Are you tired of winning yet?
Tax season is coming up. My wife does our taxes, which through the close to 30 years I’ve been self-employed, has always been a complicated process. She is quite good at making sure we pay every penny we’re required by law to pay – and not one penny more. That is, of course, what all good Americans should do; rendering unto Caesar has its limits.
Every American taxpayer these days, though, has a few more reasons to smile – and on Friday, they gained 182 million more reasons, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has canceled another 62 contracts, saving all of us another $182 million, this time at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). And get this – some of the money was intended for an Anthony Fauci exhibit.
Yes, really.
In the past 48 hours, HHS canceled 62 contract worth $182 million. These contracts were entirely for administrative expenses – none touched any healthcare programs. This included terminating a $168,000 contract for an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH Museum. pic.twitter.com/EsZxflPS6w
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 7, 2025
An Anthony Fauci exhibit? That has to be one of the more hare-brained ideas that the DOGE has scrapped, but it’s a sure thing that there will be more.
Replies to the DOGE X post were spirited.
— Mrs.Ambers🇺🇸 (@NorCalMAGAmom) February 7, 2025
— FatherPhi (@FatherPhi) February 7, 2025
While it’s OK to count coup – and occasionally to point and laugh – this is a serious matter, with serious implications. Thirty-six trillion dollars of implications, in fact.
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This $36 trillion is hanging over the United States like the sword of Damocles. It’s an existential threat, and there are three ways out of it. We can grow our way out of it, we can inflate our way out of it and send the United States economy into a tailspin, or we can repudiate it and send the entire world’s economy into a tailspin. President Trump seems to be shooting for that first option, but we are now so deep in the hole that growth must be accompanied by spending cuts. We’re winning, yes, but we need to win bigger and faster. We need serious cuts.
These can’t be decreases in the rate of increase. These must be actual cuts in spending.
These can’t be symbolic cuts to a few high-profile and egregiously stupid programs. These must be serious cuts in spending.
These can’t be cuts made with a scalpel, or even a butcher’s knife. These must be cuts made by an axe – or a chainsaw.
Everything the DOGE is doing is a part of this effort, but it needs to be stepped up. Everything the DOGE does, every taxpayer’s dollar they save, is worth doing, but we need to cut not millions, not billions, but trillions from the federal budget. It won’t be easy. It won’t be painless. There will be resistance, especially from the entrenched apparatchiks whose oxen will be gored. But this has to be done.
The DOGE has done some great work in only a few days. But there is still a leviathan to be brought down. It’s going to be a busy few years ahead.
