This is not the way to fight waste

Trump and his co-president Elon Musk’s cruel policies to take a chainsaw to government agencies are not eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse.” They are firing civil servants indiscriminately whether it saves money or not. The Department of Education and USAID, for example, two of the government agencies that Trump most wanted to decimate, represent only about 1% of the federal budget. DOGE ‘s published claims of money-saving are often inaccurate.

While the Trump administration creates chaos and uncertainty, fired workers from departments across the entire federal government have families who need to be provided for — mortgages to pay, groceries to buy, etc. Government jobs don’t pay as well as in the private sector, yet these civil service workers dedicate themselves to work that will benefit the American people. However, Trump says they “hardly work at all.”

We all want to get rid of “waste, fraud and abuse” but this is not the way to go about it. Investigations into fraud and abuse should be done prior to firing people left and right. Trump and his co-president don’t care about the fact that their slash and burn tactics are illegal. Trump thumbs his nose at judges’ rulings on these illegal acts.

Trump and Musk’s real aim is not to trim the government, but rather to cripple it and to be able to cut taxes for the wealthy. This will not benefit most of us. Trump’s vendetta against his Democratic predecessors by reversing their accomplishments is silly and counterproductive.

He takes out his grievances on average and vulnerable Americans. Shutting down the Social Security phone line and closing field offices around the country, forcing seniors and disabled people to go in person to a field office that may be 100 miles away is not to eliminate fraud, it’s being deliberately cruel.

Katy Berman

Arlington Heights