Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

During the past week I've read several posts and comments on Facebook praising Elon Musk for uncovering and eliminating waste and fraud in the federal government. They range from simple expressions of gratitude to positively giddy but unsubstantiated pronouncements that Elon has found huge savings, or exposed massive fraud. Slow down. Musk's so-called "Department Of Government Efficiency" has only been operating for a few weeks. Its staff of around 100 people with little or no government experience hasn't had time to really get to know their way around the massive federal bureaucracy and learn what these agencies actually do, much less determine what is meat and what is fat. Yet from day 1, they've been firing government employees right and left and proudly telling everyone they've already saved us billions of dollars. I see no evidence that DOGE has uncovered any waste or fraud as they claim, though it is possible they may have stumbled on some by acci...

  I'm starting to see a common thread among Trump/Musk ("Trusk") supporters who are letting an unelected billionaire from South Africa dismantle government agencies without going through Congress. They justify this because they are all convinced that Congress has been so thoroughly corrupted that it can't do anything in the public interest anymore. There is a nugget of truth at the core of that perception. Congresscritters, particularly the Republican variety, have for the most part become so dependent on campaign donations from giant corporations and billionaires that they are indebted to them for winning their seat and keeping it. Bernie Sanders built a substantial following by pointing this out and he attempted to correct it. Bernie was somewhat successful.  Democrats are now less dependent on big money donations thanks to the grassroots organization Act Blue which makes it easy for Democrats to receive large numbers of small donations from individual citizens. ...