With a Roar
Donald Trump came into office with a “roar”. He put his “richest-man-in-the-world” friend, Elon Musk, in charge of slashing the government. They even came up with a “catchy” name for their project: DOGE. The Department of Government Efficiency was neither a Department (only Congress can create Departments) nor was it particularly efficient. In fact, they were nothing if not ruthless and destructive. There wasn’t any analysis of the “impact” of the DOGE cuts. Elon said it best – he took a “chainsaw” to the US Government.
President Trump is fond of using the “disease” analogy for the impact of his actions on Americans. He says that sometimes “the medicine” makes you feel sicker before you feel better. But the medical analogy for DOGE is the battlefield hospital in the Civil War, with arms and legs stacked outside the tent, hacked off by bloodied surgeons as quickly as casualties come through the door.
Waste, Fraud and Abuse
Musk planned on “saving” $2 Trillion from “waste, fraud and abuse”. Then, he quickly revised the number to $1 Trillion. But here we are, one hundred and some days later, and DOGE is “proudly” claiming to have saved $150 Billion, and Musk is going back to save Tesla. Now, $150 Billion isn’t really “chump change”. It’s the annual cost of climate change on Americans (CNN), or the border crisis according to the Republicans (House Budget Committee), or how much more Congress wants to spend on Defense next year (Air and Space).
But DOGE doesn’t come cost free. In fact, estimates of the cost of DOGE’s cost-cuts, are $135 Billion (CBS). That means that all the turmoil, all the real, actual, deaths caused by DOGE cuts, all the damage to our government and economy, might have saved $15 Billion. That’s just about the cost of one Ford Class Aircraft Carrier (NPR).
What costs? There’s the cost of all the folks who were fired, but promised months of pay (fired in February, paid until September). That’s money paid without work gained. And it’s not even counting the cost of defending the myriad of Federal lawsuits DOGE created, argued “for free” by the Justice Department. That’s work created, without funding for it. And, of course, it doesn’t include the cost of the elderly or Veterans spending hours waiting to get through to Social Security or Medicare or the VA. And the future costs of unemployment, as the fired Federal workers can’t find jobs in the struggling economy that Trump has created. That’s not on the DOGE bill either.
Big Brother
Meanwhile, the internal government processes DOGE hacked and cut might never recover. The actual numbers that track government inventories have been deleted from the files. Stacks of “things”, from soup to nuts, are no longer accounted for. And the data the “DOGE Kids” lifted from the Internal Revenue Service (and yesterday, the Postal Service) may turn up in all sorts of places. Those of us old enough to remember 1984, the book, recognize the phrase “Big Brother is Watching”. It was all about the eyes of the government on everything you do, public and private. Well, “Big Brother” has a whole lot more information now, and can cross-check it, “harvesting” all the data about you and me. To mimic my MAGA friends, “Thanks Donald Trump!!”.
Have it Both Ways
And meanwhile, the Trump Administration is literally promising two opposite things from the tariff policy. On the one hand, they argue that tariffs will raise so much money, that the government might consider wiping out income taxes for those making $200,000 or less. Of course, since it’s consumers who pay the costs of the tariffs, it’s not really a “tax-cut”; it’s more of a “tax shift”. And it’s a regressive tax shift. More of the tax burden lands on lower income Americans; forced to pay higher prices for all sorts of imported goods.
On the other hand, they promise that the tariffs will be “negotiated”, and won’t impact prices. So if the tariffs are negotiated, and therefore not collected at the rates that Trump first imposed, then where will the money be to “cut taxes”? Republicans in Congress are depending on the tariffs to generate the revenue to cover their proposed budget. That includes more than $1 trillion in deficits without tariff money. How will all that work?
Congress wants to cut taxes. Congress wants to spend money. Trump says he may not collect that money, because he’ll “make a deal”. It all sounds like a scam…doesn’t it?
The real title for this essay should be, “…figures lie and liars figure”. And there’s a whole lot of figuring and lying coming out of DOGE, Congress, and Trump today.
