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Right now, on an island in the middle of an ocean, thousands of miles away from their homes, a team of Defense Department engineers and employees sit idly, wondering when they’re ever coming home.
They sit idly because up until last week, they were awaiting arrival of a new team of workers tasked with advancing a project the DOD has been working on for years now. The project has been deemed vital for our nation’s defense, and specifically for its abilities to track and detect long-range attacks.
But then along came Elon Musk and his team of teenage programmers.
Last week, they essentially zeroed out all government-issued credit cards, placing a $1 limit on most. That includes travel. And that included the new team that was supposed to travel to the undisclosed island to help complete the work.
So, everyone sits. And waits. And wastes money and time.
See, this is the problem with DOGE. It’s stupid.
It performs stupidly. It results in stupid cuts. It causes people stupid grief.
And if you ask anyone in the government at almost any level – and trust me, no group of people has more stories about or outrage over government waste than government employees – they’ll tell you that there’s no chance the way Musk and his team are going about this will ever find substantial levels of fraud and waste. Because fraud and waste aren’t typically entered into data that’s searchable by a nifty algorithm.
Of course, finding actual fraud and waste was never the goal. The goal was causing havoc, running people out of their jobs and creating a subservient group of civil servants, while also pushing as much taxpayer money as possible away from public entities and towards private businesses. Like the ones operated by the unelected billionaire currently leading this slash-and-burn, Sherman-like march through our government, laying off park rangers and shuttering Civil Rights museums while proclaiming “savings” that never materialize.
The truth is if you actually want government efficiency, there’s one group of people who have proven time and again that they can give it to you.
Democrats.
The last true effort to oversee massive government spending cuts came during Bill Clinton’s tenure. You remember him? He was the only president in your lifetime to actually balance the budget. Although Barack Obama, another Democrat, came dang close, despite inheriting the second worst economy in American history.
They didn’t do it stupidly, either. They analyzed, audited and then cut where it made sense. They valued federal employees and the jobs they do.
(By the way, of all the idiocy that’s gone on over the last two months, this vilification of government employees, particularly by the likes of braindead imbeciles like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who couldn’t hold down a job at a car wash, is the most absurd and offensive. Particularly when it comes from voters who have consistently voted to re-elect the very people who have approved and funded every single one of these jobs. Y’all act federal jobs just fell from the sky and the employees who got them cheated somehow. The politicians approved them all. And y’all voted for the politicians. So, really, shut up.)
Democrats know how to run government better and more efficiently. History has proven this repeatedly. Clinton had to clean up Reagan’s and Bush I’s messes. Obama had to clean up Bush II’s mess. Biden had to clean up Trump’s first mess. And God help the Dem who’s going to be stuck with this raging dumpster fire.
That undeniable history probably has a lot to do with why Alabama Republicans were so freaked out last week when Alabama Democrats unveiled their plans for government efficiency.
The three-bill package introduced by House Democrats would protect personal data and information, would require a dynamic fiscal analysis for all government programs projected to exceed $50 million annually and create an independent commission tasked with reviewing government agencies and spending and eliminating excessive or redundant programs and tracking spending.
It’s exactly what we should be doing at the national level.
A dynamic fiscal analysis is more than simply running roughshod through entire departments, firing good people and canceling worthwhile programs because your limited understanding of what they do led you to make a poor decision. Instead, it examines programs based on many factors, including economic impact, efficiency and cost. And only then would decisions be made about cuts.
It’s the same approach Clinton had in the 90s. But I guess it makes too much sense to implement it now.
So, we’ll do it nationally in four years, when Democrats start cleaning up another mess.
