Apparently, there is some kind of big sportsball event today - the Superb Owl, I'm told. (h/t to RedState's Susie Moore for letting me know what it was called by none other than Fox News' Greg Gutfeld). In the lead-up to this big event, President Trump sat down with Fox Chief Political Anchor Bret Baier and, among other things, talked about Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and what the president expects the DOGE will take a bite out of next.
President Donald Trump detailed his plans to instruct DOGE lead, Elon Musk, to probe the Education and Defense Departments for wasteful spending. The President told Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier in an exclusive pre-Super Bowl interview that the billionaire entrepreneur has been a trustworthy ally in fulfilling his promise to cut the red tape.
"He's not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it," Trump said.
"I'm going to tell him very soon… to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go into the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that."
The Department of Education, we might note, has no constitutional authorization to exist at all; I've advocated for shutting down the ED for years. Education policy needs to be responsive to the customers - parents - and should be narrowly focused on producing young adults with marketable skills. That's best done at the local level. President Trump seems to be thinking along the same lines.
President Donald Trump and Republicans have advocated shutting down the Department of Education, saying that the states are better equipped to handle education. Trump on Tuesday said that if Linda McMahon, his pick for education secretary, is confirmed, she should work to "put herself out of a job."
Defense, as well, would benefit from a hard look by the DOGE. I'm as pro-military as anyone, but the Defense Department has routinely failed financial audits (the Marines being the exception), and that's not acceptable. We pour billions into the Defense Department. (Can we go back to calling it the War Department? We don't need to split the Navy and Marines back off into the Navy Department; just roll all the services in and call it what it really is: an organization of warfighters.)
The taxpayers have a right to know where our money is going. The federal government as a whole is desperately overdue for just such an examination; no department or agency should be exempt.
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President Trump summarized it very well:
"The people want me to find it [the wasteful spending]," Trump told Baier.
"And I've had great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific."
Consider, as well, the people who are resisting this effort. Who can justify opposing an effort to find and eliminate wasteful spending? Who can object to an effort like this?
People, perhaps, who are benefitting, in one way or another, from Washington's Byzantine systems, the opaque budgeting, the layers upon layers of money-shuffling, and the billions that simply disappear every year.
People, perhaps, with something to gain from perpetuating this horrendous system.
The efforts of the DOGE are already being fought. We expected that. But after what we've seen from this new administration over the last few weeks, well, smart money is on President Trump succeeding this time.
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