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DOGE Was Doomed to Fail — Even if It Succeeded |
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Dear reader, |
Between January 2025 and November 2025… the United States federal labor force receded nearly 10%... a nearly 270,000 culling. |
This lovely winnowing transpired under the presently defunct Department of Government Efficiency. |
A sane man would conclude that the federal budget would decline with the federal labor force. |
Yet the sane man would be mistaken. |
Not only has the federal budget not declined — it has increased by $300 billion. |
That is, even when the federal bureaucracy undergoes contraction, the federal budget still undergoes expansion. |
The Actual Problem |
Mr. James Hickman is an investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Sovereign Man. From whom: |
The federal government spent $7 trillion in Fiscal Year 2025 — roughly $300 billion more than the year before. Bear in mind, 2025 was the year that DOGE was supposed to take a chainsaw to the budget and cut spending. |
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This is not a failure of DOGE. It's a revelation about the actual problem. |
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And what, sir, is the actual problem? |
The total federal payroll — every salary, every benefit, for every civilian federal employee (excluding the military) — comes to about $336 billion a year — less than 5% of total federal spending. |
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In other words, you could fire every federal employee tomorrow — every bureaucrat, every regulator, every paper-pusher in Washington — and 95% of the spending would continue as if nothing happened. |
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The Bottomless Pit of Non-Discretionary Spending |
The central burden is of course "entitlement" spending. Programs such as Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid devour some 60% of the federal budget. |
They represent "mandatory" spending funnels that Congress cannot kink or stifle. They go along on "autopilot" outside congressional approval. |
Meantime, servicing the ballooning national debt presently consumes over $1 trillion per year… and will likely increase in the years approaching. |
These payments likewise constitute mandatory spending. They are not subject to congressional say-so. |
Continues Mr. Hickman: |
All of these obligations grow automatically, every year, regardless of who's in charge or how many people show up to work. |
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Social Security alone grew by over $100 billion last year. Interest payments grew by another nearly $100 billion. Those two-line items, by themselves, swallowed more than the entire savings DOGE could theoretically achieve by cutting the workforce. |
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In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 80% of projected spending growth over the next decade comes from Social Security, federal healthcare programs, and interest on the debt. |
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No One Will Talk About It |
Recall: a 100% axing of the federal labor force would leave 95% of federal spending unscathed. |
I am convinced that a 100% axing of the federal labor force would vastly improve most sectors of American life — not all sectors perhaps — but most sectors. |
Alas, it would scarcely budge the overall budgetary burden under which Americans groan. |
And thus we arrive at the central difficulty none dare discuss. And that is what, Mr. Hickman? |
This is the structural problem nobody in Washington wants to talk about honestly: America's deficit problem isn't exclusively because of bad decisions today. It's a failure to address bad decisions made years ago… decades ago–commitments that are baked into law, growing on autopilot, funded by borrowing roughly $2 trillion every year. |
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Yet as with flowing water… the path of least resistance is nearly always the path that politics selects. |
Let it be someone else's worry, on some distant date is the politician's calculation. |
And so the soda can gets booted on down the roadway. |
Thus yesterday's difficult choice becomes today's harder choice becomes tomorrow's impossible choice. |
And so here we are. |
Both Irresistible Force and Immovable Object |
The difficulty is compounded by the nearly invincible inertia of Washington's bureaucratic mass. |
It is both irresistible and unmovable: |
DOGE also proved something far more uncomfortable. Whenever the executive branch tries to go beyond workforce cuts and tackle the spending itself — even fraudulent spending — someone files a lawsuit, and a judge issues an injunction. |
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Federal judges blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury payment systems. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general sued to halt layoffs at over a dozen agencies. Even relatively modest cuts were tied up in litigation for months. |
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The legal system functions as a ratchet: spending can go up easily, but it almost never comes down. |
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That last sentence harbors one word too many — the word "almost." |
Yet this Hickman fellow stumbles at the finish line. |
He Gets Everything Right But the Solution |
He lays his index finger — correctly — on the central difficulty and the scope of that difficulty. |
Yet then he takes his stumble. That is, he fundamentally botches the solution: |
Ultimately, the spending trajectory won't change until Congress decides to… cut spending across the board… |
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In an ideal world, Congress would address these entitlement programs directly. They are, after all, the biggest driver of the problem. But reforming Social Security or Medicare is the political third rail — nobody wants to touch it… |
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Within seven years, Social Security's trust funds will be exhausted, and the national debt will exceed $50 trillion. At that point, the math won't just be uncomfortable. It will be unavoidable. |
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He cites the insurmountable challenge itself — "reforming Social Security or Medicare is the political third rail — nobody wants to touch it." |
Why then would this fellow think Congress will touch it now? Or if they do touch it, that they will handle it properly? |
Which politician will don the black hat… and endure charges that he is a heartless ice block who will force grandmother into bankruptcy… turn her out upon the street… and force her to choose between buying food or medicine? |
Not a politician who aspires to reelection. |
And so entrusting the solution to Congress to entrust the liquor cabinet to a sot. |
An Alternative Solution |
Does another solution exist? |
I have proposed — only half in jest — a dictator for liberty. |
This unusual tyrant would impose stiff spending reductions each year of his draconian yet republic-preserving rule. |
Congress would lack all power to disrupt him. |
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I am fully aware this form of government will never come to pass in this our land. |
Yet what is your solution? To elect better leaders? |
If only prior generations had thought of it. |
Yet prior generations did think of it — as I suspect every future generation will think of it. |
Brian Maher |
for Freedom Financial News |
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