There’s a lot of talk about “government efficiency” lately. And look, government efficiency is important.

If your grandfather can’t get an appointment at the VA or if your mom is stuck on hold with the Social Security Administration for hours, you should be angry, and we should be fixing it.

But that’s not what Trump and Musk are doing — and we need to keep calling them out.

They’re firing people with such carelessness that last month, in a moment of stunning incompetence, the administration frantically tried to un-fire hundreds of employees they had to let go the day before. Does firing workers and then trying to un-fire them sound like government efficiency to you? It sure doesn’t to me.

What kind of “efficiency” makes people hungrier? What kind of "efficiency" makes people poorer? What kind of "efficiency" makes people less safe?

Efficiency is not about slashing budgets for the sake of headlines.

Efficiency doesn’t look like firing inspectors general — whose job is to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in government — or disbanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which, quite literally, protects consumers.

True efficiency is about making government work better for the people — protecting their rights, strengthening essential services, and ensuring tax dollars go to the public good, not private profits.

By that standard, DOGE isn’t here to serve anyone other than Elon Musk.

While he continues to gut critical services and dismantle the agencies and workers who provide them, I'll continue doing everything I can to call out their lies and fight for a truly efficient government that supports working people. Will you pitch in $25 or anything you can to power this work?

If you've stored your info with ActBlue Express, we'll process your contribution instantly:

Contribute $15 Contribute $25 Contribute $50 Contribute $100 Contribute $250 Give another amount

Onward,

Ayanna