In Musk’s quest for smaller government, DOGE has gutted an already under resourced federal public service, cutting about 260,000 employees from a workforce of 2.3 million. The cuts went so deep the Trump administration is reportedly bringing people back in departments across the government as key services like weather prediction and drug approval have suffered. Air traffic control at airports around the country is struggling after reckless intervention by DOGE and its gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has left the public at the mercy of predatory companies.
But those consequences appear quaint when compared to the blood on Musk’s hands from the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has left food rotting in warehouses instead of going to those who need it and desperate people being denied life-saving medications. A million children are likely to lose treatment for malnutrition as a result, which could lead to 160,000 additional kids dying every year. The cuts to USAID have already killed over 300,000 people, according to estimates by Boston University associate professor of global health Brooke Nichols, with about 100 more dying with every passing hour.
The gutting of USAID has also impacted the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), cutting off treatment to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive pregnant women. As a result, more than 135,000 babies are estimated to be born with HIV that otherwise would not have been, and they’re then unlikely to get diagnosed or properly treated for the disease. For all that suffering, DOGE will not save the government $1 trillion as Musk once promised. Experts believe the savings will be far less than even the revised $175 billion figure, and could be fully negated by the costs of carrying out the cuts in the first place.
My brain (since 1990), or at least I have been trying.