DOGE is not about saving taxpayer money

At the risk of being repetitive, there are still so many comments demanding to know why liberals object to rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government.

Here’s the thing: liberals are all for it. In fact, the watchdogs specifically tasked with preventing it—the Inspectors General—were systematically fired and replaced with DOGE.

Let’s start with the Inspectors General—nonpartisan officials legally tasked with rooting out corruption and misconduct in federal agencies. They don’t answer to party bosses. They answer to the law. And that independence is exactly why Trump fired a slew of them during his administration.

In their place? A new breed of loyalists—what I call DOGE. These aren’t watchdogs. They’re lapdogs. Or maybe more accurately, foxes pretending to guard the henhouse.

Their job isn’t to protect the public—and they’re certainly not nonpartisan or independent like the IGs. When you install someone whose loyalty is to you instead of the law, they don’t find corruption. They enable it.

This wasn’t an accident.

It was a strategy.

And it pairs perfectly with the next part of the con: gutting government revenue under the guise of “helping the economy.”

Let’s talk tax cuts—especially those that disproportionately benefit the ultra-wealthy and corporations. Since 2001, tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the national debt, according to the Center for American Progress. That’s 57% of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio over that time.

Remove one-time crises like the Great Recession and COVID? That number jumps to over 90%.

And the 2017 Trump tax cuts alone are projected to add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next decade if extended, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

So when you hear politicians screaming about the deficit while simultaneously demanding more tax cuts, remember:

The math doesn’t lie. But they do.

Which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle:

What happens to regular people when fraud actually does happen—just not inside the government?

Remember the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)?

It was created after the 2008 financial collapse to help everyday Americans fight back against fraud and predatory behavior from banks, credit card companies, and platforms like PayPal.

One example: A couple recently had their bank accounts drained via PayPal. Only the CFPB stepped in to force PayPal to return the money.

The CFPB were investigating Musk's companies amongst others and were one of the first agencies to get "DOGEed"

The agency has been gutted. Defunded. Delegitimized.

It can barely stand up to the very giants it was created to regulate.

That’s not a flaw in the system.

That is the system.

Because just like with the Inspectors General, the goal was never to stop fraud.

It was to stop anyone from stopping fraud.

So no, it’s not repetitive to remind people of this.

It’s necessary.

Because the more they deflect attention with shouts about “fraud” and “waste,” the more we need to point back and say:

You fired the watchdogs.

You gutted the consumer protectors.

You wrote trillion-dollar tax cuts for your donors.

And now you want us to believe you’re shocked there’s a mess?