Efficiency is like speed: it doesn’t matter how fast you go if you don’t know where you’re going.
We’d all like government efficiency. Folks working reasonably hard,
only spending our money wisely; and not having seven management types directing someone how to replace a light bulb. And three checking her work.
But we might stop and ask, “do WHAT efficiently?” Having our government looking out for our best interests, whether in national security, criminal justice, overseeing medical care or fostering scientific development, or helping folks survive, we’d all like government to save the most cancer-ridden kids or build the most intimidating weapon as efficiently as possible.
Efficiency for us would mean getting an honest day’s work for a day’s pay from all public employees, protecting us from foreign attack without spending huge bucks on fancy but badly-designed weapons corporations can profitably sell us, treating the poor and disabled with compassion but not getting conned; and protecting us from the air and water pollution, dangerous or ineffective drugs, overly sharp business practices, and unhealthy food corporations plague us with, without endangering our economy. It’d mean government encouragement of science and quality education, because those are how we became pre-eminent in the world.
But efficiency for Musk-Trump and their corporations differs. They, like Calvin Cooolidge, believe, “The chief business of the American people is business.” For corporations, the bottom line and corporate survival are all that matter. Maximize shareholder return. That’s a corporation’s legal duty. Good citizenship is irrelevant.
So, for them, human services, whether to injured or PTSD-plagued veterans, children with cancer, folks born with terrible disabilities, old folks, or injured workers, are inefficient, so minimize those expenditures. Regulation of business is obviously counter-productive, so toss consumer protection, the EPA, and as many tax enforcers, drug inspectors, and antitrust lawyers as you can. Particularly experienced ones.
I don’t think my pickleball friends who love Mr. Trump elected him to destroy social security and mistreat war veterans.
They elected him to lower prices – not to increase them (and destroy our international alliances and economy) by imposing pointless and wildly excessive tariffs.
Tariffs are taxes you and I pay. By gathering money from what amounts to a sales tax on our purchases of cars, computers, and food, the government can afford to lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
Some folks are starting to recognize that incompetence trumps ideas and ideologies. (yeah, pun acknowledged.) Mr. Trump wants to foster a highly-profitable and successful economy; but his arbitrary tariffs (and the uncertainty generated by having Elon Musk run the country) have the stock market in the tank, mortgage interest rates rising, and home prices falling.
Particularly since any complex product, including a pickup truck, contains parts that have crossed borders, been improved or connected, then recrossed borders, the added costs could be crazy.
Meanwhile, China is laughing. Trump’s tariffs are driving our friends into China’s arms; we’re undoing our financial primacy in the world; our “efficient” jettisoning of long-range stuff like education and science, and our absence of intelligent leadership, help pave China’s road toward world leadership. (Abruptly ending USAID programs, which quietly helped our position in the world, is just one more courtesy to China.) Meanwhile, embarrassments like the Signal “secret conference” – stupidly held on an insecure application, then including gratuitous insults to allies – is one more huge red flag for anyone thinking of trusting us.
Well, just 45 more months left.
– 30 --
[The above column appeared Sunday, 6 April, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and on the newspaper's website, and should be posted soon on the KRWG website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the coming week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
[There’s plenty more to say, but economists and experts are saying it better. We need focus on how devastating Trump’s combination of narcissism, greed, and stupidity could be for our government. Even if democracy survives, and even if other countries don’t take full advantage of his putting beginners into top national security positions and firing the head guy in charge of cyberdefense, and even if the tariffs leave us some friends and some vestige of a decent economy, it’ll be a long time before we regain other countries’ respect and are again able to handle emergencies, manage social security, treat veterans, oversee health care, and do all the other things we like government to do. Trump voters are not immune to disease or PTSD, but may or may not, when they can not get the usual services, recognize who’s to blame.
Long term, we’re undermining the quality of our education, frightening away foreign tourists, intimidating foreign experts and students, cutting support for scientific and medical research, and, basically, eliminating needed staff from everything. China won’t do that, and its long-term battle to match or exceed us in many areas, and to become the world’s first among equals, just got a hell of a boost from Mr. Trump. And the growth of climate weirdness, endangering our species and killing off others, goes unchecked, at least by us, Yemen, and Iran. (Other countries get it.)
I wish us good luck. We don’t deserve it. ]
