Elon Musk knows how to do political theater, but the intended rhetorical message is way off base. Yes, the government in my beloved country, America, is wasteful and inefficient, but the chainsaw approach is the wrong idea. You don’t fix the plane with a chainsaw when the plane is flying up in the air.
President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating several federal agencies: The Department of Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His plans also targets agencies like the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Legal Services Corporation.
Those are legitimate targets for belt-tightening, but let’s use a little common sense. The idea of eliminating the Department of Education is particularly egregious to me, and not just because I taught school for so many years. The DOE is unwieldy and large for a very good reason. It’s huge and massively labor-intensive. No matter what metrics you use, the US ranks in the top twenty out of a field of 203 countries. I don’t want to be 203rd out of 203. Do you?
Health care and agriculture are two other labor-intensive bureaucracies. Let’s tighten those belts, too. Let’s stop throwing money at our problems. It’s time to take a critical look at government subsidies of all shapes and sizes, but it’s not time to throw a monkey wrench into the engine works.
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