The DOGE Lie (Or, How to Really Cut Waste In Government):
Look at the Policies Since 1980 Behind Ballooning Deficits & the Bad Outcomes For America. Plus, Other Side Commentary. Call Out the Secret, Illegal Trump Purge, Dems!
Feel free to check the past archives and follow the editions to come in the Trump Era on Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn (First Come, First Serve!).
First off, this blog is reaching around 16,000-17,000 people across the country and globe, including in the corridors of power. Please, please spread the word even more to your neighbors and friends who need to step up and be involved at this time—whether you are a Democrat or Republican. After all, as someone once said, you may not be into politics, but politics is definitely into you. Inform your friends whether through me or otherwise.
On a brief side note, one more campaign petition on a potential gubernatorial, or senatorial, candidate down the road in Minnesota: Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan.
Meanwhile, FBI pick Kash Patel has potential conflicts of interest at play with stock awards from Trump Media numbering $800,000.
Now, let’s also say this one more time together: Trump did not get a majority of the popular vote. This election is really among the closest in the popular vote since 1960 and 1968.
While we are at it, forget the genuine Trump supporters all across the country for a moment. Just think of how to define the Trump Presidency and his entire career as a whole.
For me, it can be defined by one simple word, and nothing more: oligarchy. Trump didn’t work his way to the top, learn his way to the top, test his way to the top. He just bought his way to the top and connected his way to the top.
People may say that all amounts to, “I don’t like Trump.” Well, if Trump had made himself into a true populist—despite his rich boy childhood and adulthood—then maybe I would see things differently.
But alas, even if I sometimes get intrigued by his populist campaign promises, he almost always reneges on them while in office.
That attitude, that fake sympathy, that fake understanding is characteristic of many people in the oligarchy today. Who thinks Elon Musk earned his way up the ladder to the White House? He didn’t, and he certainly doesn’t deserve it to possibly reroute contracts to his own electric vehicle company (Tesla), his own social media website (X), his own space exploration company (SpaceX), and his own military defense digital network (Starlink).
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t, especially since he was hostile towards Trump the first go-around. Nor did Jeff Bezos. Nor did OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Nor did the TikTok CEO, whose platform Trump tried to ban in 2020. Nor the cryptocurrency industry that Trump himself once opposed along with “Big Tech” (but now that the Big Tech oligarchs help him, it’s okay).
You get the point. They bought and connected their way to the top. If MAGA was the real populist movement, it would be the working class represented and featured in the 2nd Trump White House. Regular people like the Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien and ILA’s Harold Daggett and IAFF’s Edward Kelly, police officers and firefighters, border patrol agents and military veterans, coal miners and oil drillers, on and on. But they aren’t there.
They weren’t there at the front of the inauguration crowd, and there is a clear reason for that.
Republican Party trickle-down economics of the past 45 years paired with culture warrior mentality led us to oligarchy and kleptocracy. It led us into the Second Gilded Age. We don’t need to cover this in detail again, because we all know it and live it from paycheck-to-paycheck. That outcome was not inevitable. It was because of government priorities.
When Franklin Roosevelt lifted the entire nation out of a Great Depression, and when Lyndon Johnson lifted millions of Americans from the brink through a War on Poverty, they invested in working people. Indeed, Keynesian Economics often emphasized running debt high to get working people out of a funk as we did in the 1930s and 1960s. Why? Because that debt was an investment that would pay dividends when the economy got roaring and working people felt the prosperity.
As 1930s-1960s America demonstrated, the government did its job on both counts. In bad times, it bailed out the American worker; in good times, it allowed working America to feel the gains of a roaring economy.
And funnily enough, the debt back then was only a small sliver of the government deficit we now have today.
Republican elites claim to care about the deficit, especially the Tea Partiers and MAGA acolytes. What they don’t say is their policies got us to that point of political oligarchy and whacked out government finances. This is their problem, one they are not equipped to address.
Unsurprisingly though, MAGA has not taken the hint. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (the latter who has already exited, stage right, and God only knows how long Trump will be able to tolerate Elon’s showboating antics) proposed a Department of Government Efficiency (a.k.a., DOGE).
Let’s be clear: Democrats should have a voice on what DOGE does or doesn’t do. In fact, Democrats should come up with what DOGE should really focus on beyond conservative orthodoxy that led us to this point in society today.
Here are all the ways Democrats can cut waste in government that invests in working people and can reduce the deficit significantly, paired alongside an agenda outline proposal I have previously written about before:
Repeal the approximately $2 trillion Trump Tax Cuts 1.0 that went to the top 1%, and not implement Trump Tax Cuts 2.0 for the elites, with possible exceptions for the meager relief those tax cuts gave to working families. “The crumbs that fall from the master’s table,” you might say.
Repeal the Bush Tax Cuts that have cost $8 trillion since their implementation in 2001 and 2003.
Repeal the Reagan Tax Cuts that have cost $200 billion since their implementation in 1981 and 1986.
Close tax loopholes for the wealthy, including the carried interest loophole, Swiss bank account loopholes, and the foreign-derived intangible income loophole.
Raise the corporate minimum tax and some other corporate tax rates from its lows of high-teens and low-twenties to around 35%, in conjunction at once with the rest of the world.
Raise taxes for the top 1% tax bracket (and maybe top 10%) to at least a bare minimum of 25%, if not higher.
Cancel contracts and reform Pentagon policies with defense contractors who price gouge the military, taxpayers, and the safety of our veterans. Including Elon Musk.
Review and renegotiate the $800 billion Pentagon budget that has been called out regularly for waste, abuse, and fraud.
Pause or end contracts with private prisons and private prison companies similar to the ones that donated to Trump’s Inauguration Fund (at least $3 billion)
Repeal the at least $92 billion of corporate welfare spending packages that are given to the largest multinational corporations and big businesses, which could offer a tax cut of $880 for each American household.
Repeal the $757 billion of taxpayer money given to the fossil fuel industry by the US government, and redirect it towards clean, renewable energy investments, etc.
Look at the roughly $30 billion in agricultural subsidies, most of which are given to factory farms and agribusiness monopolies.
Rescind the $462 billion given by taxpayers towards private healthcare plans such as Medicare Advantage and Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and make them public services.
Review the continuation of 401K plans for Social Security and pension plans that include unnecessary management and administrative fees, and make them public services too ($282 billion).
Reign in the wasteful and woefully mismanaged Charter Schools Program ($400 million).
End eligibility of federal aid grants for for-profit colleges.
Claw back parts of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout for applicable companies who engaged in unlawful mortgage and real estate practices.
Restore regulations that save taxpayers money and time by cracking down on unlawful and reckless behavior (e.g., Dodd-Frank, etc.).
Refund the Internal Revenue Service to receive paid bills on wealthy earners who didn’t pay their taxes, or evaded taxes outright ($688 billion at least).
Take money stolen from Americans through abuse, fraud, and waste in Donald Trump’s $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020-2021 period.
Ask for returns for the $200 million in Small Business Administration grants given to stars like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne in 2021.
Reconsider funding for foreign governments who do not need it and/or do not adhere to international human rights standards or democratic norms, including Russia, China, Venezuela, Uganda, Myanmar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
Review and reconsider all IT contracts the federal government previously agreed to
End the costly, DeJoy-style Postal Service privatization initiatives pegged at $90 billion
Put a ban on extravagant travel practices to prevent incidents like that of Scott Pruitt and Tom Price from happening again, alongside other anti-corruption measures.
Address the payment errors that cost more money than is necessary by the billions, maybe trillions, of dollars.
Look at all government contracts with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy’s businesses
Rehire the dozen or so Inspectors General (and other civil servants) Trump fired recently.
While not all the way for sure, this at least is a start to confronting the real issues at hand in our government’s budget, which DOGE Committee members like California Congressman Ro Khanna and Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz can outline.
It’s better than shutting down or “freezing” the important services working people really need like Meals on Wheels, Head Start, Pell Grants, Medicaid, domestic violence assistance, community health centers, home heating assistance, rental assistance, disaster relief, firefighting funding, the suicide hotlines, veteran care, daycare, free school lunches, Food Stamps, and WIC among many others.
Finally, on this issue and others, I am heartened by the shift in rhetoric and policy from the Democratic Party that is less corporate-oriented than it was 20 and even 10 years ago. It is because of people like newly elected Progressive Caucus Chair and Texas Representative Greg Casar, who is ready to hit Trump where it matters most, on the real economic pain contrasted with Trump’s fake working class bonafides. He is known as a labor organizer and is well-equipped for this moment in leading the Congressional Progressives.
Similarly, Kansas Congresswoman Sharice Davids (who I hope leads the New Democrat Coalition after 2026) has proven to be a champion of populist causes like antitrust action in the grocery chain market, along with industrial policy that attracts development and capital from small businesses and entrepreneurs instead of multinational corporations. This is a shift long needed in the Democratic Party because of leaders like Casar and Davids, which returns it closer towards its longtime roots.
Similarly, for those looking for an alternative, charismatic, more combative populist Democratic message, look no further than Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.
DOGE provides us with a similar “fork in the road.” Do we seize the moment, or do we let MAGA seize even more power for itself and for its failed agenda?
Excellent takedown of this DOGE nonsense, Mike!