Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative is the latest conservative push to eliminate federal departments and agencies deemed inefficient. However, the criticism of inefficiency implies these agencies serve vital functions. If an agency struggles to perform effectively, isn’t the solution to improve its efficiency rather than dismantle it?
Shutting Down Government Agencies
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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The DOGE cuts, of, by and for, literally, the world’s richest person, with a supporting cast of illustrious multi-billionaires were justified by alleged “government inefficiency.” For these people, the cosmically avaricious, “government inefficiency” simply means – “why should the government, that we own, give any of its money to anyone but us?”
Michael Parenti sums it up:
“Every ruling class in history has wanted only this – ALL (my emphasis) the rewards and none of the burdens.”
https://tinyurl.com/23t6jw2r
The strip doesn’t quite work.
It is possible for a government agency to be vital and inefficient, and for the removal of that inefficiency to improve the amount of help the agency provides. DOGE was never about efficiency. DOGE was a re-do of the Reagan-era gimmick of emptying the mental hospitals and dispersing the staff. Once done, once all that institutional memory was destroyed, it becomes impossible to reassemble it. That’s the plan here. The elimination of programs that benefit the masses and the creation, strengthening, and increasing in programs that enrich the enriched. And now back to the dems being outraged over what Trump tweeted yesterday and today about transgender bathrooms.
Some of the programmes shut down were like USAID, providing (mostly) AID for regime change where the government wasn’t a US puppet, while being sold as providing food and medical care (of which there was a little, but a very small percent of the budget).
Net cuts, though, were insignificant, not making any real dent in the deficit, since the Military-Industrial Complex can’t be cut at all.