OLIGARCHY: THE WORD FOR OUR TIME

oligarchy

noun      

a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes

Modern American's raw capitalism, fueled by the massive tax cuts  that President Ronald Reagan gave to the rich around 40 years ago, has inevitably led to a country where the rich have not only more wealth but also far more political power than the average American.   The link between wealth and political influence was cemented  after the 2010 Citizen's United Supreme Court ruling, which essentially removed almost all limits on the size of political campaign donations.Not surprisingly, with campaigns getting more and more expensive, politicians listen to  wealthy donors more and more. 

But. leave it to our twice impeached, convicted felon and current President Donald Trump to tear away the notion that there should be limits on the political power that the unelected rich should have.  Heavy Trump donor Elon Musk, who has never faced any kind of congressional approval,  and his Department of Government Efficiency, have ripped a hole in federal government spending that will lead to years of damage, from reducing our country's ability to deal with deadly virus outbreaks overseas to making our national parks dirtier and less safe.

Musk and his band of inexperienced, unqualified young tech bros have been slicing away at the national budget, laughing as they lay off dedicated, experienced people while Musk posts on social media that he is putting government agencies in "the wood chipper".  And, much like the way he's run his various companies, there have been many errors, with the DOGE team scrambling to rehire people they just fired or taking down posts about savings from their website when they proved fraudulent.   To top it off, Musk's own businesses get billions of tax dollars every year, and there's no way that DOGE will ever check that for waste and fraud.  

The most frustrating part of this to me is just how blatantly unconstitutional this all is: the power of the nation's  purse is supposed to be run by congress, not just some rich guy that gave the president a pile of money.  But with Republicans running both branches of congress, there has been very little genuine criticism of what Musk is doing from congress, even as his cuts hurt people in red states.  

Recently, there has been some pushback from the courts on what Musk is doing, and a couple of days ago a  loud argument between Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Oval Office has lead to Trump posting that Musk will need to slow down his efforts.  But the mere fact that an unelected, unconfirmed man has been given so much power by the president has already proven disastrous.  

Musk, at least, has been honest about his cutting, saying that he believes there should be no government regulations at all until it's found that they are needed.  The problem with that argument is that that means that food regulations should only be put in place when people start get sick or dying from unhealthy food, building regulations should only be put in place after buildings start collapsing, and car regulations should only be put in place after cars start exploding (something he should know about!).

There is one piece of good news here; Musk's efforts haven't gone unnoticed, and recent polls show that only 34% of the public support what he is doing.  The Democrats have wisely started tying Musk to Trump as much as possible, and recently Democratic Representative Greg Casar pointed out that Musk gets 8 million tax dollars a day, a statistic that I think should be hammered into the brain of every American voter for the next two years.  And the voters should also be reminded that many of Musk's cuts are hurting veterans and special needs children.

While the idea of cutting waste and fraud from the federal budget is one of those things that everyone supports, those cuts should never be made by a man who's never before run a governmental budget and who has blatant conflicts of interest involving his own companies getting billions of government dollars every year.  This would seem obvious, but the wide spread corruption of the Trump era has shaken this country to the core.