To the Editor:
My response to Mr. Jim Parr is YES, I’m OK with it. The “it” being Elon Musk and his team of geniuses auditing federal government spending.
Get a grip please and read or watch some factual news. The Department of Government Efficiency is a federal agency. Maybe take the time and read the President’s Executive Order. The order renamed an already existing agency, the U.S. Digital Service to DOGE. The U.S. Digital Service was created in 2014. Their mission was to improve the federal government by “bringing private sector best practices to the Federal Government.” Now that The U.S. Digital Service has been renamed to DOGE there is an emphasis to reduce unnecessary and fraudulent federal spending and eliminate excessive regulations. I’m OK with that.
However, activists, some politicians and some news analysts continue to resist any government reform and engage in irresponsible activities implying misuse of sensitive information. A recent Wall Street Journal report revealed that DOGE’s access to this information is read-only. It also does not have access to identifiable information such as health information on Medicare or Medicaid beneficiaries. What is being looked at is receipts for taxpayer money going out the door.
On Feb. 6, 2025, Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services Inc., testified before the U.S. House of Representatives. LexisNexis is a company that provides information-based analytics, decisioning tools and data management services. Their web page states they partner with over 7,500 federal, state and local government agencies. In his testimony Mr. Talcove stated he believes the federal government is losing significant amounts of money in illegitimate benefit payments. Add the massive levels of waste being revealed and one can only imagine the amount of government fraud and waste.
I don’t know about you Jim, but I pay a significant amount of federal income tax. You’re damn right I’m OK with DOGE reviewing how my money is being spent. I encourage you to visit the DOGE web page “doge.gov”. Once you see how your tax dollar is being spent you might be OK with it too.
Lastly, the protests against DOGE for reducing government waste and fraud remind me of a line from William Shakespeare, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” There just might be other reasons some of these folks are protesting the attempt to identify and reduce government waste and fraud.
David McKane, Keizer
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