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.

DOPE is crippling the very programs that Republicans have long wanted to privatize, to monetize. President George Bush 2.0 tried to privatize Social Security. President Musk may succeed in doing so, as may he succeed in monetizing the national parks and privatizing the Post Office—by first cutting staff and programs to the bone. After crippling the programs, privatization and monetization will be offered as the solution, the cure, courtesy of the Department of Private Equity. The Cooperstown Post Office on Main Street will be shut down, and the building sold for a cannabis dispensary.

Some essential services can only be done collectively by the government. If that were not the case, then countries with the least amount of functioning government—Eritrea and Haiti—would have the best public services, and countries with the strongest government agencies—Denmark and Norway—would have the worst. Some services do not lend themselves to privatization, even in the reddest of states. Absent state-funded property insurance, most coastal properties in Florida, aka “Floodida,” would become uninsurable. No private insurance company would take the risk without a government subsidy. FEMA provides those subsidized rates in Florida and elsewhere. No FEMA, no insurance.

Environmental safeguards from the EPA and medical safeguards from the FDA do not lend themselves to monetization. They must be done collectively. They must be done on behalf of the governed, by duly-elected representatives that oversee responsible government agencies. Not by Musk’s DOPE hackers.

Chip Northrup
Cooperstown