In the abstract, “government” can seem inefficient and wasteful. But Americans will miss him when he’s gone.
Shortly after his re-election as president, Donald Trump tapped two close supporters, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to create an advisory commission called DOGE (formally the Department of Government Effectiveness), named after an Internet meme that ‘is the face of Musk’s beloved cryptocurrency, tasked with finding ways to cut costs and roll back regulations. That effort would be outside the government — the president can’t create a new department on his own — and would have no power to actually cut, as that is reserved for Congress. Even so, Musk has promised to cut at least $2 trillion from the $5.4 trillion the government spends each year (excluding the interest the government pays on its debt). Trump has pledged to preserve Social Security and Medicare, which are worth nearly $1.5 trillion each. So Musk’s promise means eliminating almost everything the government does, including defense spending. By convening a group like DOGE and throwing around big numbers, Musk, Trump and Ramaswamy are sending a clear message: government is wasteful and unnecessary. Musk and Ramaswamy haven’t offered specifics on what they’ll be targeting, but if and when the cuts begin, those missing details will come in stark relief. “Government” in the abstract can sound mild at best or angry at worst. But Americans will miss him when he’s gone.
Do you like to breathe air and drink water? The Environmental Protection Agency makes sure that corporations can’t spew chemicals into the air or discharge them into groundwater without consequence. Remember acid rain? It was a huge problem until the EPA started regulating it in the 1990s, and then it pretty much disappeared.
Do you enjoy eating and taking medicine that doesn’t make you sick? Getting rid of the government means getting rid of the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to make sure drugs are safe before they go on the market. This eliminates the Department of Agriculture’s oversight of food processing, which ensures that our produce and meat are not covered in feces or pierced with pieces of metal.
Do you enjoy driving to work on pothole-free highways and bridges that don’t collapse? Do you enjoy flying planes that don’t crash into each other in the air? You can thank the Department of Transportation, which allocates money to maintain and improve infrastructure and oversees the air traffic control system. At least 10 large bridges that are in poor condition were repaired last year. There has been no fatal crash involving a major US airline in 15 years, the longest period on record.
Do you enjoy coming to work, being paid fairly and protected from dying on the job? The Department of Labor makes sure employers pay at least minimum wage, don’t go over the top with tips or wrongful deductions, and don’t cough up extra money for overtime. Over the past four years, the department has returned more than $1 billion in stolen wages to workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the only agency charged with preventing employers from making mistakes that lead to avoidable workplace illnesses, injuries, and deaths. Since its inception in 1970, daily workplace fatalities have decreased by 60 percent and injuries and illnesses by 75 percent.
Musk floated the idea of ”eliminating the CFPB,” or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling it “duplication.” On the contrary, the CFPB is solely responsible for putting billions of dollars back into consumers’ pockets. Since its inception in 2011, it has provided more than $21 billion in compensation to more than 205 million consumers in the form of refunds, debt relief and other assistance. The bureau has cracked down on junk fees going into bank accounts, picked up misinformation on credit reports, made sure lenders followed nondiscriminatory practices and cracked down on pesky debt collectors. He secured full restitution for victims of the Wells Fargo fake account scandal.
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There are countless other examples of government protections that Americans take for granted every day, not to mention the welfare programs that help them stay afloat. Does the government perform all these duties flawlessly? Definitely not. But the typical cause of poor performance is a lack of adequate funding, not corruption or incompetence. OSHA’s headcount has been reduced so much that its inspectors can rarely set foot in most workplaces. A recent surge in busy calls at airports has been linked to chronic understaffing in the air traffic control system. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Inspection Service has long struggled with understaffing.
These are not the problems that Musk and Ramaswamy intend to solve. Instead, their mandate is to provide a blowtorch to the federal bureaucracy. It is far from clear what, if anything, they can accomplish; many such commissions have been convened in the past and their efforts show little. But perhaps the point is to sow distrust in the idea of power. When they talk about “waste and fraud,” remember the details of the agencies and programs they’re talking about. Could you really do without them?
