DOGE and the Continued Plundering of America

How plunder politics lets the ruling class continue to steal from us all

“Any given law will do the opposite of its name.”

-Elon Musk

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched at the start of Donald Trump’s second term and led by titan of industry Elon Musk, has captured the headlines with its swift, significant action and its bold promise to streamline the federal government, cut wasteful spending, and reduce the ballooning national deficit. On the surface, it’s an appealing mission: who wouldn’t want a more efficient, less bureaucratic Washington? But scratch beneath that surface, and the cracks begin to show.

DOGE’s approach, simply put, could never meaningfully address our national debt crisis. Elon fully understands this; he’s just hoping that you don’t. While the pretense for DOGE is deficit reduction, if you look thoughtfully at what it's set up to do, its actual goal becomes clearer.

A Real Crisis

U.S. federal debt is up to a staggering $36 trillion. Merely servicing interest on that debt now costs nearly $1 trillion annually. Over the next decade, those interest payments alone are projected to total $13.8 trillion. It bears emphasis that this is merely interest—e.g., the amount necessary simply to tread water and to keep from drowning. We would need even greater investment to actually begin to tackle that debt. This is a crisis. Soon, interest on the debt will be the single largest line-item in the federal budget. And if the past is any indication, this cost will only continue to grow.

But DOGE does nothing meaningful to address any of this.

According to data from the U.S. Treasury’s Fiscal Data portal for Fiscal Year 2025, the federal budget is dominated by a short list of budgetary leviathans. Social Security consumes 21% of the budget, Medicare 15%, National Defense 14%, and interest on the national debt another 13%. Together, these categories—along with veterans’ benefits—account for the vast majority of federal expenditures. Meanwhile, most all of the federal bureaucracy cited as DOGE’s primary target for austerity combined represents just 3% of the budget. That means, if you assumed the entire bureaucracy gave us no societal benefit (a bold assumption) and simply closed almost every federal agency, 97% of federal spending would continue undaunted.

If the goal were truly to shrink the $2 trillion deficit, DOGE would need to confront these behemoths head-on. But doing so is politically toxic. Social Security and Medicare are sacrosanct for retirees, a massive and vocal voting bloc. Defense spending, meanwhile, enjoys the backing of a very influential segment of the nation’s power brokers. And interest on the debt can’t be reduced without either raising taxes (a non-starter for Trump) or lowering interest rates (which risks runaway inflation and a stain on the reputation of Trump’s economy).

That leaves the other 3% of federal spending. And if 3% of federal spending is receiving 90% of the focus from a taskforce charged with improving government efficiency, it’s pretty clear that the needle is not going to move on spending.

Worse, by fixating on the federal bureaucracy and sloganeering a veneer of deficit reduction and efficiency, DOGE creates the illusion of action while sidestepping the real culprits behind the deficit. The public risks being lulled into believing these trivial financial cuts will solve a problem that requires far deeper reforms.

This selective focus isn’t just inefficient; it’s a deliberate distraction. And nothing makes that fact more clear than Trump’s and Elon’s recent shift to messaging around a “DOGE dividend”—which is suggested could give checks for as much as $5,000 directly to voters. But if we have already conceded the money being spent is deficit spending (e.g., not tax dollars being collected), then such a dividend is just more federal deficit spending to cut checks to voters, deepening the very crisis DOGE claims to be addressing.

If that sounds familiar, it should be. Promising cash to voters in lieu of competent governance is the modus operandi of modern politicians—and it’s the reason we have a federal debt crisis today.

DOGE’s True Purpose

If deficit reduction isn’t the true goal, what is? The answer is not so secret, and Trump has been saying it since the campaign trail: "I am your retribution."

The federal bureaucracy is the poster child of Democratic institutional petty elites—the bread and butter of DNC voter rolls—and Trump is going after them.

DOGE’s actions echo Trump’s sentiment, “I am your warrior, I am your justice,” targeting agencies and programs associated with Democratic priorities and political control, such as DEI initiatives and federal workforce regulations.

Elon Musk has been just about as explicit here as Trump. Speaking at CPAC just this month, he described DOGE’s dividend plan as “the spoils of battle,” evoking the idea of a victory for his and Trump’s supporters over a political adversary.

The initiative’s visceral popularity with Trump’s base—cheering blows to the “liberal bureaucracy”—further underscores this purpose. They are happy to wear the mantle of deficit hawk, but any scrutiny of DOGE’s effectiveness at actually addressing the deficit elicits a response that devolves into discussion of the bureaucracy’s loyalty to the DNC, endemic DEI initiatives, and other culture war grievances.

And to be clear, I am by no means suggesting there isn’t waste or excess in the federal bureaucracy, nor do I even disagree with the claim that there is political bias in which segments of the population the bureaucracy represents and serves. I agree that reform is necessary (although I am much more comfortable with intelligent, concerted reform that lobbing veritable mortars at our institutions and hoping we hit more of the harmful stuff than the helpful stuff).

But whether those grievances have merit is a separate issue. My point here is that none of these are the stated justification for DOGE. This is because Trump and Elon both understand that would not be politically tenable.

For median voters, tired of partisan battles and back-and-forth cycles of political retribution, DOGE’s cover story is an important one. It offers a story far more palatable than yet another cycle of retribution. This ruse allows Trump and Musk to appeal to their core supporters and wage a culture war battle, plunder and all, while they message fiscal responsibility to the public without facing hard choices that would actually address the deficit.

DOGE’s strategy of retributive political plundering isn’t new; it’s just another iteration of a broader cycle of political dysfunction. For decades, American politics has been defined by leaders replacing policy substance with promises of financial benefits to their supporters—tax cuts, subsidies, or, in this case, dividends—while kicking the deficit can down the road (or worse, pretending to address it). The result is a national debt that is on track to reach a record share of the economy under the next administration, regardless of who’s in charge. Trump’s first term added $7.8 trillion to the debt, much of it through tax cuts and COVID relief, while Biden’s term added another $7.2 trillion, including significant non-COVID spending.

And while massive seemingly-make-believe numbers may feel far-removed from everyday Americans, this politics of plundering is actually at the heart of the economic grievances shared by millions of Americans.

Fifty Years of Kleptocracy

Culture war skirmishes keep us angry at each other, and political plundering acts as an opiate for the masses that masks a deeper, more sinister theft that continues undeterred under every new administration, Republican or Democrat.

Deficit spending is tantamount to stealing from the future to fund the present. But future generations burdened with debt aren’t the only victims of this con. Also hurt are today’s workers and savers, whose labor and purchasing power are eroded by deficit spending and quantitative easing. As interest payments consume more of the budget, the government prints more money to artificially reduce its debt burden, thereby inflating capital assets and devaluing the dollar you earn.

The results have been consistent, unequivocal, and devastating. Over the past half-century, wages for most Americans have barely kept pace with inflation, while government debt is dampened by that same inflation and the stock market has soared, benefiting the asset-owning elite. This systematic and continuing wealth transfer, driven by a monetary system that rewards capital over labor, reveals the real “parasitic class.”

Elon Musk won't solve this problem. Donald Trump won't solve this problem. Kamala Harris won't solve this problem. Nancy Pelosi won't solve this problem. They're all hell-bent on making it worse. The only difference is which mob they're promising to enrich in the process.

If we want to actually solve the problem that's burying the federal budget in debt payments, incentivizing the government to crank up inflation to ease its debt burden, and continuing the explosive growth of stock prices to insulate the elite from the broader economic malaise, we must break out of the endless tit-for-tat cycle of plunder politics.

A Way Out

The solution isn’t glamorous. We need austerity: Medicare, Social Security, and military spending (together accounting for most of federal spending) must face cuts.

But we also need to stop making regular Americans foot the bill. As long as we continue our current system of deficit spending and quantitative easing, every single downstream economic indicator is fraudulent accounting. GDP is not “the economy.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average is not “the economy.” We need to break the stranglehold on society stealing our productivity and paying it out to the asset-owning class at the top. A little bit of austerity is more palatable if working people can finally see their wages grow again.

In the end, what we are seeing now is the same old anti-populist playbook dusted off time and time again to control the masses. So long as the ruling elite can pit factions of working class against one another, none of those factions will see the bigger con stealing from all of them.

Historically, the working class wins if and only if it can see through this mirage and come together to demand real reform.

The alternative is continuing the cycle of retributive political plundering. We install our leader, punish our enemies, and line our pockets. They respond in kind. And given our current trajectory, I’m afraid, that cycle ends in a very dark place.