Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are partnering to create a new U.S. government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk underwrote the Trump campaign with $200 million in donations (AP estimate) and his own brand of buying votes.
Supposedly, the acronym comes from Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, the Doge. Whatever. When Heather Cox Richardson says the name of the pending Musk/Ramaswamy agency, she pronounces it doggy. She’s authoritative enough for me.
So yes, Musk paid for his new appointment, which represent a colossal conflict of interest, as that agency reportedly, avowedly, will shut down many regulations that currently govern aspects of Musk’s enormous U.S. government contracts. Getting his new powers involved corruption — a person really isn’t supposed to pay to acquire powers in the U.S. federal government. Can there be a shred of doubt that corruption won’t feature in nullifying EPA regulations on SpaceX, Tesla, and other Musk holdings?
But that is just toxic foreplay. Musk and Ramaswamy tell Forbes they will cut some $2 trillion in U.S. federal spending (sparing all the contracts with Musk-owned corporations, no doubt). What do they intend to defund?
They will get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which tells us, “We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law.” Thanks, Elon, for planning to deep-six this one.
Goodbye, Department of Education. Populist demagogues like Trump have railed against such an unwanted department for decades, clearly tired of spending funds on schools that serve marginalized communities
DOGE will get really vicious with organizations like Planned Parenthood, which averages approximately $50 million a year in federal funding. Reproductive help for women is almost certainly taking that hit.
Musk will make headlines when he and Ramaswamy end the $535 million federal support for public radio and TV. They actually called that “unauthorized spending,” even though Congress authorized it. You may not get public TV — so long, Sesame Street — but you will get a full display of gaslighting.
The Veterans Administration healthcare funding is targeted by Musk — interesting, a white South African deciding the U.S. military veterans should stop getting healthcare.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed “austerity” measures on some poor countries that were not managing to repay loans and the impacts were severe, with poverty increased and government services decreased, even eliminated. The targeted countries — such as Greece, Kenya, and many more — reacted with cries of extreme pain and many of those harmful punishing policies were curtailed.
Musk says his DOGE will inflict hardship. Many Americans will lose their jobs, both inside the government and outside. The government contracts with many companies and when DOGE decides those contracts are not going to be honored, the losses will be severe in some quarters. Add to that the rising consumer prices that are widely predicted from Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China (and possibly everyone else), and the American lifestyle may be in for the biggest shock since 1929.
When Trump was desperately seeking votes from retirees and those who love them, he promised not to cut Social Security, and even added that he would stop the practice of the IRS taxing Social Security. We will see if Musk lets him keep that promise.
It is astonishing that, in a roaring Biden-Harris economy that is benefiting literally every class of Americans, Trump garnered more votes than Harris and will throw wrenches into many of the gears of that economy, if Musk succeeds.
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.
