There’s No Alternative to Musk’s Chainsaw
When rational liberals discuss the Department of Government Efficiency’s mission to cut the waste and corruption out of the federal budget, (as host Bill Maher and Times columnist Maureen Dowd did on last week’s Club Random) they know that they can’t attack the motivation behind DOGE head on. That would brand them as part of the problem, non-credible throwbacks who never want to see government downsized ever. The nuanced take from leftists who understand that the ship of aggressive downsizing has sailed is to criticize “The way he’s doing it.”
They accuse DOGE of cutting good people who do important work along with the legions of the unnecessary and less productive. It’s probably true, but there’s no alternative to Musk’s chainsaw. If every case of every fired government employee is reviewed, even by Musk’s deft cadre of tech nerds, President Trump will still be trimming around the edges in 2028. The situation has come to such dire straits with unaccountable, metastasized bloat that major surgery is required to save the patient—the United States.
Notwithstanding bleats from leftist corners that DOGE is moving too fast and indiscriminately, approximately 50 percent of the American public understands that. The need to cut government waste has been tossed around for decades. Trump’s playing with a real pigskin, and his administration’s drive to the goalpost of solvency has knocked the air out of the centralized, all-powerful government defense.
The sky-is-falling reaction to this assault on waste, mismanagement, and corruption is telling. The idea of streamlined efficiency is anathema to a class of citizens who believe in the power of government. The majority of these workers lean left, because they were hired by people who lean left. They comprise a bureaucratic D.C. underbelly for whom a species of social justice, and global justice, often supersedes the best interests of the country. They want to take tax dollars from the pockets of Americans and fritter them out to programs, departments, and NGOs in ways that taxpayers would never agree to in the context of full transparency.
Why is Trump at 50 percent in some polls showing approval or disapproval in the direction the country is moving? Why are Democrats struggling to reach 30 percent in the same polls? The Democrat-induced immigration enforcement collapse and the decimating effects of America-last trade policies loom large on the scoreboard.
But there’s another imperative task on Trump’s desk. He’s meeting that with a hurry-up offense against profligate federal spending. Even honest Democrats know: the time for rhetoric and procrastination on government waste is over, and the time to slim down for the health of the nation has come.