by John Bossange
A friend of mine sent me a posting from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which listed fifteen monetary gifts to foreign countries funding a variety of causes and projects. In total, there was 729 million dollars previously gifted and then recently cancelled that was intended for nations like Mozambique, Cambodia, Serbia, Moldavia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Liberia, and Mali.
By comparison, in 2022, the US government has gifted fossil fuel companies 20 billion dollars per year (including loan guarantees), as reported by the International Monetary Fund. 30 billion dollars of our taxpayer money should be considered a huge amount of waste, especially when company profits are not used to lower our gas and oil prices. We know these subsidies are not just for research and exploration. Instead, those profits are mostly returned to other wealthy shareholders who are the ones who can afford to invest in such profitable shares of stock.
Most of us are too busy trying to balance our checkbooks day to day and don’t have funds to invest in the market. Where is DOGE on this abuse of our taxpayer money funding these fossil fuel subsidies?
Want another example of government waste for DOGE to challenge? How about all those selfish multi-millionaires and billionaires who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. You and I cover their greed by paying what we should and can. Bezos, Musk, Bloomberg, Ichan, Soros, Buffet, Gates, Murdock, Zuckerberg, are among the twenty-five richest Americans who collectively made over 401 billion dollars back in 2018, but paid only 13.6 billion in taxes by gaming the system. That’s a tax rate of 3.4%. Even if these wealthy individuals paid 15%, the average tax bracket for working Americans, that could have been used to cut the deficit by 60 billion dollars!
Why is DOGE not going after this money where it can really make a difference in cutting government spending? Why are they going after the small fish like the 15 nations and 729 million dollars listed in their latest report that has a minimal impact on government efficiency and spending?
The real money to be captured is with the IRS, which did not receive 606 billion dollars from individuals (74%), corporations (7%) and employers (18%) who under-reported, overstated credits, or took a variety of deductions. You can bet those individual billionaires took advantage of the tax codes and the underfunded and short-staffed IRS enforcement department to put their profits before their country.
Does that make them “smart,” as Trump bragged during his 2015 debate? Selfishness and unpatriotic greed best describe that behavior. DOGE needs to be all over this abuse and recover those missing funds as a substitute for budget cuts, especially those proposed for our Social Security and Medicare.
In 2024, tax breaks alone totaled 1.9 billion dollars in lost revenue and that’s more than any other individual government-spending program including Social Security (1.4 billion), Medicare (875 billion), and Defense (874 billion). Further, those 2024 tax breaks of unpaid 1.9 billion dollars were greater than last year’s record-breaking deficit of 1.8 billion dollars.
Do you think that troubles billionaires like Musk and Trump? Do they even care? And that question raises the most important question of all. Just what is the true end game of the Trump-Musk DOGE initiative?
I’m all for DOGE making our Federal government more efficient, for thinning our “entitled” civil service positions wherever possible, for reorganizing some federal agencies, and for reducing our nation’s debt. But if the sledgehammer approach is to be used only on selected political targets, it’s a pathway to nowhere. I believe that’s exactly where DOGE is headed.
Their call for government efficiency is just a ruse. The real purpose of the massive reductions is to assault and eventually destroy our government, not to make it less expensive to operate. DOGE has been designed as a cover for the Trump administration who understand their real endgame; political and financial anarchy so their oligarchy can assume more control of America.
If DOGE was serious about true government efficiency, they would go after the cuts that would really make a difference, and not spend time eliminating programs by using fake fraud and waste numbers to decimate entire departments and agencies just to show they can fulfill campaign promises as they hide their true goal of taking down our government.
Most of us are not wealthy enough to live in gated communities like the President, Musk and their billionaire friends. We are struggling to make ends meet. We need a vibrant and responsive government that can deliver essential services so we can enjoy our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as we live outside their gated communities.
We can’t let DOGE allow the tax cheaters and tax breaks for the wealthiest to continue. But most of all, we cannot allow DOGE to purposely sledgehammer its way through the essential services of our federal government, all the while covering up their real goal of making our government smaller and easier for them to control.
The President, Musk and their MAGA advisors need to realize the rest of us are on to their game. It’s time they feel the sledgehammer of our resistance.