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DOGE: Shut It Down Before It’s Too Damn Late
To survey the macro-market news landscape mid-week is just to collect and arrange stories about Donald Trump's tariffs and the invasive species that is Elon Musk's "DOGE" initiative.
The latter, I felt compelled to point out Wednesday at the risk of inciting irritability both among Musk's critics and especially his acolytes, may well go down as the most brazen usurpation of government by a private citizen in US history. It's also an unfathomably egregious intrusion into Americans' privacy, and
I should have read this after lunch, it extinguished my appetite.
Spot on. I think you might be understating the case somewhat. The purging of fence sitters and installation of MAGAT diehards will create a cadre of federal employees ripe for exploitation by foreign powers. Rather than making America Great, this will hasten our downfall. The billionaire class had better take note, this is an existential threat to your wealth.
Of course I’m understating the case “somewhat.” I’m understating it a lot. In fact, it’s impossible to overstate the case here. But I try, where possible, to limit the abrasiveness. Being caustic doesn’t enhance the message. In fact, it muddies it.
Good point. I should detect and limit abrasiveness.
“this is an existential threat to your wealth”
Thank you for the warning, sir.
This logic string is very realistic. TINA is true for all of us and equities are very overvlued like 1973 with a lunatic who thinks he is (but is not) in control.
Questions: Who or How could DOGE be shut down? Who has the authority? Where is the failure to shut it down happening?
Congress. Congress needs to say what any pre-Trump Congress would’ve said. The leaders of both parties would’ve met with the president at The White House and said “Listen, we’re going to impeach you in the House and then we’re going to remove you in the Senate, and we’re going to start later this afternoon unless you stop trying to strip us of the powers that are ours.”
More broadly, Trump’s gathering the powers of an autocrat not because he’s taking them, but rather because we’re giving them to him. Nobody ever tells him “no.” Not really. Not even during his first term, when he was allegedly “obstructed” by the “deep state,” and impeached twice. He never, ever, gets a real “no.” So why should anyone expect him to stop?
The first rule in “On Tyranny” is to not obey in advance. I guess Congress isn’t aware of this short book.
Meanwhile, Joe Six Pack just sees the headlines with big numbers and promises of “DOGE refunds” that right-wing media will share. Trump will pass another deficit funded tax cut and claim it’s coming from DOGE “savings”. Joe Six Pack will be none the wiser until planes are crash down, social security checks show up late, rural hospitals close, and crops rot away in grain bins. They won’t see all the people who lose their lives to disease, war, and terrorist attacks internationally as a result of the US pulling foreign aid.
Glad someone else read Projekt 2025 instead of just waiving in front of people’s faces like the Dems did during the elections. I suspect most didn’t read it.
Jon Stewart, on his podcast, recently asked Hakim Jeffries where the Dems version of Project 2025 was and Hakim danced around the question with memorized talking points about eggs or something other that a plan of action.
Hardly anyone reads anything all the way through anymore. It’s a wholly lamentable state of affairs.
If I found the other teams playbook, I’d surely read it and adjust accordingly. For a group that touts their book smarts, they’re looking more and more illiterate. They’re either going to learn some street smarts or keep getting shanked in the alley. To quote the great DLR “why behave in public if you’re living on a playground’
Excellent analysis. The problem is only the Supreme Court or the voters in 2026 can stop it, but by then, I fear, it will be too late.
On the night trump won I mourned for what I believed would befall this country. God said, “Hold my beer.”
Have mercy on us big guy.
DOGE’s overstatement of how much spending it has cut is worse than that. It is taking the entire sum of multi-year contracts as annual savings, and the entire maximum of IDIQ contracts as annual savings. In reality annual savings achieved to date may be around $4-5BN/yr.
Its “voluntarily quit now” memos and wholesale layoffs and firings of federal employees have been more impactful, perhaps saving around $40BN/yr to date.
Eliminating USAID may have saved another $50BN/yr.
The total of say $100BN/yr is not enough to pay for the smallest of Trump’s promised tax cuts (taxes on tips).
The damage to US influence abroad and federal services at home is vastly greater. And Trumusk are just getting started. Congressional Republicans are only just starting to grumble and chide, and in only a few cases. They will soon get caught up in the budget battle.
In my humble opinion, the budget battle will be the biggest test of how much power Trump can consolidate. If he can get all the Republicans to agree on something, we are screwed. If he can get Democrats to play ball, we are screwed. The budget battle is where Democrats have to hold the line and refuse anything short of Trump dismantling DOGE, funding Ukraine, and reducing Trump’s ability to enact tariffs.
Let the Republicans hang themselves by their own petard if they have such an “overwhelming mandate.” Trump has made a lot of promises he cannot keep. Put that on full display.
Yes, the budget battle and threatened government shutdown will be a test of both parties.