Everyone likes to complain about government spending. It is a national pastime that transcends cultures, languages and countries. It is a truth universally acknowledged that all bureaucracies are bloated, waste money and are inefficient (except potentially one or two northern European countries which seem to have everything figured out), but what many are beginning to see is that what Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is doing is making the situation worse.
The department was created at the beginning of 2025 with lofty yet imprecise goals like rooting out corruption and cutting unnecessary government spending. While this sounds good in theory, all organizations have some areas of frivolous spending that should be eliminated, but when they are as big as the federal government, the number of checks, balances and red tape needed for it to function make it very hard to cut these areas without sacrificing real working budgets.
But DOGE does not seem to grasp that a government is not meant to work like a company, it is not meant to be efficient and save money, as it is not indebted to shareholders who will get a slice of the profits at the end of the year. Governments are beholden to their citizens and should do everything possible to allocate every single cent to helping those in need with no other recourse even when it is wildly inefficient. Especially when it is wildly inefficient.
Let us take the US Postal Service as an example. Private shipping companies do not serve remote areas, as it is very inefficient and costly to do so, so they will refuse to transport packages and letters to certain areas. What would happen to all those living in remote locations if we privatized the service that is legally obligated to serve these residents? They would not be served. Or the government would have to pay three times more to have official correspondence sent out to them, negating any savings from privatizing the service.
Well, this is what Musk’s new organization is trying to do to the entire federal government, and the consequences will be disastrous for anyone that depends on a service that is deemed ineffective or too expensive “for no good reason”.
The services that are affected by Elon Musk’s DOGE cost cutting measures.
As of the date this article was published, over 6,000 federal employees have been eliminated from their jobs. An injunction has meant that many o them have been rehired on paper, but while they are still getting paid they are not performing their duties, costing the American taxpayers even more money.
And it is not just money, it is also valuable resources in the form of “lost workers” that are no longer able to do their jobs because a counterpart in another department has been relived from their duties. The sudden loss of personnel, from inspectors and sniffer dog handlers to biologists and specialized technicians, has thrown multiple departments into chaos. The USDA, for instance, has been forced to halt operations for 45 days, citing the staffing cuts as the primary cause of their temporary shutdown.
And there is more, CNN reports that funding has been cut for two major programs gave $1 billion farmers across 40 states, which then supplied food to underserved communities, benefiting food banks, pantries, and schools. Meanwhile, The Huffington Post suggests that these cuts could signal an impending agricultural crisis in the U.S as the lack of government funds will make it unsustainable to maintain the ridiculously low process needed to compete with other food producers, which will bankrupt farmers.
The cuts being made are not benefitting Americans, the money is not going back to the coffers to provide more services. They are benefitting the large corporations that will, in theory, come in and fill the gaps for a substantial increase in costs for the public and profits for the already rich.