When I was a kid, I occasionally worked for my dad, a small business owner who remodeled homes and hotels. I hated the work, but we listened to talk radio, mostly Rush Limbaugh, the conservative political commentator who often harped on the massive size of the federal government. Limbaugh believed that the government should be small, manageable and a helpful tool − not a burden − for the people. I loved that idea. Fast-forward nearly 30 years. I’ve been watching with a mix of disbelief and wonder as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk try to strip the federal government to the essentials because it is no longer small, manageable or a helpful tool for improving Americans’ lives. Instead, our government has become a burdensome behemoth.
The process that Trump and Musk have undertaken is undeniably messy. Democrats have smeared the effort to make the federal government more effective and efficient as a “constitutional crisis.” I see it as liberating. Limbaugh died four years ago on Feb. 17, at age 70 of lung cancer. He would have loved to see what Trump and Musk are doing. Like Trump, Limbaugh courted controversy but also valued liberty, smaller government and personal responsibility. Those are goals that Trump and Musk are trying to accomplish now. I believe that in time all Americans will enjoy more freedom because of it.
Federal government is too large and complicated
Last week, the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency held its first hearing. I don’t care much for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia best known for political theatrics, but she rightly implored the committee to be “brutally honest about how this massive debt came to be in the first place – it came from Congress and from elected presidential administrations.” She’s right that $36 trillion is a lot of debt to unearth and expose. That is why the past month has looked like pandemonium in Washington, D.C. Musk is trying to parse through spending in hundreds of agencies that has led to an annual deficit of $1.8 trillion and interest payments that consume more tax dollars than our national defense. Musk has said that that his Department of Government Efficiency needs to save taxpayers an average of $4 billion a day to cut the deficit by $1 trillion. The cuts announced so far are relatively small, but they’re starting to add up. For example, Lee Zeldin, the new chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recently announced that he wants to end $20 billion in Biden-era grants for local clean energy projects. Republicans have criticized the grant pool as a slush fund for progressive causes.
DOGE also uncovered $900 million in wasteful spending at the Department of Education, ending at least 169 contracts in the department’s Institute of Education Sciences, including more than $100 million spent on diversity, equity and inclusion training. Opinion: Don’t stop at DOGE. Trump can be the transformative president America needs now. Democrats, of course, are resisting Trump and Musk’s efforts to bring federal expenditures in line with revenue. Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the DOGE subcommittee’s highest ranking Democrat, slammed Trump and Musk’s efforts, saying they are “recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government.” But even Stansbury admitted that the committee would be “digging into the more than $236 billion in improper payments that we see going out the door every single year.” The Government Accountability Office reported last year that the federal government had misspent an estimated $2.7 trillion in taxpayers’ money in the past two decades.
Trump, Musk taking government back. Limbaugh would have loved it.
The government’s deficit spending is unsustainable, but it’s taken Musk and Trump to actually do something about it. The duo may not communicate their goals clearly, but it’s obvious to me that these efforts will result in a smaller, more transparent and more accountable government. That will unburden and liberate Americans, who feel the pain of the federal deficit and debt through high inflation and steep taxes. Middle-class Americans who own small businesses like my dad pay out more than 30% of their annual income in various federal taxes. Yet, hundreds of billions of tax dollars have been wasted year after year. Until Trump and Musk said, “Enough!” Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on conservative values, family and religion from columnist Nicole Russell. Get it delivered to your inbox.
The kind of politicians who Limbaugh couldn’t stand have used the federal government to turn American exceptionalism on its head. Entrepreneurs who pursue excellence and innovation and who create jobs are taxed at extraordinary amounts. A gross amount of tax dollars are misspent, including under the guise of global altruism. Much of that money is funneled through grants and nongovernmental organizations, which are almost impossible for most Americans to track. Taxpayers have been forced to continue on the hamster wheel of the American dream turned nightmare, fueling a federal government that has grown increasingly larger and inefficient. It’s to the point that government bureaucrats and outside organizations that feed off the federal beast no longer work for us. We now work for them. It’s time to take our government back. And that is what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing. Rush Limbaugh would have loved it.
