Words and Phrases We Could Do Without

Trump voters may come to realize that this government’s “efficiency” means a good deal of pain and hardship

Webster’s defines efficient as “capable of producing desired results with little or no waste (as of time or materials).” By that standard, who could be against it? After all, its original meaning has embedded it into the cry of presidents of both parties, who have sought to make government “more efficient.”

And yet the Department of Government Efficiency, operating under the auspices of acting-president Elon Musk has yet to present itself as being, well, efficient.

Consider:

• In their haste to fire employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Muskites wound up firing staff responsible for supervising the building of nuclear weapons, inspecting weapons, and writing requirements for contractors who build nuclear weapons, CNN reported. Since the Muskites had not really understood what these people did, they had to scramble to recall them. Oh, and they have had a hard time rehiring the fired employees, since the DOGE gang does not have current contact information. Sounds very inefficient.

• When the inspector general at USAID discovered nearly $500M in food was about to go to waste due to the freeze-unfreeze confusion DOGE had created, the Muskites jumped into action—to fire the IG. No word on the food spoilage. That could be a whole lot of waste.

• The DOGE team is firing probationary (newer) employees en masse. But these workers will likely have lower salaries and more current training. If the DOGE maneuver is going to result in a workforce that is, on average, more expensive and/or doesn’t have the most up-to-date skills, they will have made government less efficient.

• In its zeal to eliminate “DEI,” the Muskites are planning to fire “staffers who are not in DEI roles and employees who work in offices established by law to ensure equal rights,” The Washington Post reports. That includes “a Veterans Affairs office that works to ensure all veterans receive equal access to care and an office within Health and Human Services that provides information about the health of minority populations.” Removing people who stop the government from getting sued and who make sure people entitled to benefits get them is not very efficient.

• The Internal Revenue Service collects taxes, processes returns, and conducts audits. We learned during the Biden administration that spending more on trained IRS personnel and technology returns a huge amount of revenue. A Clemson University study found that “Targeted enforcement efforts have increased revenue and narrowed the tax gap, while investments in taxpayer services have made it easier for people to get the help they need. … [T]the increase in trained agents and modernized systems have improved efficiency and laid the groundwork for a more effective IRS in the years to come.” The DOGE brain trust is preparing to fire thousands of IRS employees. Fewer trained agents will mean the IRS will collect less revenue, and taxpayers may see their refunds delayed. That sounds awfully inefficient—unless, of course, the whole point is to help billionaires cheat on their taxes.

• ProPublica reports, “The administration has frozen funds, including money appropriated by Congress, and issued a deluge of orders eliminating federal employees, which has thrown agencies tasked with battling blazes into disarray as individual offices and managers struggle to interpret the directives.” More fires threatening lives and property and requiring more emergency relief may result. Definitely not efficient.

• David Ignatius wrote recently, “The CIA last week sent buyout offers to its case officers around the world…Perhaps worst of all, the U.S. DOGE Service commissars reportedly gained access to Treasury payments data that might reveal the agency’s deep-cover officers and the assets they recruit.” Unless Musk is working to undermine our intelligence services, this is not efficient. It is dangerous and irresponsible.

In sum, everything we’ve seen so far seems like the work of a Department of Government Inefficiency (DOGI?) Sending in uninitiated twenty-year-old coders and hackers with no understanding of what government does or how it does it, to wreak havoc, increase unemployment, go after Project 2025 targets (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?!), and inflict pain and harm (that only additional government services could alleviate)—all at the behest of a billionaire—is not “efficiency.”

The word has lost its meaning.

NPR has reported that for all of DOGE’s promises of transparency and savings, there is little evidence of either. The cuts have fallen on people performing real services that people need. (“It’s people in the Education Department working on student loans. It’s software engineers at the General Services Administration.”)

In a lawsuit brought by 22 Democratic governors, 125 “declarations of harm” were filed. In just one county of Los Angeles, in a single state, the Musk gambit to cut off federal funds could have devastating results:

One affected group would be needy families who receive cash assistance, employment services and childcare through the state’s CalWORKS program, through which the county receives more than $2 billion in federal funds annually [Mason Matthews, chief budget and financial officer in L.A. County] wrote. Also at risk would be abused children, he wrote, as the county’s Department of Children and Family Services relies on $604.5 million in federal funding annually to investigate abuse and neglect and provide “supportive and therapeutic services” for such children.

More broadly, because federal funding amounts to about 10% of the county budget, another freeze would cause “significant budget and administrative burdens” for the county and “irreparably harm the day-to-day lives” of all county residents…

Musk cuts have real victims, many in red America. “More than a dozen farmers and ranchers told The New York Times that the tumult had made it more difficult to plan for the year, affecting decisions on seed and equipment purchases.” The Times reported that farmers “worry that the administration could again pause future payments with little warning or take aim at other programs like disaster relief payments and crop insurance, resulting in untold consequences for the food supply.” Trump voters may come to realize that this government’s “efficiency” means a good deal of pain and hardship for them.

For all the fanfare, Musk isn’t saving very much money. (Although DOGE’s budget has doubled.) Even Republicans who served in past administrations acknowledge Musk is targeting a tiny slice of the overall budget. The Fork in the Road deferred resignation gambit produced only about 75,000 resignations, about half of the typical turnover that the government sees each year, NPR reported.

Instead of looking for real duplication of services, improving systems, or increasing productivity, Musk is going after right-wing targets outlined in Project 2025. Eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which returned over $20B to consumers) isn’t efficient–unless the goal is to allow big banks and other institutions to rip off consumers.

Musk is not making the government do its job better; he is destroying it with no concern for the victims. The most “efficient” government (if you believe Musk) would abandon its statutory obligations (e.g., collecting revenue, sending checks, regulating workplaces). That, of course, isn’t “efficiency”; it’s demolition.

Therefore, if “efficiency” now means mindless destruction or ideological vendettas, then we need a new way to describe what we used to think of as “making government run better.” That, we might as well call “Democratic administrations.”