By Jacinto Caballero-George
As many people know, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been cutting funds in many places, meaning that Elon Musk is borderline abusing his power. Some may have heard about him famously cutting funding to the Department of Education and, recently, the FDA. The latter funding cut has caused the FDA to cut funds from quality control for dairy and animal products. However, this is far from the only cuts Musk has made.
Something most people don’t know about is that DOGE has cut $420 million from NASA in “unneeded contracts,” though the reason why remains unclear. However, some scientists report evidence of tens of millions of dollars being cut, primarily in the STEM department. This cut was announced on Friday, March 21st. This action also cut a grant from the National Society of Black Physicists, severely affecting the ability of African Americans from being able to make it to NASA.
DOGE has taken funding from the Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA pays out to millions of senior and disabled Americans each year. The loss of funding forced the SSA to have to make major cuts in workers, with 7,000 removed from their jobs. Martin O’Malley, the agency’s commissioner, has warned that these worker and budget cuts could disrupt benefit distributions, which would harm the lives of millions of Americans.
DOGE is even dismantling the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The MCC is an independent government program made by George W. Bush in order to aid countries that are mainly populated with those with a low to middle class income. DOGE has made major staff cuts to the MCC, as well as terminating all grants. The MCC’s budget has already been small compared to other government programs, only having $3.2 billion a year, causing the cuts from DOGE to be detrimental.
DOGE and the Trump Administration, which started DOGE, have cut almost 90% of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB was started after the Great Recession to protect Americans from abuse, fraud, and deceptive financial practices. This has caused the National Treasury Employees Union to ask a federal judge to step in. The union stated, “It is unfathomable that cutting the Bureau’s staff by 90 percent in just 24 hours, with no notice to people to prepare for that elimination, would not ‘interfere with the performance’ of its statutory duties—[that is] to say nothing of the implausibility of the defendants having made a ‘particularized assessment’ of each employee’s role in the three-and-a-half business days since the court of appeals imposed that requirement.” This quote is a great way of showing the harmful impact DOGE is causing with the sudden cuts and eliminations of funds and workers.
DOGE has been harming many American citizens in the name of saving the government some money. Though Musk has promised to save $2 trillion in government funds to help the economy, he has been doing more harm than good for the American people. Many are viewing Musk as more focused on saving the government money rather than how his actions will affect the greater population.
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