Very few things that are valuable in life happen quickly or without cost. Consider anything from gaining an education to a healthy marriage; these things are well worth the effort, but also require time and sacrifice. The same is true for communities. Whether we aspire to resolve issues like poverty and inequality or set foot on a new planet, these things take time in order to be done well or even happen at all. Put simply, they are not efficient. And yet, they are worth it.
The U.S. Government has begun to radically prioritize “efficiency” over all other ideals. Efficiency over justice. Efficiency over the environment. Efficiency over diplomacy. Efficiency over health. As the Department of Government Efficiency (aka DOGE) continues to slash and burn government programs with what can only be described as reckless abandon, the list of casualties on their altar of efficiency is literally growing by the day. The United States was not founded on an ideal of efficiency, and to make this our topmost priority is not only naive, but incredibly dangerous.
Current government priorities have recklessly cut funding, while making ambiguous promises about restoring it later. One of the primary issues with this specific, relentless pursuit of efficiency is that when we get it wrong, the consequences that are absorbed can be difficult if not impossible to undo. One of the recent victims of this pursuit of efficiency has been USAID, including programs that administer life-saving HIV medication and treatment. The New York Times states that, without this funding, an estimated 1,650,000 people could die each year. These are lives that cannot be brought back with the restoration of funding. One professor at Boston University has even built a tracking system that estimates over 100,000 children globally have already died due to the sudden lack of resources and health interventions. Even if USAID is brought back and determined to be worth its budget, those children will remain in the ground.
It is also important to recognize that most, if not all, of the time democracy is not an “efficient” process. Every stage,from determining who to vote for to the passing of laws in Congress, takes time. Admittedly, an autocracy (or even a monarchy) is a lot more efficient. When power is centralized in the hands of the few, fewerdecision makers means less time making decisions. It also means that those decisions become centered around retaining and expanding the power in the hands of the few rather than creating a society or nation that promotes the general welfare of its citizens. Democracy is messy, there’s no way around it. Failing to recognize this and pursuing efficiency as if it can be forced upon democracy will only drive it out. History has so far proven that we have yet to discover a better system to take its place.
Most every dissenting opinion with the current administration's pursuit of efficiency has begun with an admission that reform is needed and has been needed for a very long time. That said, this is a process that requires technical knowledge of the field you seek to change and an understanding of what the flaws are that exist. This is a process that takes time and experience (again, a necessary but not an efficient process). Blindly cutting off programs without regard for what you are even eliminating is not reform, and often results in stupid and avoidable mistakes.
So far,these mistakes have included the firing of key workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration (who subsequently had their employment reinstated), thousands of veterans facing unemployment, and the scrubbing of key historical documents from government websites including information about the airplane that dropped the nuclear bomb. Why did the airplane get removed? It was named the “Enola Gay” after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of Paul Tibbets who flew the plane that dropped the bomb. With no official explanation, it seems that the U.S. Government is aiming to purge anything with the word “gay” in it as a part of its tirade against DEI, regardless of the context or meaning.
Yes, reform has been necessary for a long time, but just like democracy, doing it right is not an efficient process. Doing things fast has already resulted–and will continue to result–in inconceivable levels of reckless incompetence from our nation’s highest office.
The root of the problem with this relentless and narrow focus on efficiency is best summed up by the idea that “confidence without character is dangerous”, which also happens to be a direct quote from Barbie Princess Charm School (and I will not apologize for that). The U.S. Government is literally falling for the mistakes presented by the villain in a Barbie movie, making decisions and moving with confidence, without the character to back it up. Until this problem is corrected, innocent people, democracy, and our national identity will continue to be sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.