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There is no doubt that the federal government wastes money and that its operations could be made more efficient. Numerous reports from inspector generals have said so.
However, there is a rational way to go about cutting this waste and increasing efficiency. And, then there’s the way the Trump administration is doing it, which is haphazard, wasteful, and cruel. It is also making Americans less safe.
Take what they’ve done to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Elon Musk, who runs Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which isn’t really a government agency subject to the normal rules that guide federal departments, gleefully said his staff was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
The agency provides aid, often food and medicine, to some of the poorest parts of the world. This aid not only builds goodwill towards America, it saves and improves lives, something Americans used to support.
By precipitously firing USAID staff (some of whom had to escape from dangerous countries to make their way back to the U.S. on their own dime) and interrupting its operations, millions of tons of medicine and food are now sitting unused in ports and distribution centers. It is estimated that $500 million worth of food, which the U.S. has already paid for, will go to waste. The fate of another $8 billion in undistributed aid is uncertain, according to a recent inspector general report.
U.S. farmers provide much of the food that is distributed by USAID. Many farmers, particularly those who grow rice, wheat and soybeans, now worry that they are losing a major customer and may no longer get paid by USAID.
This is replacing perceived waste with actual waste, while also ruining peoples’ lives, at home and abroad.
Last week, the Trump administration fired 300 staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration. After the firings, they apparently belatedly realized that many of these federal workers oversee the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, making sure they remain safe and out of the hands of bad actors. When the administration quickly wanted to rehire some, they found out that they didn’t have contact information for them because access to that information had been wiped out when they were fired.
This is not improving government operations, or our national security. And, it highlights how poorly thought out this assault on our government is. Those decimating federal agencies don’t even fully understand what they do.
Funding freezes and unilateral changes in how research grants are administered, which Sen. Susan Collins has called “poorly conceived,” threaten to stall and hamper research, including into cancer treatments and other life-saving medical advances. Less federal research support will likely make Maine’s farms, forests and oceans more at risk for dangerous and costly disease outbreaks.
Just days after three deadly plane crashes in the U.S., the Trump administration forged ahead with plans to shrink the Federal Aviation Administration workforce.
As the Bangor Daily News reported this week, no one knows how many federal employees in Maine have been fired, or how the essential work that they do will get done.
At the same time, there are concerns that the DOGE team has accessed the personal information of millions of Americans.
This is government overreach in chaos. Sure the work of inspectors general, a slew of whom Trump recently fired, is slow and too often ignored by members of Congress who are loath to stop financial support for projects, programs and offices in their districts. But, examining government spending and programs in a methodical way and measuring performance against a transparent set of parameters has to be better than the chaotic, dangerous and unaccountable way that the Trump administration has so far slashed government agencies and employment.
Beyond the chaos created by Trump and Musk, they have also usurped the power of Congress. It is up to Congress, not the president and his designees, to establish or abolish government agencies. It is up to Congress, not the president and his designees, to fund these agencies.
Allowing Trump and Musk to defund and shutter agencies crosses a constitutional “red line,” Sen. Angus King has warned.
Because there is no transparency and accountability to what DOGE is doing, we have no real idea why all these people are being fired and federal funding withheld. Is it so Republicans will have money to “pay for” extending tax cuts that mostly benefitted the wealthiest Americans? Is it so Elon Musk and his companies can take over core government functions? Is it to weaken America to benefit a malevolent foreign power?
The fact that we don’t know is terrifying.
Trump and Musk have largely sidelined Congress. It is time for our elected representatives, especially Republicans, who control both the U.S. House and Senate, to reassert their authority, to get answers and to stop this dangerous overreach. They can then authorize and undertake a thoughtful and comprehensive review of government operations.