A GOOD NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

Get DOGE Started…If We Can

Of the many pledges incoming President Donald Trump has made, the one that excited me the most was the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the size of the federal government has kept growing so far beyond its constitutional limits, the cost has also skyrocketed. While civil servants used to trade a high salary for a nearly guaranteed job and a small pension, they are now over-compensated, especially compared to their private sector counterparts.

We know there’s a lot of fat to cut. Founded in 1984, Citizens Against Government Waste #cagw has published myriad suggestions of how to cut the size of government. Sadly, there has been limited success. But on the heels of an inflation surge that made everyone poorer, people are more likely to support doing whatever we can to cut our federal costs. And almost more important, to cut the huge cost of the interest on our debt. At last look, the debt has surpassed $36 trillion which was less of a problem when our Fed interest rate was so low, but is now a huge problem as the Fed tries (badly) to fix inflation.

Where Should DOGE Start?

Suggestions from Epoch Times #epochtimes include the funding of ridiculous studies which are trying to understand either things we already know or things we don’t care about, like “how cocaine affects the sex lives of Japanese quails.” No, I didn’t make that up. They also recommend ending the funding of bogus climate-change projects, costs that are in the billions. Many federal office buildings are practically empty. Shove multiple agencies into them and sell off the unneeded buildings. And don’t build more. Stop all funding of activism, where agencies give grants to groups that don’t further the common good.

There are many places to cut but getting the savings down significantly isn’t something that can be done by executive order or by this commission. Neither DOGE nor Trump can eliminate an agency or department, but they can redefine their mission. Sadly, we have to look to Congress to do the work, and we have seen that both parties are too focused on re-election with the inevitable handouts to be willing to make the hard choices. But perhaps DOGE can work to pressure them into some sanity, because the American people are unwilling to be taxed more to sustain this idiocy.

What Congress Should Do

Congress funds all the programs, departments and other aspects of the Fed, so they need to start cutting spending. Not just cutting the promised increases, as they typically do, but actually cut the budget. The first place to start is the IRS, which received huge money to hire more agents, purportedly to go after “the rich,” but, in reality, to get all of us. How many people have caved into unwarranted demands from the IRS out of fear?

There are other over-stuffed departments with personnel who never go to the office and have little to show for it. By telling each agency that they will have to cut their spending by at least 15% next year, it wouldn’t be hard for managers to find these people and eliminate those positions. There shouldn’t be any increase in budgets without a clear and present danger we need to fix. Green subsidies should go away, the EPA should lose half its funding to stop it going after people who have a puddle on their property…the list goes on.

The problem is that too many have gotten used to Obama-phones, multiple welfare systems and the like. In truth, Social Security and Medicare need radical change (and I’m a beneficiary). When the programs started, life expectancy was much lower. The age to receive benefits should have been going up regularly, but it didn’t. Some countries have bought out recipients and soon-to-be-recipients, transforming their entitlement into an annuity. Medicare is tougher. But something has to be done. We need change now and that will make everyone unhappy.

But let’s start with government employee entitlements, especially Congress. Why should they get fancy planes and other benefits? Why not fly in coach like the rest of us? Don’t give them anything when they leave office. Between good salaries and the payoffs from lobbyists, they should have enough to retire.

When Has it Worked?

To my surprise, the most successful government budget slasher wasn’t Reagan—it was Warren G. Harding. He inherited the Depression with GDP plummeting and unemployment going from 5% to 14% as he took office. He cut federal spending in half in two-plus years, which made the private sector flourish. FDR did the opposite 10 years later, an expansion we have only made worse in the intervening years. We can’t do something that radical, but there is plenty of fat to carve away.

Javier Millei is working miracles in Argentina. The trick was having people suffer under years of mismanagement and risk that caused them to be open to radical change. Perhaps we’re there now. Many are still struggling, though Biden/Harris love to claim to have whipped inflation. They didn’t.

It’s up to us to vote for congresspeople who will do the hard work and start demanding real downsizing. As we all experienced in the private sector over the past 20 years, no one is guaranteed a job. Let the public sector experience layoffs. It’s time.