On the Issues
Elon Musk, DOGE and other unelected oligarchs in Washington have slashed and burned their way through tens of thousands of jobs that working Americans relied on to support their families. To make matters worse, instead of creating more savings for taxpayers, their actions are costing the American people time, money and services:
After calling social security a “ponzi scheme,” Elon Musk is now aiming to weaken the program and make it more difficult for American seniors to access their benefits. DOGE has cut over 10% of the social security workforce, and they plan to shutter social security offices nationwide and limit available phone services where Americans can make updates to their coverage plans and get answers when they need them, like when a benefits check doesn’t arrive on time.
DOGE’s federal workforce cuts are forcing tens of thousands of military veterans across the country into unemployment as it puts the Department of Veterans Affairs through a woodchipper and lays off 80,000 VA workers. These sweeping cuts impact communities around the country and mean that the people who have sacrificed so much for our country will suffer. Elon Musk’s indifference toward the health services American military veterans need is a stain on the flag.
Elon Musk, DOGE, and ideologues in Washington have made America less safe by firing battle-tested and highly-trained professionals who keep America’s adversaries at bay. This political agenda for America’s military is combined with arrogance and ignorance that puts Americans in danger, including jeopardizing our military’s critical infrastructure. Elon Musk and DOGE cut over 130 people at the Department of Homeland Security and hundreds tasked with managing our nuclear weapons program (only to scramble to rehire the experts once he understood how badly they had messed up).
Despite Musk’s claims about wanting to increase government transparency, DOGE is made up of non-elected Silicon Valley insiders who are erasing government data, sharing false and manipulated information on spending cuts and eliminating parts of the government dedicated to ensuring transparency. While they don’t want to share the real details of what they are doing with Americans, they are doing everything they can to get access to highly sensitive financial and health information on millions of Americans through the practically unlimited access they have been given to government agencies.
Through DOGE, the Trump administration has gutted the Department of Education and cut essential education programs that provide children school lunches and support children with special needs. At a time when America should be investing in ourselves so that we can not just compete, but actually continue to lead, in the years ahead, we should be improving our education system and public health services and solutions—not winding them back 100 years.
In addition to DOGE taking an axe to consumer protections like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved Americans nearly $20 billion dollars since the 2008 financial crisis, the administration’s tariffs are expected to hit Americans’ pockets hard, raising prices for household essentials like food, diapers, computers and more. Experts estimate tariffs will drive up annual costs for the average family anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000.
Washington is making it harder for Americans to buy homes by cutting essential programs and funding for local communities that help preserve affordable housing for low-income families. That doesn’t even take into account the economic uncertainty resulting from the tariffs and the potential for this consumer tax to further raise housing prices. For the families already struggling to get by, it could become exponentially more difficult to find a safe, comfortable place to live.
