For many years, People have been advised that the federal authorities is bloated, wasteful, and ripe for cuts. From Ronald Reagan’s Grace Fee to Invoice Clinton’s Reinventing Authorities to Donald Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), the promise of financial savings has at all times collapsed into smoke and mirrors. The reality is changing into not possible to disregard: the issue isn’t an excessive amount of spending, it’s too little income.
After watching the depressing try of DOGE to chop waste, fraud, and abuse, and the controversy over Trump’s “Massive Lovely Invoice,” I discover myself asking a special query: Is the federal government really the correct dimension? Maybe as a substitute of chasing phantom financial savings by austerity campaigns, we wrestle with methods to scale back the expansion of future entitlements by serving to create a more healthy, extra affluent inhabitants.
DOGE was offered as a daring initiative to shrink the federal authorities by trillions. Elon Musk claimed he might lower $2 trillion in waste. The truth? DOGE’s remaining claimed financial savings amounted to $205 billion — and even that determine evaporates beneath scrutiny. Unbiased teams pegged the precise quantity far decrease: $80 billion, $63 billion, or $55 billion. Some watchdogs concluded DOGE really value taxpayers $135 billion. The IRS went additional, projecting $500 billion in misplaced income attributable to disruption from its actions.
This isn’t the primary failed effectivity drive. Reagan’s Grace Fee promised sweeping cuts within the Nineteen Eighties however delivered little past headlines. Clinton’s much-hailed “Reinventing Authorities” initiative lowered the federal workforce by lots of of 1000’s, but the underlying spending trajectory barely modified. Trump’s first time period featured its personal deregulatory push, however once more, authorities spending continued upward. His more moderen effort, the “One Massive Lovely Invoice” — Trump’s 2025 tax and spending package deal — goes in the wrong way, whereas chopping packages similar to faculty lunches and Medicaid, the Congressional Funds Workplace estimating it is going to enhance the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the subsequent decade.
The sample is obvious: regardless of a long time of reform commissions and guarantees, no administration has been capable of materially shrink the federal authorities. Maybe this isn’t merely a failure of willpower however proof of a structural actuality. A lot of the federal funds is dedicated to long-term obligations — Social Safety, Medicare, protection, and curiosity on the debt. There’s comparatively little discretionary spending to chop. “Waste, fraud, and abuse” makes for good slogans, however the math by no means provides up.
If authorities is, broadly talking, the correct dimension for the tasks the American individuals count on it to satisfy, then the issue is just not runaway spending. It’s, as a substitute, a tax coverage drawback.
In response to a report by the Middle for American Progress, the George Bush tax cuts, their bipartisan extensions (beneath Barack Obama), and Trump’s tax cuts collectively added roughly $10 trillion to the nationwide debt. They clarify 57% of the debt-to-GDP enhance since 2001, and if you happen to strip out non permanent disaster spending, similar to COVID aid and the Nice Recession stimulus, they account for over 90% of the long-term shift in our fiscal trajectory. Projected ahead, they’ll quickly clarify greater than 100% of the debt ratio enhance. In different phrases: tax refunds for the rich don’t simply contribute to the deficit — they’re the deficit. You may’t stability the funds or scale back the deficit if you happen to frequently have America’s largest and most profitable companies pay little or no taxes. The obligations stay the identical. The common American has to pay the taxes the big companies don’t pay and a few consider that isn’t honest.
If we really need to eradicate the funds deficit, the answer is disarmingly easy: cease giving the wealthiest People extra tax rebates. But cycle after cycle, Republicans return to the identical coverage playbook: everlasting tax reductions for the prosperous and companies, marketed as “pro-growth.”
This brings us to a well-recognized GOP speaking level: “Democrats assume the federal government is aware of methods to spend your cash higher than you do.”
Republicans say this whereas ignoring that many of the federal funds is already accounted for by agreed-upon obligations. The truth is extra sobering: “Republicans consider the wealthy know methods to spend your cash higher than you do.”
That’s why they borrow trillions from our kids and grandchildren to fund tax refunds, rebates and the bottom attainable tax charges for the rich. After 40 years of dangerous tax coverage, we all know the consequence: the wealthy get richer, working households tread water, and the deficit explodes.
The uncomfortable reality is that People desire a authorities that does large issues: present healthcare and retirement safety, keep a world-class army, spend money on infrastructure, fund scientific analysis, shield the setting, and reply to crises. That requires a authorities of considerable dimension. Repeated makes an attempt to disclaim this actuality by slashing packages have constantly failed. The trail ahead is just not chopping faculty lunches, meals stamps, or Medicaid — it’s a fairer tax system that raises the income required to fund the commitments we’ve chosen as a nation.
The lesson of DOGE isn’t just its incompetence however its futility. If the federal government is roughly the correct dimension, then ravenous it of sources solely creates dysfunction. The actual job earlier than us is to align revenues with tasks. Meaning ending the obsession with tax cuts for the rich and confronting the fiscal info head-on.
If we would like a future the place America can spend money on its individuals and meet its obligations, the trail isn’t infinite commissions or austerity drives. It’s sincere tax coverage, grounded in equity, that ensures we pay for the federal government we’ve chosen. Till we face that reality, the debt will preserve rising, and the phantasm of “waste, fraud, and abuse” will stay a handy distraction.
Ed Gaskin is Government Director of Larger Grove Corridor Foremost Streets and founding father of Sunday Celebrations
