The mass layoffs of federal government workers being carried out by the Trump Administration with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are drawing vehement criticism not only from Democrats, but also, from some Never Trump conservatives.
For example, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (an outspoken Never Trumper and former GOP congressman) is arguing that while government waste and the federal deficit need to be reduced, it shouldn’t be done at the expense of “food safety,” air travel safety or the distribution of Social Security benefits. Scarbrough believes the Trump/DOGE cuts are being carried out in a reckless, haphazard way.
Another DOGE critic on the right is veteran Washington Post columnist George Will.
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In his March 19 column, the 83-year-old Will criticizes the Trump Administration/DOGE cuts as political theater that will do little, if anything, to lower the federal deficit.
“Trump is the taunter of Canada, coveter of Greenland, threatener of Panama, re-namer of the Gulf of Mexico, scourge of paper straws and demander that Major League Baseball ‘get off its fat, lazy a—’ and enshrine Pete Rose in Cooperstown,” Will observes. “He fulminates about everything…. The in-your-face-all-the-time trophy goes, however, to Trump’s apprentice. The black-clad, chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk is a master of the angry adolescent’s dress and of the now-presidential penchant for vulgarity. ‘LITERALLY, F— YOUR OWN FACE!’ Musk responded with a meme to an X user who annoyed him.”
But Musk’s theatrics, Will argues, will not substantially reduce the federal deficit.
“If the remaining 46 months of Donald Trump’s resurrection resemble the first two,” Will writes, “this administration will have a remarkably high ratio of theatrical action to substantial achievement. And it will exacerbate the fiscal incontinence that is the nation’s foremost domestic crisis….. In this fiscal year’s first five months, beginning October 1, the government borrowed $1.1 trillion — almost $8 billion a day.”
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Will continues, “In February, the first full month of the Musk’s government-pruning ‘revolution,’ borrowing was $308 billion because spending was $40 billion more — a 7 percent increase over February 2024. This is not Musk’s fault. His ‘efficiency’ crusade is a gnat nibbling at the elephantine government’s accelerating growth.”
The conservative columnist argues that neither MAGA Republicans nor Democrats have a serious game plan for tacking the federal deficit.
“In 2025,” Will laments, “one party is prostrate before its Dear Leader, and the other is unembarrassed about pathetically waving a sign proclaiming, ‘This is not normal.’ This has become normal: In our two-party system, when one party drives itself into a ditch, the other swerves into the opposite one.”
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George Will’s full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).
