John Smyth
2025-02-21 18:25:53 UTC
Reply
Permalink<https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/the_doge_faqs.html>
'Many conservatives have had this same series of discussions with their
leftist friends in the last few weeks. The rhetoric is incredible, as is
the faux sense of panic. As such, I provide this as a guide to assist
you in responding to their concerns.
“DOGE has no legal authority to do what it’s doing.”
“Actually it does. Obama established the U.S. Digital Service. President
Trump merely renamed it and gave it a more sweeping mandate.”
“Trump and Musk have ordered government workers to show up at the
office. This puts an undue burden on them and is unfair.”
“Federal workers were allowed to work at home because of the COVID
crisis. That has been over for years. Federal employees should have
never expected to stay at home indefinitely, especially when many major
corporations ordered their staff back to the office. Living outside of
D.C., I personally know of federal workers who are at the gym in the
middle of the morning when they technically are on the clock. I know of
one instance of a person that moved to another state and never told
their manager.”
“Having people work in the office will reduce productivity.”
“What is your proof? I called the Social Security Administration to ask
a question and schedule an appointment two months ago. The wait time on
the phone was almost two hours. Clearly allowing people to work at home
is not improving customer service, and as a taxpayer, I’m a customer.”
“No one elected Elon Musk!”
“True. However, all the cabinet members weren’t elected either.”
“Elon was never approved by Congress.”
“True. It should be noted that there are many high-level positions that
do not merit congressional approval. Thousands of jobs are filled by the
president without congressional approval.”
“Federal employees need their jobs protected.”
“No one is entitled to a job for life. Federal employees are merely
dealing with what the real world employees have been dealing with for
decades. This should encourage better performance over the long term.”
“DOGE is doing this without congressional oversight.”
“Incorrect. There is a congressional DOGE committee. Not that Congress
has been effective at oversight, as evidenced by the abuses already
uncovered.”
“His accessing fragile government software and systems will cause
irreparable damage.”
“Not true. First off, everything he is looking at is backed up. Second,
making copies of the data does not put a system at risk.”
“He’s using a bunch of young kids to do this work.”
“True. However, having worked at one of the Big Four accounting firms, I
can assure you that your front-line auditors are almost always in their
20’s. It isn’t at all uncommon in the industry.”
“He’s laying people off without understanding what they do.”
“The DOGE team is not operating in limbo. They aren’t laying anyone off
by themselves. They are making recommendations that the Senate approved
heads of departments then can opt to act on, including the Office of
Personnel Management.”
“This is extreme overreach on the part of President Trump!”
“How? He’s not investigating the legislative or judicial branches of
government, only those that he is constitutionally responsible for
administering.”
“They can’t cut these jobs. They are approved by Congress.”
“Incorrect. Congress approves the money, but not the headcount. That is
an administrative responsibility under the Executive Branch of
government that reports to the President.”
“This effort is causing chaos.”
“Incorrect. While the pace of this is aggressive, it is not chaos but in
fact, very orderly. The source of chaos is the media and those opposed
to DOGE saying that it is chaotic. It isn’t Elon’s fault that no one was
doing this kind of work all along which would have prevented this mess.”
“These alleged savings are small compared to the overall budget.”
“What is the acceptable level of grift and waste? A million dollars? A
billion? It is far more disturbing that you are comfortable with waste
on this historic scale.”
“The Inspectors General should have oversight, not Musk.”
“There’s a reason that Trump fired a large number of IGs. Clearly they
were not doing their jobs. Nor was the alleged congressional oversight.”
“Elon Musk will have access to highly sensitive data about every
American.”
“He will. But Elon has had a security clearance for years. He was also
the person that created PayPal and never was accused of stealing data of
the millions of people that used that service. His worth is 400 Billion.
I doubt seriously that he has intentions to steal money from you or
anyone else.”
“The actions of DOGE are creating a constitutional crisis.”
“They aren’t. Musk is acting as an auditor for the Executive Branch, and
reports to the president. The only place that this alleged ‘crisis’
exists is with members of Congress and the media attempting to generate
unnecessary fear.”
I hope that these tips have been useful for my fellow conservatives in
responding to your friends that are suffering from TDS on the DOGE
issues'