I don’t want to pay any more taxes than I already do. I’ll grit my teeth and put up with paying the same tax rate. If my tax rate goes up, I’ll be supremely pissed at my elected representatives … local, state, and federal … and will vote against the incumbents. (If my earnings go up and my tax rate stays the same, I’ll pay more in taxes. I’m grudgingly OK with that.)
Why? Suffice it to say, some of my reasons are perhaps selfish: my family’s financial well-being. Some are altruistic: national security and social progress (e.g., improved education and healthcare) both of which can only be fueled by economic prosperity and growth.
I’d be amazed if most of my fellow Americans don’t feel the same way about their taxes. In fact, most Americans … a super majority even … seem to agree with me:
- A Gallup poll in 2024 found that 56% of us think federal income taxes are too high and 36% think they are about right.
I also want the national debt to go down. That means that federal tax revenues need to exceed federal government spending.
It occurred to me that DOGE is doing the dirty work and taking the heat for doing what most Americans want: lower taxes and lower national debt. I guess maybe some people object to how he’s doing the job that we want done and DOGEs authority to decide.
Well, DOGE will keep doing what it’s doing until we have an alternative. So, what’s an alternative?
We’re trying to reduce annual federal government spending by $2,000B. I’m not willing to abandon or let up on that goal. Here’s how we might do it differently. I’m thinking out loud.
- Cut programs. $500B. There’s real pain here. Some services or projects are reduced or eliminated.
- Improve productivity/efficiency and reduce fraud in federal departments and agencies. $500B. I contend this can be relatively painless. (I’m NOT talking here about reducing or eliminating services or projects. Terminating leases on unused and unneeded real estate doesn’t hurt. Reducing and clawing back fraudulent contract payments and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid fraudulent claims doesn’t hurt. Laying off unneeded and/or poor performing people does hurt. But at least do it humanely and respectfully.)
- The remainder: Voluntary donations to lower the national debt by American billionaires … and/or a minimum tax on American billionaires.
- To keep us out of this pickle in the future, require a balanced budget.
We should re-position DOGE as a tool to be used by Congress and department and agency leadership.
Congress wants to exercise its spending and taxing authority. OK, let them do their job. Congress can use DOGE to identify specific programs that have low/no value and are candidates to cut. Perhaps DOGE identifies $1,000B worth of cuts and then Congress picks half, $500B. Congress would be doing its job and exercising its authority.
Department and agency leadership wants to manage their operations and resources. OK, let them do their job. Leadership can use DOGE to identify specific opportunities to improve productivity/efficiency and reduce fraud. Perhaps DOGE identifies $1,000B worth of opportunities and then leadership picks and implements half, $500B. Leadership would be doing its job, managing and improving their operations and resources.
But we can’t let Congress and department and agency leadership off the hook. They must decide and implement … and they must do so with the same focus, intensity, and urgency as DOGE.
In my admittedly skeptical view, this is a big ask of Congress and department and agency leadership. I’m not at all sure they’re up to it. But unless they step up and do it, DOGE will continue its current approach.
I welcome comments on these ideas. I am thinking out loud. Your comments will correct errors and improve the analysis, ideas, and communication.
If you agree, promote the ideas with your elected representatives and with your family and friends. The only way this or anything else gets done in the political arena is with a lot of loud, persistent public support.
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The GOP controls both chambers of Congress: They also control the White House. If the GOP wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), or any other agency, the proper and legal course of action would be to introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature.
But instead, an unelected individual has been empowered to override our elected Congress and enact his own policies by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes. Amazingly, when pressed in the courts, Trumps lawyers have said that Elon Musk is not in charge of DOGE.
Although I agree with you that people would like tax cuts, the replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup.
The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.
Permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution as it breaches the checks and balances within the Constitution. It also makes Congress itself irrelevant.
Id love to see some evidence that DOGE is about efficiency, money, debt. It looks like it is more about retribution and breaking government. The GOP should do these things right and pass legislation in Congress. If they have policies that make sense, Congress will do the right thing. The problem is DOGE doesn’t make sense. It is more about misinformation than sense.