I thought about posting my monthly net worth, but at the end of the day, my needle hasn't moved much this month. Instead, I'm going to talk about DOGE, so you are warned up-front. (It may be political, but it's also financial imo, so I'm rolling with it.)
I think part of the problem in life is that, sometimes, people can identify a problem but still not be able to implement an effective solution. However, when they market and sell on the idea of the problem hard enough, especially if it's somehow popular or even accurate, it can get quite a bit of traction.
Unfortunately, fellow savers, I hope we all know that understanding the problem isn't the hard part. The hard part is actually solving the problem. Well... I don't think even DOGE understood the problem really....
Now that Elon Musk is leaving, I think it's reasonable to take a look at what DOGE may or may not have accomplished so far. Looking past all that Dark MAGA hype and chainsaw theatrics, was DOGE able to solve the problem of government bloat? Here's a quick retrospective:
Jan 2025 - President Trump signed an executive order to create DOGE and to put Elon Musk in charge of it. Remember, he personally signed off on it, so this is ultimately his responsibility.
Jan to Feb 2025 - Elon and DOGE goes around, inspecting agencies, accessing and copying the data of hundreds of thousands of American citizens that don't belong to him, including their social security numbers. They were eventually blocked by the Treasury Dept, but who knows how much more data had been accessed and copied for themselves before they were finally blocked? Does this bother you? It bothers me, so I'm mentioning it.
In his now infamous "fork in the road" email, this is also when a lot of the buyouts were offered. Buyouts of many federal employees that they had to re-hire because they were not bloat, but essential to the proper operation of the federal government. This is important because it is proof that DOGE did not fully understand what they were doing. I can't spell this out any clearer.
March 2025 - A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from shutting down USAID, one of DOGE's biggest targets. For those that don't know, USAID's mission objective is to provide humanitarian aid, ranging from staving off malaria outbreaks to food, shelter, and health care for mothers and children in need on a global scale. If there is ever any government agency that can slide by for being a little too bloated, I'm thinking USAID should be one of these shining examples. And yet, DOGE spent $14 million in taxpayer's money to make a huge attempt at slashing and burning something that's actually good in life, causing all this disruption and turmoil, only to amount to a nothingburger.
April 2025 - Elon starts talking about stepping down from DOGE. After bragging about how he can save America $2 trillion a year in federal spending bloat, that projection was then cut down to $1 trillion a year, but by this point, that projection is now reduced to a "mere" $150 to $175 billion. "However, a BBC analysis on 23 April found that only $61.5bn of that amount was itemised, and evidence of how the savings were achieved was available for just $32.5bn." Let me make this perfectly clear to everyone: Elon lied. He lied to all of us. He spent a ton of money helping a tyrant get voted into office, and then proceeded to lie and fail the American people, and for what?
Speaking of which, while this may not be a part of DOGE directly, don't forget that Trump also cut spending on PBS and NPR, as well as FEMA and the FAA. Oh yeah, and a very substantial amount of USAID is still on the chopping block as Trump is still attempting to axe it himself. All of which have resulted in negative impacts in its own right. However, since it's not directly the topic at hand, and this entry is already getting too long, I'm just going to gloss all this over.
Has DOGE achieved its own mission objective? If I am being entirely fair, yes, it looks like it did accomplish something. What exactly, I don't know, and the deeper you look, the more it looks like they were trying to cut good programs that benefited the American people. To be clear, DOGE tried to make themselves look good by showcasing billions in spending cuts, but it's over a lot of good programs out there that actually help people.
I meant to end my rant here, but I can't stress this enough, so I'm going to say it again, to make this crystal clear: My fellow Americans, PLEASE do not fall into the trap of being sold on the idea of a problem, any problem, from anyone. Even if it's completely accurate and true, what we really need to focus on is whether or not they can actually solve that problem. Stop voting for "charming" idiots who are ultimately going to ruin our lives. We are smarter than this.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23vkd57471o
https://www.webopedia.com/technology/doge-timeline/
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/rob-moore/fema-and-nations-disaster-safety-net-gets-cut-adrift#risk-reduction
https://www.yahoo.com/news/heres-9-4-billion-doge-221044322.html
https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2025
June 6th, 2025 at 12:16 am 1749169017
The loss of privacy in looking into our records..yours..mine...ours...certainly does bother me.
I always made a living using words, but every day there is a new outrage, a new stupidity, a new low, and I sometimes feel so incapable of expressing my anger and my outrage. Still, I WILL NOT give up, and I know that each of us can find ways in our our communities to demonstrate our unhappiness. The courts and legal system are a long, slow grinding process; in the meantime, I think millions of Americans must stand up and demand a stop to this, or he's just going to continue his idiocy, to our lasting detriment.
June 6th, 2025 at 01:34 am 1749173667
June 6th, 2025 at 03:42 am 1749181363
Thank you for taking the time to do it.
June 6th, 2025 at 10:27 pm 1749248858
June 7th, 2025 at 07:19 am 1749280740
June 8th, 2025 at 08:00 pm 1749412851
Instead now we have more spending and more deficit by a party that claims fiscal responsibility. Looking at you Speaker Mike Johnson. Truth is when they aren't in power republicans claim to want to cut the deficit. When they are in power? Let them spend what they want.
Also yes people will die from less medical care. Let's look at the Senator Jonie Ernst from Iowa. She literally said that to her town hall. But when people refuse to listen to what's in front of them what can you do?
June 13th, 2025 at 03:07 am 1749784078
June 13th, 2025 at 06:44 pm 1749840292