Letter from Chip Northrup

DOGE or DOPE? You Decide

The Department of Government Efficiency, “DOGE,” is ostensibly in charge of increasing the efficiency of the departments it audits. What it is actually doing is crippling or eliminating those agencies—the VA, FAA, DoE, USAID, National Parks Service, Post Office, FEMA, etc. for the purpose of monetizing their assets and privatizing their services. DOGE is just the cover name for the Department of Private Equity—DOPE.

Ironically, most of the net beneficiaries of these programs, indeed, of federal funding in general, are Republican states (https://jasonsisney.substack.com/p/california-biggest-donor-state-to). Meaning they get more from Washington than they pay in taxes. On a per capita basis, West Virginia residents get more in federal funds than they pay in taxes. Statewide, Texas gets $71B more in fed funds than it pays in taxes. North Carolina gets $43B more. Meaning the voters that are negatively impacted by DOPE are disproportionately Republicans. Thus far, all of the DOPE cuts have been in discretionary non-defense spending that make up less than 15 percent of the federal budget. So we all lose our government weather forecasting, our government funded cancer research centers and our park rangers for no significant reduction in overall spending.