For decades, we’ve all heard the mantra from Republicans that government is broken. That widespread belief seemed to help Trump win in both 2016 and 2024. Basically, there are a lot of people who believe government is inefficient and doesn’t work for me. Meanwhile, Trump has claimed, “I alone can fix it.”
So let’s get into the good, the bad and the ugly of DOGE and government cuts under Trump during his second term.
Well, University of Michigan Ford School professor Donald Moynihan didn’t really have anything positive to report about the changes wrought by Musk & Co. But he did talk about the damage being done, like The Death of Direct File, which Don wrote about in his Can We Still Govern? Substack. Developed during the Biden administration, this program made it free to file your taxes electronically. But thanks to lobbying from companies like Intuit (owner of TurboTax), that’s no longer an option.
And now we’re seeing what it looks like when government starts to break, like the Newark Airport shutdowns. We are likely to see a wave of avoidable tragedies, like people dying who don’t get emergency weather alerts during hurricanes.
So, does Elon understand anything about government or is he just moving fast and breaking things? Why is he doing this? Who benefits? Don tackles these questions and more with Lincoln Square’s Susan Demas.
And if you have just a few minutes, read Don’s article for what you can do — RIGHT NOW — to help stop Trump from politicizing public services.
Thank you Amy Gabrielle, P. J. Schuster, M3333, Linda Roberta Hibbs, Greg Rogers, and many others for tuning into our video with Don Moynihan!
