Kevin Villani

DOGE is an Oxymoron: Unchecked “Democracy” is the Problem

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Unlike the private sector, where operational efficiency is necessary to survive, the public sector is and always has been inherently inefficient. But that’s not the main problem. Think of federal public polices justified as being in the “public interest” as a building. On the upper floors are the best of them, the merely inefficient. At the mezzanine level are those suffering from extensive waste, fraud and abuse. On the ground floor are policies and programs rife with self-dealing and crony capitalism. Down in the basement is the “temple of virtue” where taxpayers are sacrificed to multiple ideological isms.

DOGE is peeking inside the locked doors on all four levels. As DOGE exposes “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap,” politicians cry foul, as “they were implemented (by us) democratically. To paraphrase Churchill, “democracy is less bad than totalitarianism,” but, he might have added “generally worse than competitive private markets.” At this stage in US democracy, DOGE revelations have lost some of their shock value as commonplace, and politicians emphasize their good intent. DOGE needs to demonstrate that “good intentions” often lead to bad outcomes, and do not justify corruption in any case.

DOGE alone can only win a few skirmishes against Congress and its massive army of rent-seekers feeding off their largess. With public understanding and support, the Trump Administration could bring about more permanent structural changes that provide greater voter control.

Life is a Competition

Americans love sports, from 5 & 6-year-old soccer leagues through high school, college and pro teams, where the competition to succeed is intense. Pro sports is a business, as the recent Luka Donic trade to the Lakers reminds us, with winners and losers. It is incredibly “democratic” as millions of fans choose what players to follow, games to attend or stream at the posted price, and owners respond continuously to fan expectations. The competition is subject to a massive set of complicated rules and limitations enforced by referees and judges whose integrity is subjected to coaches’ challenge, instant replay and fan fury. That reflects the system of checks and balances that a competitive private market incorporates.

Now imagine a pro sports league designed and governed by the most honest and altruistic national politicians. They would deem it unfair to pay some athletes more than others, or to exclude the weak or physically impaired from the competition. Winners would be determined by political deal making in smoke-filled back rooms. Prices would be determined according to “ability to pay” and ticket purchases would be mandatory whether or not attending the games, with revenues first flowing through party coffers. Fans would be told who to root for and losing teams and cities would be declared winners so as not to result in hurt feelings. Voting against this system would result in your team being designated the loser but you would still be required to buy the tickets. That’s a metaphor for our current “altruistic” federal democracy.

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Should President Trump Abolish FEMA?

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FEMA is arguably the federal government’s most compassionate agency, helping households when they need it most. It became a 2024 campaign issue when it was reported that it refused help to households displaying Trump political signs. Then, in the wake of the recent massive California wildfires, California’s Governor Newsom recoiled at President Trump’s suggestion that aide may come with strings attached. President Trump has responded by suggesting he may once again attempt to reform FEMA or even abolish it.

FEMA was created by an executive order issued by President Carter in 1979 with a “dual mission of emergency management and civil defense.” It has gone through numerous reforms and restructuring efforts since, growing to over 20,000 employees and an elastic budget of $30 billion, plus supplemental appropriations as needed. In 2001, Congress put this now huge agency into the new Department of Homeland Security, a behemoth with over 260,000 employees – third behind DOD and the VA – with a budget of $108 billion.

FEMA says its current role is to provide “experience, perspective, and resources in emergency management….. to help people and support the Nation’s disaster and emergency management needs.” By 1979 there were multiple agencies of the federal government that responded in one way or another to “national disasters,” so FEMA was created to improve management efficiency. But FEMA’s 52-page mission statement, titled “We Are FEMA: Helping People Before, During and After Disasters” doesn’t define what a “disaster is” (whatever POTUS says) or exactly what people, how and how much. It also does not address the role of state, local and other governments, nor the role and responsibility of households, primary casualty insurers or reinsurers.

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Let the Games Begin

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The ancient Greeks gave us “democracy,” a set of rules for candidates to compete for the right to rule. They also gave us the Olympics, a set of rules for individuals, teams and ultimately countries to compete in athletic events. The Olympics outlawed certain drugs, standardized the technology and separated males from females (historically) due to genetic differences, but otherwise there is no favoritism due to race, ethnicity, family history, country of origin, etc. Medals are awarded only to the top performers, gold/silver/bronze (all formerly used for money). Capitalism is a comparable set of rules for competition among individuals, teams and countries. Technology and management differences are allowed, even encouraged, as all contestants share in it over time. Similarly, capitalist competition is the source of virtually all human improvement for winners and losers alike. The US Constitution uniquely established rules for a competitive democracy and competitive market economy, historically the source of US economic growth.

 

The Olympics is a big business, with a history of scandals relating to kickbacks to judges, host country officials or Olympic Committee Members that corrupts the competition. Similarly, politicians who make the rules for a market economy that show favoritism to particular industries, firms or people, i.e., crony capitalism, is the corrupt antithesis of competitive market capitalism.

 

Competing with Olympic coverage in France, ironically under the French banner of “equality,” is the current political competition for the US presidency, which both sides agree is “pivotal” for democracy’s future, but the democracy spectrum runs from a limited government representative republic on the right to a majoritarian “peoples democracy” on the left. Each campaign accuses the other of hate, fear mongering, political pandering and the usual lies and misinformation (political spin). So far it has been an entertaining tag team mud wrestling match (even these have rules and limits).

 

But for over a century the fundamental economic choice has been between competitive market capitalism and egalitarian socialism, growth versus stagnation. The divide has never been more clear, although the Democratic Party eschews the socialist label. In 2020, when openly socialist Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders appeared a certain victor, the Party pulled the candidate, but adopted his “democratic socialism” platform. Current candidate Harris, similarly anointed, has either agreed with or been to the left of that platform on every issue, recent flip/flops notwithstanding. Their radical distributional “democratic socialism” goes beyond “to each according to his needs” to require “to each equally.” Their production ideology, eschewing state ownership, calls for a fair degree of state control.

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“A Disease of the Public Mind”

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That is the title of a book about the first US Civil War that resulted in the assassination of President Lincoln. The soldiers in the South hated those in the North and vice versa. Northern soldiers have since been credited with undeserved virtue while Southern rebels were labeled racist enemies of the state, a moniker that still survives in the present day. But neither side was fighting over the abolition of slavery.

 

Trump’s opponents claim he will re-institute Jim Crow oppression, put black people back in chains, end democracy and put people in Hitler’s concentration camps. The continuous character assassinations, legal persecutions, numerous impeachments, unfounded accusations and insinuation caused what has been called Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), a disease of the public mind resulting in a recent assassination attempt.

 

Follow the Money
The Constitution the North and South agreed upon in 1788 enshrined the economic principles of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, fostering equality under the law, individual sovereignty and limited government. Slavery was still too contentious an issue to settle. Starting in the next century the British led a moral crusade to eliminate slavery globally. While politically virtuous, Britain could afford to pay off slave owners and generally didn’t face the the vexing question for US plantation owners of whether freed slaves could support themselves and, if not, whether this would lead to murderous riots as had happened elsewhere. Abolition was a contentious issue everywhere slavery was practiced, typically with long drawn out steps to complete. But the long simmering political dispute that came to a head in 1860 wasn’t about abolition, but money. The federal government relied almost exclusively on tariffs raised in Southern ports – most of which went to northern states – on imports financed with the fruits of slavery, cotton exports.

 

Since the Civil War, limited government has given way to big government. The Democratic Party has created many dependent constituencies whose continued prosperity depends upon continuing Democratic power and largess: the bureaucracy, the government at all levels, teachers, labor leaders, academic educators and administrators, trial lawyers, government contractors, social security recipients and what are still euphemistically called journalists, among many others. The current Civil War is also about money. Trump has been in both political parties, fits in neither. But ”you are fired” represents an existential threat to Party members.

 

For contemporary Democratic politicians, almost all trained as lawyers, money beyond what is available by taxing the rich exists in banks, especially the Federal Reserve Banks, to be distributed according to the spoils system. For Republican politicians (but not RINOs), mostly former businessmen, prosperity comes from productive work and from savings productively invested. For those businesses and workers who are not on the receiving end of the spoils system, whose taxes pay for political largess, limited government is the only solution. There is very little middle ground.

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What Happened to Serious Economic Policy Debates?

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Economic policy determines whether economies, and hence citizen real income grows nationally and how that income is distributed. The invisible hand of a market economy guides investment to its most profitable, hence most productive uses. Not so for the heavy hand of the state. The Soviet Union saved and invested five to six times as much as the US, but productivity lagged and the economy eventually collapsed. Taxpayers have some control over “public” investment performance at, e.g., the small private level (condo, coop) but voter influence declines as the distance and size of the governing body increases. Making national investment policy even more difficult is the fact that even highly productive public investment may not pay off until well into the future. While rational economic policy would devolve decision-making and funding to the lowest possible level, the federal government’s lack of a hard budget constraint allows it to fund without accountability. The Constitution’s enumerated powers has proven an insufficient constraint on this perverse political incentive.

 

During President Trump’s term, pre-pandemic, real wages rose steadily at about 2% reflecting the steady real economic growth, but fell under Biden by over 2% due to inflation. Black unemployment and poverty fell under Trump, and continued to fall under Biden. While Trump proposed deep budget cuts, the Congress passed essentially the Democrats’ budget under both Ryan and Pelosi. Trump passed what in the ’60s under Kennedy was called a Keynesian tax cut, now called a “voodoo economics” supply-side tax cut for the rich to spur business investment, that worked essentially as planned.

 

Trump takes undue credit for the good performance during his term, for which the main stream media (MSM) accuse him of lying. Biden does the same, for which the MSM cheers. Independent voters favor Trump over Biden by 45% to 34% on the management of the economy. Numerous Democratic commentators have speculated that voter mistrust of Biden reflects FOX fake news popping up on TV sets uninvited to brainwash unsuspecting viewers.

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