Business
DOGE Must Focus On Big Picture To Achieve Big Change
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jenny Beth Martin
President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is wasting no time in laying the groundwork for its effort to cut the size and scope of government. That Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are the right men to lead this effort is beyond doubt — Musk famously slashed the workforce at Twitter after he bought it and Ramaswamy made shrinking the federal workforce the centerpiece of his campaign for president a year ago.
They know how to find cost savings, and they have shown they are not afraid to do so.
Visiting with congressional Republicans last week, Musk and Ramaswamy even declared they would be keeping a “naughty and nice” list of those who work with them to save taxpayer money and those who do not.
To that end — because who, especially at this time of year, doesn’t want to be on a “nice” list? — here are some thoughts.
First, they are going to have to look at the big picture. They won’t find the $2 trillion Musk pledged to save by focusing on the old standby, “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Yes, they are certainly going to find plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports their staff will review, but that will not be enough.
To find the big savings, they are going to have to shrink not just the size of the federal government, but its scope. The federal government is not huge just because it spends money inefficiently, it is huge because it is doing things it has no business doing.
Second, they are going to have to take advantage of the fact that much of that huge government was never specifically authorized by the Congress. The federal behemoth was created by the mass of alphabet soup executive branch agencies that have for decades been imposing regulations that have the force of law, even though the Congress never approved them.
Reversing that is going to require taking a chain saw to federal regulations. And we will need a proportionally reduced federal workforce to match the reduced federal regulatory regime. That should not be a problem; huge numbers of federal employees still have not come back to work in their offices, even though the COVID-19 crisis ended years ago. The DOGE should recommend that any federal employee who refuses a directive to come back to work in the office should be terminated. That will save taxpayer money, too — a 10% cut in the federal workforce would yield about $40 billion in savings every year.
Third, recognize that to make permanent change, executive orders will not be enough — because executive orders can be reversed by the next president. Laws, on the other hand, can only be overturned with new action by the Congress and the president. That makes laws tougher to overturn.
One of the legislative changes that would serve the long-term interest in getting the federal government under control would be passage of the REINS Act, a proposed law that would require any federal agency that wanted to impose a new regulation that would have a significant impact on the economy to first gain approval from Congress in the form of an affirmative vote in both houses, and then the signature of the president. As I said when discussing this on my recent podcast with American Commitment’s Phil Kerpen, ‘Imagine that — Congress votes on something before it becomes law!”
A second legislative change that could help make a major difference would be reform of the civil service laws that govern the federal workforce. Musk and Ramaswamy are going to recommend significant elimination of positions in the federal workforce. Under the current system, it is significantly more difficult to remove employees than it is in the private sector — even employees who engage in insubordination or flagrantly breaking rules. And before you retort, “but the tradeoff they agree to, and that we must honor, is that civil service employees accept lower compensation in exchange for that greater job security,” a recent analysis by the Cato Institute shows that “the average federal civilian worker made $157,000 in wages and benefits in 2023, much higher than the average U.S. private sector wages and benefits of $94,000.”
Greater job security on top of higher compensation? That wasn’t the deal.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) introduced his MERIT Act in the last Congress. It was a proposed law that would have strengthened agency management’s power to remove poor employees, expedited timelines and made other reforms to bring the system closer to the private-sector model. Something along those lines could be extremely helpful as federal managers move to meet their reduced workforce needs.
The DOGE enterprise begins with broad public support — a recent poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the organization I lead, Tea Party Patriots Action, shows that 71% of Americans support the creation of DOGE and 65% support firing government employees who do not return to their offices to work.
Musk and Ramaswamy have taken on a huge task, and they recognize the opportunity before them. By focusing on big-picture efforts to shrink the size and the scope of the federal government, they can help restore it to its constitutional moorings, with government officials in a smaller, less intrusive, less expensive government that is more responsive to the needs, desires, and authority of the citizens on whose behalf and in whose name they toil.
Jenny Beth Martin is honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
From LifeSiteNews
“A potential high-profile deal with one of (returning President Donald) Trump’s closest allies holds some appeal for the Chinese government, which is expected to have some say over whether TikTok is ultimately sold”
Chinese government officials are considering the possibility of allowing TikTok to be sold to X owner Elon Musk ahead of a deadline to sever the social video platform from its Chinese government-linked ownership, according to a report published Monday by Bloomberg.
Last April, a law signed by President Joe Biden and supported by many in both parties, required TikTok to be sold by January 19 or shut down due to Chinese parent company ByteDance’s links to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its military and surveillance operations, sparking national security concerns over the Chinese regime’s access to the personal data of TikTok’s American users.
ByteDance challenged the law, but last week, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled in oral arguments that it would not block the law, although no ruling has yet been issued, with the deadline for divestment just days away.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that “people familiar with the matter” said several options are now being considered on a preliminary basis, one of which would involve Musk purchasing TikTok and possibly merging it with X. That could drastically grow the latter platform’s user base and give Musk vast troves of data with which to improve his artificial intelligence project xAI.
“A potential high-profile deal with one of (returning President Donald) Trump’s closest allies holds some appeal for the Chinese government, which is expected to have some say over whether TikTok is ultimately sold,” according to the report. Musk vocally and financially supported Trump in the 2024 election and will be advising the new administration on spending cuts.
Musk, who opposed banning TikTok, has not commented on the report. ByteDance dismissed it as “pure fiction,” but Bloomberg said that “It’s not clear how much ByteDance knows about the Chinese government discussions.”
While at first glance it appears unlikely that the Chinese government would be willing to give a new owner outside its control the opportunity to examine TikTok’s collection and sharing of user data, the report suggests the regime may see it as a “potential area for reconciliation” ahead of negotiations with the Trump administration over issues such as trade and tariffs.
American politicians on both sides have inconsistent records on support for the video app. Last February, Biden’s reelection campaign joined the app despite his own administration labeling it a national security threat. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted at the time that “there are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices and there’s been no change to our policy not to allow that,” but declined to comment on the propriety of his boss using the app.
In the final year of Trump’s first term, meanwhile, he levied sanctions against TikTok and supported banning it as well, but during his 2024 campaign reversed his position days after meeting with GOP megadonor and TikTok shareholder Jeff Yass. In December, Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay the divestment deadline until after he took office, arguing that he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government.”
FDA Finally Bans Cancer-Linked Red No. 3 Food Dye
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Wednesday that it is banning the use of Red No. 3, a synthetic dye responsible for the vibrant cherry red color in foods and beverages, citing its association with cancer in animal studies:
The dye is still used in thousands of foods, including candy, cereals, cherries in fruit cocktails and strawberry-flavored milkshakes, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food safety advocacy group that petitioned the agency in 2022 to end its use.
Food manufacturers will have until Jan. 15, 2027 to reformulate their products. Companies that make ingested drugs, such as dietary supplements, will get an additional year.
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This ban was LONG overdue. Unfortunately, the other synthetic food dyes that have also been linked to serious deleterious health effects still remain on the market. A few months ago, I summarized the harm linked to synthetic food dyes — outdated FDA standards expose Americans to toxic food dyes linked to cancer, neurobehavioral issues, and other health risks, demanding urgent regulatory action:
Synthetic Food Dyes: A Half-Century of Harm |
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by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
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Batada et al found that nearly half (43.2%) of grocery store products contained artificial food colorings (AFCs), with Red 40 (29.8%), Blue 1 (24.2%), Yellow 5 (20.5%), and Yellow 6 (19.5%) being the most common. Candies (96.3%), fruit-flavored snacks (94%), and drink mixes/powders (89.7%) had the highest prevalence of AFCs, while produce contained none.
Oliveira et al summarized the deleterious health effects linked to synthetic food colorings in children: neurobehavioral disorders, allergic reactions, carcinogenic and mutagenic potential, gastrointestinal and respiratory issues, toxicity, developmental and growth delays, and behavioral changes.
Sultana et al illustrated the specific health hazards associated with particular synthetic food dyes:
Miller et al conducted a systematic review of the potential neurobehavioral impacts (activity and attention) of food dye consumption. They included 27 clinical trials of children exposed to synthetic food dyes and found that 16 of 25 challenge studies (64%) demonstrated evidence of a positive association, with 13 studies (52%) reporting statistically significant findings. The authors concluded, “Current evidence from studies in humans, largely from controlled exposure studies in children, supports a relationship between food dye exposure and adverse behavioral outcomes in children, both with and without pre-existing behavioral disorders.” They also noted that:
“Animal toxicology studies were used by FDA as the basis for regulatory risk assessments of food dyes [25]. All current dye registrations were made between 1969 and 1986 based on studies performed 35 to 50 years ago. These studies were not designed to assess neurobehavioral endpoints. Dye registration was accompanied by derivation of an “acceptable daily intake” (ADI) based on these studies. FDA ADIs have not been updated since original dye registration, although there have been several reviews of specific effects since then, the latest in 2011.”
Synthetic food dyes, widely prevalent in U.S. products and lacking nutritional value, rely on outdated FDA approvals despite evidence of widespread toxicity, carcinogenicity, and adverse neurobehavioral effects, strongly warranting urgent regulatory action to protect public health.
While the FDA has finally made a decision that will benefit public health, they are still allowing the dangerous COVID-19 genetic injections to be administered to all individuals aged 6 months and older despite far exceeding criteria for a Class I recall. The immediate removal of unsafe and ineffective gene therapy injections should be the first priority before anything other product bans.
Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Please consider following the McCullough Foundation and Nicolas Hulscher on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.
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