Cormorants

DOGE. Great, another acronym in our government. The Department of Government Efficiency.  To be chaired by billionaire businessman Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, it’s an idea of the incoming Trump administration to make our government more efficient, hence the name. People are way too focused on whether federal employees will have to go to work in their office or what to do with the Post Office. Maybe that’s all Trump has in mind—I don’t know. Those types of efficiencies are important, I guess, but we are in debt to the tune of $36 trillion. Efficiencies are lip gloss on the fatted pig.

Twenty-plus years ago I was harping on the debt (even then) and a friend asked me what I would fund. I replied that I would use the Founding Fathers as my guide. In 1789, the first U.S. Congress created three executive departments: Foreign Affairs (later in the same year renamed State), Treasury, and War (now Defense). It also provided for an Attorney General and a Postmaster General. In 1849 the Department of the Interior was created. In 1862 the Department of Agriculture. In 1870 the Department of Justice. I’d fund those to their baseline essential levels. The Department of Commerce, created in 1903, is probably necessary. But that’s about it. 

Department of Labor? Nyet. Department of Health and Human Services. Nada. Housing and Urban Development? Nope. Transportation, Energy, Education, Veteran Affairs, and Homeland Security? Bye. 

That’s why I’m not in charge.

That doesn’t mean we start storing nuclear waste behind your house. The Department of the Interior can address that. Veteran’s Affairs? The Defense Department. Etcetera. But Kelly, are you saving anything? Yes. Huge reductions in overall workforce, buildings, copies, computers, electric bills, etc., would ensue. 

There are 4,000 employees in an outfit called the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. They direct the issuance of debt for the country. I bet each employee is so vital that if they suddenly died the U.S. would go kaput. Four thousand employees. 

Alas, the genie is out of the bottle and Americans can’t stomach any cut in services. People (mostly journalists looking for something to enrage the population) are already complaining about DOGE, and nothing has happened yet. 

Today, the U.S. budget devotes 14% to payment of interest. The U.S. debt is $36t-t-t-t trillion. I stutter just saying that. To pay that debt is imperative, but adding to it is suicide. If we don’t do something, we are toast. We could try to grow our way out of it. The problem is that if you give Congress $1, they spend $2. Any endeavor to raise taxes (outrage ensues) or cut expenses (outrage ensues) only means Congress spends more.

“For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present…. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?” Ronald Reagan, 1981, Inaugural address. 

The national debt then tripled in the next 10 years after Reagan’s address. We remain cormorants.

Enquiring minds want to know, what is a cormorant? It’s a bird, one despised by farmers, hunters, and fishermen. Long a symbol of gluttony, greed, bad luck, and evil, the cormorant has led a troubled existence in human history, myth, and literature. I was making a bizarre stretch, using cormorant as a synonym for gluttony. It’s probably a bridge too far, but it’s my title for my column nevertheless.

Kelly Burke, attorney, former district attorney, and magistrate judge, writes about the law, rock’n’roll, and politics or anything that strikes him. Contact Kelly at dakellyburke@gmail.com to comment on this article or suggest articles you’d like to see, and visit his website at www.kellyrburke.com.