By Alexander Lomax
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Unless you live under a rock politically, you are aware that Elon Musk is making some serious waves in American politics. Under the guise of the self-established Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE (with an acronym named after his favorite meme cryptocoin), he has been pouring through government departments, looking for purported waste and using tactics (such as getting a disturbing degree of access at times) that are pleasing some and alienating many.
Republicans seem to be generally united in praise, as arcane expenditures that often appear to have a high degree of political bias and “wokeness” are uncovered. While the cost savings so far appear to be minimal in comparison to the size of the budget, it has the side benefit of making the priorities of President Biden and past Democrats look extreme.
Arizona Republicans seem to now be taking their cue from this development and are implementing Musk-ian type reforms in Arizona, led by Scottsdale Rep. Alex Kolodin, who wants to “take an axe to the size of government”.
So far so good, ehh? Well on the surface it always does, and the examples that he lists as the lowest hanging fruit for cutting, such as the Citrus Research Council and the Acupuncture Board of Examiners are reasonable ones. Much like Musk cutting $2 million in spending for gender-reassignment surgeries in Guatemala through USAID, reasonable people will agree.
But in that same vein, much like cutting $2 million out of a $6 TRILLION budget is de facto meaningless, cutting tiny committees in Arizona is also essentially meaningless. What will Kolodin and Co. find to cut that will have a meaningful positive impact on the budget without getting rid of safeguards for the citizenry? What will they recommend cutting for the real purpose of helping powerful special interests and donors instead of for the betterment of the state? These are the things that they will not call a press conference for. Those are the things that demand sunlight as disinfectant.
And I want to be clear when I say, I agree with smaller government in theory. I agree that reviews should be done from time to time, as the desire to add items for the sake of appearing useful and productive outweighs the desire to streamline most of the time. It is necessary, but it is critical to be done in an objective and sober manner, something which the current administration that’s being used as the example is not projecting out very well.
Since it is clear that this year and next Republicans will largely be devoted to demonizing and pushing out Governor Hobbs, it’s similarly evident that this initiative will be used as a tool for that. An opportunity for level-setting government will be weaponized instead. I hope that I’m proven wrong, but I don’t think Kolodin is capable of not politicizing an issue.