Are we now the United States of DOGE?

DOGE, Elon Musk’s ill-conceived attempt to reduce the size of government, is destined to be Donald Trump’s biggest failure.

The entire civilian federal workforce’s compensation in 2022 was $271 billion; by comparison, also in 2022, we paid $476 billion in interest payments on the federal debt alone (and in 2024 those interest payments leaped to $1.12 trillion, or roughly 4 times the cost of all federal civilian employees combined).

The point is, since you can’t just shutter the entire federal government (without obliterating the U.S. economy in the process), and U.S. citizens rightly expect SOMETHING in return for their tax dollars, acting like immediate government austerity measures will fix anything is ludicrous. Therefore, instituting an immediate federal hiring freeze, immediately ending remote and tele-work, and immediately purging DEI (which, by the way, was how disabled veterans were given preferential treatment in government hiring, but screw those guys, right?) just recklessly disrupts American lives and hampers the efficient operation of government.

Is this what America stands for now? Do we hate government so much that we’re willing to threaten Americans’ livelihoods, and families, without warning, to punish them for the mismanagement of others? Do we demand immediate savings at the expense of gross inefficiency?

DOGE is literally begging federal employees to resign so they can show immediate impact on federal spending: All so we can justify creating a new federal agency — DOGE! This is asinine!

Anthony Miell

Iowa City