporting this nation. the fact is, they have a power issue,fueled by thier own ilk. once your into the money and hiring staff to kiss your ass every second,and doing the dirty work for the bilkionaires. trump stepped aside the first day to play another round with his first whore showing a buisness posture(what kind of shoes?).yea trucker talk. if anyone in their near mind on the maggot end could add 2+2 and read about 2025 and the long of the idea of its authors, we wouldnt be here. but media blitz and paid think tanks made sure we were agast by our own means,with out knowing it. pure propaganda. trump has sucked the air up and doesnt allow for any attempt at being second staged. NPR even sucks. maybe the media needs a backoff. dont let trumps asswipe voice in any daily news. make the point what he said and move along. if the American public needs to hear him, then let them find him. quit licking his,,,,. the republicans who are elected are being cutely kissed by demos, while they obviously padding each others ass. sure they want change,but its the working class,all of it that will take this hit. Orwells 1984 is next. AI and whos programing it to do what..doge, is a scam to line item Americans. we didnt vote for this.if ya didnt notice, trump fired every IG in every faction hes raiding. if the republicans over the last 40 year put money into investigating this socalled fruad they claim, we wouldnt be in this politcal party scam..
jacobin.com today
trump is launching an assault on SSA
Branko Marcetic..
Sharon, the MAGA people have no idea that they are being inconsistent, probably do not know how to spell the word.
GRIFT!! In one form, or another, Trusk wants MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!! If it hurts the people he resents, so much the better.
Wonder how much Trumps personal wealth has increased in the last six months?
I agree that Trump/Musk are channeling any savings from cuts they are making to be channeled to them thru shell accounts. Treating US government as a business, like Musk’s twitter, is devastating to Americans. Undermining, cutting and dismantling of government functions are negatively affecting/effecting Americas way of life. The disrespect and abusive gaslighting (lying) toward Americans is anti-democratic and obviously used to advance their treasonous agenda. Trump’s and company despotic trajectory will only get worse if he’s allowed to continue.
Ian, you are pretty funny, my guy. Perhaps it’s just a strange coincidence that recent actions undertaken by the US government don’t make much sense if you are concerned about furthering the interests of the “leader of the western world” (i.e. USA, in case it wasn’t clear to you) but did make Putin very, very happy. That’s possible. But then, that means instead of being corrupt, you’re just completely incompetent.
Before the first clown show, Bannon said the goal of the administration would be to destroy the administrative state. The reason was ostensbily “freedom”, but really the goal is to remove barriers to corruption, oppression, and unfettered greed. The tech oligarchs, in particular, have a bizarre dream of a pseudo-utopian society run by them. It’s very much a Huxley’s “Brave New World” sort of vision. It’s weird to me that some people see dystopian novels like these as blueprints rather than warnings, as they are intended.
You are already in a constitutional crisis, but the real test of the USA is coming imminently. Some court decisions are pushing back. When Trump’s administration ignores the courts and the GOP does nothing about it, you’ve lost. And once a break as monumental and fundamental as this occurs, is there any recovery without a complete societal reset? Just like the world has determined you are untrustworthy based on your actions, your government will be deemed illegitimate, and there is no magic fix for that.
You’ve been an oligarchy for a long time, I think, but much like the racism that was once slightly more hidden away in the background, you are no longer covering it up with process, pantomime and pretense: now, it’s all out in the open.
One question exposes all: why have you never developed a universal health care system?
Let’s get down to basics –
People like Musk believe that they, the chosen ones, are rich because they are smarter and better than anyone else, and thus all wealth and power should accrue to them. Also, since they are rich, they must be the smartest (ignore circular logic), so any ideas they have are perfect. Employees are to be treated like dirt, and will work better if they are in constant fear. Also, any and every employee is an optional expenditure (employee = cost); as long as the brilliant leader (Musk) is in charge, all is good.
They also believe that rules and regulations should not be applied to them. Remember back – Sonny Bono ran for Congress because he was outraged that a democratically passed local ordinance applied to him, a rich star. I think I also once mentioned a co-worker who shouted “communist” all day because the HOA (an organization designed with the capitalist goal of preserving property values) prevented him from making some change to his property.
Add to that, while everyone may hold grudges, Trump excels at this, both in length of time, and breadth of involvement. On a scale of 1 to 10, he probably exceeds a trillion.
MAGA folks love other people’s suffering, and often ignore that it is happening the them as well.
Sorry – rambled enough for today – time to divert my attention and recharge, so I’ll be able to give our Senators hell if they ever dare to hold a public forum nearby.
Suggestion for those living in Rep Spartz’s district –
Write or call, thanking her for supporting the administration that will finally destroy Ukraine and return it to being a Russian province.
Also, for staffing the government with more Russian operatives than Joe McCarthy ever imagined in his wildest fantasies.
In government, you can argue and complain, but when you remove accessibility from the pot of gold, you’re going to make enemies. The government is a wrong place to make enemies. Especially with the abilities certain departments have, The FBI, the CIA, The ATF, you get the drift! Whether or not enough pain is caused to elicit a reaction, well, let’s just wait and see, we talked about this at nauseam for years, and what would happen, now we are here, so obviously, plotting, planning, warning, does no good. Sometimes you just need to leave it alone, because it will definitely make you crazy. When folks can’t pay their bills, doesn’t matter left or right, when they can’t purchase a car, when their nest egg is eaten up by recession or depression, When they’re using tax dollars to continue blowing up SpaceX rockets and trying to figure out how to get to Mars, all the while, you are clawing at anything and everything just to survive, how long do you think that’ll last before it completely goes down the toilet. Then, they’ll be talking about this in history. And how, they were dragged through the streets by their feet chained up to pickup trucks. It’s happened in this country before, and it’s definitely happened on the world stage before, that might be worth the price of admission.