If you’ve been watching the news lately you’ve probably seen a thing or two about certain non-government employees or officials sticking their noses where they don’t belong and quite frankly running amok simply because the president invites them to playdates. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or electrical engineer to see that a particular playground bully of a hack and idiotic businessman is nothing but bad news for the country. Whether it be interfering with the operations of relief organizations or offering government employees six month’s pay to just up and quit, this new member of the executive rat-pack seems to be causing nothing but trouble.
Elon Musk is building quite the reputation for himself as the head of Department of Government Efficiency or “DOGE”–which is possibly the worst name for a government agency–and believe me it’s been something of a laughing riot. There’s nothing funnier than watching an incompetent business man turn around and attempt to become an even more incompetent government official. At least it would be funny if it wasn’t having disastrous effects on the government.
DOGE and the executive branch have threatened to layoff government employees both with and without the special severance “benefit” previously mentioned. Ironically, this has only caused even more trouble for the government, since several employees are already in the process of filing lawsuits. In one fell swoop, Elon has proved just how little he actually knows about government expenditure and operation. Elon seems to think that he’s still just helping to run a business, and in a business your number one cost is labor, so it makes sense why his immediate solution to the government’s fiscal woes is to simply cut labor costs.
Elon has failed to take into account though, that in government, labor is not anywhere close to your primary cost. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the salaries of government employees only actually take up about four percent of the total federal budget. So even if Elon and Trump were to fire every single federal employee (their buddies included) they would still have 96 percent of the budget left to deal with.
This assumption was only proven when for whatever reason it was decided that key employees within the Department of Energy would be fired. There was only one issue: these employees were literally in charge of managing the country’s nuclear stockpile. So, that definitely won’t be a huge mistake at all, surely there won’t be any negative repercussions at all.
Above all, Elon sets a dangerous precedent regarding government officials and their power. Elon was not elected by his constituents, he was not selected for his position based on his achievements and qualifications, he simply was chosen for his association with the president and has been given leave to run free. Elon is simply a dog who’s been let off his leash, and if he isn’t reined in by either the president or other members of the executive branch they may as well say “anyone we like can just run the government for us.”
If Elon’s behavior is allowed to continue, people will likely lose more and more faith in the government than they already have. The current administration seemingly doesn’t have an issue with showing everyone that the White House is just a good ol’ boys club though, and that’s a scary thought since it means that anyone with enough power and money can be given the keys to executive castle.
Elon Musk may either be an exception or an omen as to the government officials we can expect these next four years, but as it stands his actions cannot become a precedent as they are reckless and downright dangerous.
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