Ode to DOGE: The Department of Government Elimination
It is hard to believe that it has only been seven weeks since inauguration day. In that short time, the 47th President's vision of “ The dawn of America's Golden Age” has begun to take shape, not as a glorious renewal, but as something darker with a sense of foreboding. Very few of us are prepared for what that vision may be.
DOGE, the so called Department of Government Efficiency seems to be anything but efficient. For example, In just a few weeks DOGE has implemented mass firings across key federal agencies with total disregard for standard reduction in force (RIF) practices. Employee tenure, veteran status, and performance ratings notwithstanding.
They have frozen hiring and fired thousands of IRS workers at the beginning of tax season, but the disruption isn't limited to tax enforcement. It extends to scientific research as well. Funding for programs like the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) has been cut. Programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have been pivotal in advancing scientific knowledge, and training the next generation of researchers. Firing some of the top minds researching cures for cancer and many other diseases to save money seems counterintuitive to say the least.
Many meteorologists and satellite specialists from the National Weather Service (NWS) have been fired as we approach tornado and hurricane season. This undermines the agencies ability to warn citizens of natural disasters and storms in a timely fashion.
Make no mistake, this is a task that requires precision but Musk has taken his “chainsaw for bureaucracy” and decimated the ranks of civil service. Exhibiting a carelessness that makes one ask “ how does firing those responsible for predicting life threatening weather events serve efficiency in any way?
Initially DOGE's actions seemed chaotic. Until you consider who stands to benefit from a hollowed out government. When looking through that lens, these actions seem less about efficiency and more about weakening public institutions to clear a path for privatization, where billionaires stand to profit at the public's expense. Efficiency was never the endgame, and the evidence suggests DOGE is intentionally undermining government agencies from within. Then a logical conclusion is that their true mission is to systematically dismantle the very government it claims to make more efficient.
Then to make matters worse, many if not all Republicans in Congress seem more focused on protecting the billionaires who fund their campaigns than representing the people who actually pay their $174,000 salaries. Some in Congress rail against federal workers, saying “ Federal workers do not deserve their jobs” while collecting six figure checks each year. All while ignoring the fact that they are federal workers themselves. This is the height of hypocrisy.
This isn't about efficiency. It's about gutting public services until they are sold off, and replaced by 'for profit' alternatives that answer only to shareholders. Imagine the Post Office being run by a profit driven entity that sends you a bill every month for delivering your mail, like it's a Netflix account. What happens when the board of directors decide that most of the rural routes are not profitable and they choose to cut your services to boost profits? Corporations do not value public benefit over their own bottom line. Then you have Elon Musk offering to send four thousand Starlink satellites to the FAA “free of charge” in a bid to replace verizon as the contractor for the upgrade to the air traffic control system.
Musk also supplied nearly 3700 units to Ukraine, where they play a crucial role in military communications. Yet he has openly acknowledged that if he shut down Starlink , Ukraine's frontline would collapse, raising questions about his unchecked power over critical infrastructure. Is this really who you want controlling our air traffic control system? Privatizing The FAA could lead to cost cutting, fewer safety regulations, and would be a threat to national security.
The bottom line is that with every agency that DOGE interferes with, it shows their hand, that the real endgame isn't smaller government. It's no government at all. A post Constitutional corporate takeover where we have a CEO instead of a President. If this is their definition of efficiency then maybe it's time to call DOGE what it really is, a blueprint for dismantling democracy.
That would make DOGE more like the “ Department of Government Elimination”
Silent Sentinel
“The watchman has spoken. Let the sleeper awaken.”
Clarity is the beginning of resistance.
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