The scourge of Dems DC domination, every penny counts and other commentary

The misuse of taxpayer money that the Department of Government Efficiency is uncovering is the “the inevitable by-product of” unelected bureaucrats making “decisions about spending without proper review or oversight,” but “the deeper problem” is that “nearly all of these bureaucrats are Democrats,” argues James Piereson at The New Criterion. DC is “overwhelmingly populated” by “the most partisan and far-left Democrats,” who “(quite logically) use their powers to advance Democratic Party causes.”When Republicans “win national elections, they soon discover that they must steer a gigantic administrative operation controlled by the opposition party — a nearly impossible task.”If Team Trump wants “to fix the bureaucracy,” it’ll “have to get rid of a lot of Democrats.”Some claim DOGE is “revolutionizing the government”; others argue its savings amount to “a rounding error”; in fact, Liberty Vittert explains at The Hill, “both can be true at the same time.”Even a “drop in the bucket” adds up.“Start with the $65 billion” DOGE claims to have cut from federal spending; that’s “enough to cut a $450 check to every taxpayer every year.”Sure, “if we really want to tackle America’s debt, DOGE’s current mandates are clearly insufficient.

In the end, the only way to attack America’s $36 trillion debt is to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — all things that Trump has repeatedly promised not to do.”But “what DOGE is doing is important, even if it is having a negligible effect on the national debt” because “it goes to the ethos of America,” that “our hard-earned tax dollars” should not be wasted.“Since 2009, almost half the surcharges paid by customers for public safety communications — more than $1 billion — have been redirected to New York’s general fund,” notes Empire Center’s Cam Macdonald.In 2008, Congress authorized states to collect a mobile-phone tax “with t...