Please, No DOGE

 

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a plan to create a government efficiency commission led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk if re-elected president. This commission would conduct a financial and performance audit of the entire federal government. Musk is pushing the idea of the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), emphasizing concerns about government overspending.

Subsequent comments set a $2 trillion reduction out of a total federal spending of something approaching $7 trillion.

Some History

A few data points to begin.  When the United States closed the gold window in 1971, unleashing all hell on the idea of money and, therefore, fiscal discipline, federal spending was $210 billion.  In 2007, the year before the great financial crisis, spending was $2.7 trillion.  Then came TARP, and all types of supposedly one-time programs, raising spending to $3.5 trillion in 2009.  I say “supposedly one-time,” because the feds never looked back. 

By 2019, the years before the planned-demic, spending grew to $4.4 trillion, almost all of the growth coming under Trump’s watch (with Republican support or a split congress).  Then, the gusher: in 2020, $6.5 trillion – all the various programs to help those poor covidians (in reality, it was all a financial system bailout – the fake illness was just the pretext; once the scam began, every department found a way to not let the crisis go to waste).  Did the number shrink post-covid?  No, current estimates are $6.75 trillion.

To cut $2 trillion from this amount shouldn’t be so tough – just take government back to 2019 levels.  Before the fake illness, before the fake president.  Does anyone feel like the government was somehow starved then, like we didn’t have enough state?

Let’s start with “Department”

I know DOGE is just a cute name, but names come with a mentality, forming a purpose.  How many government departments, once created, have ever been shut down or shrunk? 

In other words, please don’t form a department.  It will be staffed, and soon enough those on the staff will have a reason to perpetuate the existence of another department.

And this might be the worst department ever to perpetuate…

“Government Efficiency”?

First of all, this is an oxymoron.  In order for any institution to be motivated toward efficiency, a few things are required: revenue from willing customers, and the idea of profit and loss.  The government has neither of these.

The government need not satisfy its customers in order to collect revenue; it doesn’t even collect revenue from its customers in any case.  Those who pay into the federal government do so because prison is the other option.

Further, profit and loss are irrelevant to the federal government.  It can tax, print, or borrow to offset any deficits, and can do this almost indefinitely (with the sole form of discipline being an eventual destruction of the currency, the timing of which is unknown and unknowable).

But there is a bigger problem: do I want the government to more efficiently kill innocents overseas; more efficiently spy on me; more efficiently incarcerate perpetrators of victimless crimes; more efficiently process illegal aliens?  Oh, the list can go on.

Almost all that the government does are things that I do not want the government to do.  So why would I want the government to be more efficient at any of these?

So, Now What?

If anyone is half serious about cutting $2 trillion out of this bloated government (which isn’t nearly enough, but I will play along), there is a simple way: give each department the amount of money they received in 2019 – just five short years ago, the amount before the supposedly one-time covidiot spending plan.  Then just force the issue.  Heck, if Trump is elected and is allowed to take office (a story for another time) this just would mean he gets to play with everything he had toward the end of his last term (pre-covidiocy).

Now, I know that no one in charge of any of these departments would know how to get from 2024 to 2019 spending, so I will help. 

A person familiar with Musk’s thinking, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, described the billionaire’s business philosophy as “you don’t want to optimize something until you delete the things you don’t need. And so, when you talk about a product or a process, it’s like, delete, delete, delete.”

This is the right first step: don’t just reduce, eliminate.  How many governmental departments are un-Constitutional?  Most.  How many are redundant with departments at the state or local level?  Most of the rest.  So just eliminate these, close them down permanently.  Frankly, if this is done, I suspect spending would be less than $1 trillion a year.  Job done and then some big tax cuts to follow.  Talk about Making America Great Again.

So, first, eliminate every un-Constitutional department (frankly, this could reduce spending by at least 75%).  To show some compassion toward those who show none to me (I am taught to love me enemies, as you know: offer every government employee five or ten years toward their retirement if they choose to retire immediately.  Not just in these un-Constitutional departments, but throughout the federal government.

Look, I would rather pay them to not do anything than to continue paying them to do what they are currently doing.

Thereafter:

·         Allow no replacement hiring until the $2 trillion reduction is met (again, I disagree with this minimal target, but I am playing along) and federal budgets are balanced with no tax increases.

·         Immediately cancel all outsourced contracts for consulting and advisory type services.  If you are still going to spend $4.75 trillion (the annual revenue of eight Walmarts or eight Amazons), don’t tell me that you continue to require outside experts for anything.

·         Cancel all foreign aid.

·         No longer fund any NGOs.

·         As for military spending…one-quarter of the amount currently spent should be more than enough to defend the United States.

·         Eliminate the income tax – personal and corporate – and if any revenue is needed after the above “efficiencies” (it won’t be), replace it with a federal sales tax to be collected by the states then remitted to the US Treasury (as most of the states already know how to collect sales tax).

o   Hence, eliminate the IRS entirely.

Now that this has been done, what stops it all from coming back once Trump and Musk are out (if they even get in)?  If you are really serious about keeping this beast under control, back the dollar with gold – the cash in your wallet and in your bank account exchangeable for gold on demand at your bank.

Then again, they get to police themselves, so….

Conclusion

Even if Trump and Musk get in, nothing like this will happen.  Can you even comprehend the weight of those who suck on the government teat?  Everyone who is anyone will fight against every action to reduce the spending.  Banks, the military-industrial-complex, heck, even Trump’s best supporters will fight this (“keep your government hands off of my Medicare”).

At most, Musk and his buddies will make some aspects of government more efficient – Blackwater will fix the DOD, Palantir will fix the CIA and FBI, etc.  You get the idea.   

I want none of that.

Epilogue

Well, just as I figured:

For more than a month, Elon Musk has been eyeing a position leading a task force under a hypothetical Trump administration. Now, it appears his role has been downgraded to “writing software” to help slash the federal budget, according to Former President Donald Trump’s transition team co-chair.

“He’s going to be adjacent to [the government]. I think adjacent to it and writing software for the government and then giving the software to the government and helping the government,” Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick told CNN Wednesday evening. “It’s going to be amazing.”

This would be the worst possible outcome….