Commentary by Jerry Lanson

A few days ago, he announced that in just two weeks he’ll be close to cutting $1 trillion from the federal government. It’s a dubious claim. Musk lies a good bit, and the courts are slowing his most egregious moves.

What’s more, cutting jobs doesn’t always mean saving money. Crippling reductions in the Internal Revenue staff, for example, could cause the government to collect 10% less in taxes in 2025, The Washington Post reports. That translates to $500 billion.

But for the moment, let’s grant Musk his not-so-little lie. Let’s instead focus on the fact that his slash-and-burn tactics could hurt the country for decades.

The timing of this assessment matters because Musk blanketed Wisconsin with money and braggadocio for days in advance of Tuesday’s vote for a new Supreme Court justice there. He himself became a central campaign issue.

So what has DOGE – his infamous Department of Government Efficiency – actually done?

I would argue that its record is not pretty, though it can be hard to parse where DOGE ends and agency-inspired reshuffling starts. What’s clear, however, is that parts of the American government are beginning to look like the rubble of the Myanmar earthquake.

Social Security

Musk’s DOGE wants to reduce the agency’s workforce by 7,000 workers. It is already at its lowest level in 50 years. Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley warns that the odds of a “system collapse” are high. More cuts may yet come.

The Brookings Institute writes that individual retirement accounts could be targeted, an ominous warning.

“Earnings records could be erased or altered – either maliciously or by accident,” it writes. “A president intent on retribution, for example, could manipulate the earnings records of a political opponent.”

Nearly 70 million people receive some form of Social Security. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested recently that only “fraudsters” would complain about a late check. Yet 40% of recipients rely exclusively on their Social Security checks to survive. Fraudsters?

Health Care

The Trump administration announced plans last Thursday to cut 20,000 workers in the Department of Health and Human Services, just shy of a quarter of its employees nationwide, NPR reported. The agency, headed by vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and more.

Science and Research

Broad-based cuts in scientific and health research at universities and specialized institutions could undermine American progress and our ability to compete in areas such as AI and medical research for many years.

Nature magazine reported that a survey of more than 1,600 American scientists and researchers found that three-quarters are considering leaving the United States, most to work in Canada or Europe.

“Ask economists which of the administration’s policies they are most concerned about and many point to cuts to federal support for scientific research,” The New York Times reported Monday. “The Trump administration in recent weeks has canceled or frozen billions of dollars in federal grants made to researchers through the NIH and has moved to sharply curtail funding for academic medical centers and other institutions. It has also tried to fire hundreds of workers at the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency. And it has revoked visas of hundreds of foreign-born students. To economists, the policies threaten to undermine US competitiveness … and to leave Americans as a whole, poorer, less healthy and less productive in the decades ahead.”

Education

The Trump administration wants to shutter the Department of Education, censor books in schools and clamp down on university curricula. 

“One day they are dismantling the department [of Education], the next day they are weaponizing it,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said on Boston’s WGBH radio Tuesday. 

The Department of Education, which began in 1979, has a budget of about $100 billion. When it shuts down, services at risk will include Pell Grants that help support lower-income college students; assistance in applying for federal loans; support for students with disabilities in grades K-12; and programs intended to help school districts with disproportionate numbers of low-income students.

“This is about dismantling and abolishing what gives kids opportunity,” Weingarten said.

Veterans Affairs

Joy Marver spent 22 years serving the US government. Until a week ago, the disabled veteran was working at the Veterans Administration near Minneapolis helping retrain soldiers for civilian work and coordinating veteran burials. Then, abruptly, she got fired.

The New York Times told Marver’s story Sunday in a touching narrative titled, “She Devoted Her Life to Serving the US. Then DOGE targeted her.” Marver is one of 80,000 employees, many of them veterans, the agency plans to fire this year. The NYT noted that she suffered traumatic brain injury in Iraq. Helping others has helped her on her long road to recovery. She won an employee of the month award and was hailed as a “great employee” in October.

But Musk and his DOGE boys don’t look at people. They look at numbers, revel as they slash the bureaucracy and often demean those they’ve fired without knowing anything about them. Marver’s firing shook her to the core.

Other veterans are losing jobs, losing access to much-needed care and losing the respect they’ve clearly earned. CNN reports that the agency is considering automating call centers that veterans use to set up appointments.

“Veterans in need of life-saving care and compassion should be met with a person who understands their needs and can provide them the information and resources they seek, not a lifeless machine, a Democratic congressional staff member told CNN.

USAID

The overwhelming majority of employees at the United States Agency for International Development will have lost their jobs by this summer, CBS News reports. The agency for six decades has had bipartisan support in fighting disease and supporting development in poorer countries around the world. Its assistance also spreads good will for the United States.

Its elimination (it’s officially being absorbed by the State Department) already has had catastrophic results. Writes CNN: “More than 11,000 additional TB (tuberculosis) patients are estimated to have died in the two months since almost all USAID funding froze on January 24.” TB infections are expected to rise roundly 30% this year as a result of the cuts. That’s a single disease.

The program’s demise also has hurt American farmers – heavily Trump voters – who sold surplus grains to USAID.

Looking Ahead

If you are a numbers person and remain unmoved by these bullet points, consider the economic impact of both DOGE cuts and Trump’s tariffs.

1. Economists increasingly are talking about stagflation – rising prices and rising unemployment. The CNBC Rapid Update, an average of economists’ forecasts, projects a sickly 0.3% increase in growth in the first quarter of 2025. It was 2.3% in the last quarter of last year.

“Economic growth has flatlined so far this year,” writes Axios. “Inflation has picked up. And consumers expect both to get worse.”

• The Washington Post quotes economists who said the sweeping tariffs Donald Trump promises to impose this week will amount to the largest peacetime tax hike in US history.
• The stock market remains shaky. 
• Donald Trump regularly praises Hungary and its autocratic leader. An interesting article in The Atlantic notes the country has become one of the poorest countries in the European Union. Productivity is dropping. Unemployment is climbing. And two-thirds of citizens describe the national education system as “bad.”

Maybe our “co-bros,” Trump and Musk, need a new model of good government.

My thanks to Taegan Goddard and his excellent website, politicalwire.com, which brought many of the articles referenced here to my attention.

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Commentary Fodder

Are you taking President Trump’s comments seriously on his potentially running for a third term? 

Are you watching Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which pits an Elon Musk-backed candidate against a George Soros-backed candidate? 

What about Wednesday, which President Trump calls “liberation day” because he is imposing a 25% tariff on all imported autos? Good or bad for the economy? 

This potentially is a big week for reader comments. But first, you have to comment after reading. 

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