Aaaaaaand, he’s gone! Elon Musk has left the Trump Administration and is no longer heading up the DOGE (doggy) branch of government. Apparently, after identifying a few billion dollars of waste that could be cut from the federal budget, Musk decided it was easier to call it quits than to continue butting heads with The Beast which is Washington, D.C.
What a dog! Mangy, flea-bitten cur is more like it. [Editor’s note, just to clarify: This does not refer to Musk in person but to the program he headed, as if government efficiency could ever be achieved, even by the most ardent and capable practitioners. Efficient government ought to scare everyone. See the quote below by King George the First.]
Whatever happened to the $2 trillion goal in cuts which was bandied about? Gone, gone, gone. Ain’t gonna happen. Never had a chance. This lofty, unrealistic reach was in the same ballpark as Trump’s claim that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day after he became President. How much do you hear about that now?
The problem, as I see it, is that Musk, Trump, and others of that ilk are businessmen. They make deals. They shake hands. They exchange money for services. All done in a, more or less, voluntary fashion by mutual agreement. More or less, with a good, healthy dollop of “help” from the taxpayer. But what they do not understand is that government does not operate according to business principles. Government is not a business and it cannot be run like a business. Or, as George Washington so aptly put it centuries ago,
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
Now, Musk might be reasonable but I don’t think he is eloquent. He is certainly sharp about the workings of money. Trump doesn’t even make any pretense about being reasonable but also understands money. And he talks a lot. Of course, verbosity of speech doesn’t necessarily equate to eloquence, but that’s a small thing. The point is that, in trying to impose their business tactics and ideals on the government, both have failed. Failed to the point that Congress just simply shrugs its collective shoulder and says, “So?”, then pushes through a “Big, Beautiful Bill” which hands over $1 trillion to an already obese Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). Thankfully, this still has to be passed by the Senate before Trump can sign off on it, so there is still a remote possibility that it might not be brought to life. Miracles do happen.
Government is force. There is no reforming it to make it more reasonable, palatable, nor consumer-friendly. Businesses and consumers buy and sell voluntarily, making transactions on a daily basis because they are willing to give up what they have in favor of what someone else offers. Government doesn’t care about any of this, rather, if it wants what someone else has, it simply takes it. Or tries to, and only grows larger and more aggressive with the passage of time. Over time, as more and more people buy into the concept of “organized theft and redistribution”, the system becomes corrupt from the top to the bottom and eventually collapses and disappears, making way for something different to build out of the rubble.
Musk is out, presumably hitching a ride to Mars on your tax dollars. Trump is a wrecking ball destroying what has been built up over the last hundred years or so. Neither of them give a damn about us. Which brings me to another point–where are Montana’s Congress critters on this matter, this question about spending the country into glorious, indisputable, beautiful bankruptcy and destruction? Daines? Sheehy? Zinke? Downing? Not a word. Not a peep. Nothing but silence, or have they too joined the chorus?
“So?”
It wouldn’t be surprising if they did. After all, who can think of a better way to personally benefit than to ride this broken-down bronc until it buries its nose into the arena floor?
Poor Roger's Almanac 