Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is firing government workers with all the compassion and intelligence of a great white shark. Indeed, in some cases it is hard to tell if any humans at all are involved in the process. So it should come as no surprise that DOGE is working to automate the process of firing federal workers. I’m all for it, when done with a little more care.
An Associated Press analysis of the firings so far found that there already may be more than 200,000 people without a job across the government, which has roughly 3 million employees. And the firings come along with the slashing of billions in grants that go to the vast “private” nonprofit arm of the federal government that literally spans the globe. The world will be better off with less meddling from D.C.
But that’s not all there is to Musk’s march through the federal government. You might think this earthquake in Washington is an unprecedented right-sizing of a government that has grown larger than ever after Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s presidencies. You might also think that these cuts will make a big dent in deficit spending, which has been growing for the last 25 years since the budget was last balanced.
You’re meant to think that as this is what the show is all about – brave Washington newcomers bringing start-up culture to a lazy Leviathan. But remember that Donald Trump’s presidency, whether you agree with his policies (as I often do) or you disagree, is a reality show with the same distorting lens as “The Apprentice” or “The Bachelor.”
Think of Musk as a character who is taking on a big role this season while Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth wait for episodes when they’ll take center stage. Trump is both the star and the executive producer who will decide what happens on stage and who gets screen time. Just like the red roses, the pink slips are a distraction.
Musk appears to have cut nearly as many jobs in 30 days as the government ranks shrank during Bill Clinton’s two terms in office back in the 1990s when the budget was last balanced. But personnel expenses make up less than 10% of the federal budget, and the grants targeted by Musk are a small fraction of what the government does.
The real money that drives the deficit is in entitlements – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which make up more than 60% of federal spending. Our government is primarily a pass-through for checks – Social Security – and services provided by the private sector – health care.
That part of the government is not so big as a jobs program or as a grant-making apparatus and as a result doesn’t employ many people. There are 60,000 employees at Social Security, or about 5% of the federal work force. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services employs about 6,000.
But what it does do is critical in the lives of the people it helps, which is why Trump promised during the campaign that he would not cut any of the big three entitlements. Axing them would crater Trump’s popularity.
That’s why this giant show is going on to keep us all distracted. The budget working its way through Congress in an arcane way intended to avoid the Democrats’ last hope – a Senate filibuster – is already set to cut Medicaid by a half trillion dollars over 10 years.
You can believe that Trump was fibbing about Medicaid but really meant his promises about Medicare and Social Security if you want. As for me, I’ve been lied to in Washington enough times that I am not waiting for my rose.
By DAVID MASTIO/Miami Herald
