The Department of Government Efficiency draws two extreme reactions from budget-focused observers.
On one side, you have cynics rolling their eyes and arguing that the truly consequential problem is not overpriced government boondoggles but rather entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security and interest on the national debt.
On the other, you have optimists who believe that if we just find and eliminate enough waste, fraud and abuse, we can balance the budget — unless much of the savings is handed out as “DOGE dividend” checks. They point to outrageous spending on “gambling monkeys” and luxury pickleball courts as proof that government is a bloated, reckless disaster. Others think the piecemeal savings could wipe out our government’s $2-trillion annual deficit.
Both perspectives are half right and half dangerously wrong.
I spend much of my time warning people that ever-larger chunks of the budget are consumed by entitlement spending, about which President Trump’s cost-cutters can do little without Congress. Around half of the budget is consumed by just three programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Add in the growing cost of interest payments on our $36-trillion national debt — thanks to both reckless overspending and rising interest rates — and we’re talking about 70% of spending being essentially automatic and untouchable unless real reforms happen.
That’s why the first group of critics shrugs off the cost-cutting work, arguing that finding waste in discretionary spending is like bailing water out of the Titanic with a teacup. They’re missing part of the point.
After all, politicians do spend large sums without restraint, much of it borrowed, on boondoggles that most Americans wouldn’t support if they knew what was happening.
It’s also a matter of good sense. Imagine telling a family drowning in debt that they shouldn’t bother canceling unnecessary streaming subscriptions or eating out less because “the real problem is the mortgage.” It’s a bad argument when applied to household budgets or the federal budget.
Now to be fair, what one person considers wasteful, another person might see as an essential or efficient investment. But this isn’t just a fight over efficiency; it’s a fight over what the federal government should be doing in the first place.
As for me, I look at federal dollars being showered on state governments for local projects — whether for infrastructure, education or pork-barrel transit grants — and see violations of federalism. Should all federal taxpayers really foot the bill for $1.7 million in federal grants to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, N.Y., to build holograms of dead comedians?
Defenders of Trump’s cost-cutting are right that every billion spent by government is a billion taken from the pockets of today’s taxpayers or added to our debt. Every grant, redundant agency and special-interest handout is either a current or future tax hike. This is true for both obvious “waste” and debatable “investments.”
Meanwhile, if the cost-cutting team’s defenders wrongly insist it can fix the budget, that’s no excuse to look away from utterly ridiculous spending. Nor is it a reason to put aside questions about whether Americans should shoulder all these well-meaning programs that make little to no difference in most people’s lives.
That’s why we should know where all the money goes. Would you support $12 million to fund a luxury pickleball complex in Las Vegas? There are billions more in examples, including $28 million once spent on Afghan army camouflage uniforms with a forest pattern, chosen based on an Afghan official’s personal fashion preference, despite most of Afghanistan being desert.
The Washington establishment has no incentive to stop the spending on small, ridiculous stuff or on large, unpaid-for programs. Congress doesn’t have to balance the national budget as the rest of us must balance our own household’s.
Where does that leave us? With the same old truth that we must soon reform entitlement spending to make Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security sustainable. But we must also cut as much as possible of the absurd waste that infects the budget. Rather than endorsing a false choice, we, the people, should simply demand that Congress be the good steward of our tax dollars that it was intended to be. Regardless of what the Department of Government Efficiency does.
Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.
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