DOGE cuts have unleashed chaos

President Trump and Musk’s DOGE have frozen spending and fired or laid off employees in a slapdash manner and in critical cases have had to scramble to get employees back for essential work.

Ebola prevention in Uganda was halted and frozen funding was revived to continue this essential effort. HIV treatment in several countries suffered the same fate. Taiwan’s security aid was halted then renewed.

Food is rotting in ports and U.S. farmers have food in storage earmarked for the world through USAID but now with no market. Farmers, farm equipment manufacturers and dealers, transporters, shippers, distributors will be losing their jobs.

U. S. workers who secured and protected the nuclear arsenal were fired; frantic efforts had to be made to get them back in place. Some fired workers on the Veteran’s Crisis Line, a suicide prevention hotline, were recalled but not all. Bird flu researchers were fired and rehired. Cancer researchers’ funding was frozen and secondary expenses eliminated; researchers and graduate students lost positions and only some have been restored. FDA inspectors testing new medicines for safety were out the door but returned when drug companies protested. Workers were fired from the FAA but then recalled to their vital air safety jobs. The IRS lost a raft of employees. We have no clue how that will play out with tax season upon us. Forest firefighters are not hired back.

Havoc is unleashed and congresspeople need to step up. Call them. The courts can’t do it all.

Nancy Sauerman

Cedar Rapids