Letter to the Editor,
President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE have claimed that Musk’s chainsaw wielding was to reduce the federal budget by cutting waste, corruption, and abuse. However, other than agenda driven reasoning (e.g. eliminating DEI, climate change, etc programs), I had not found any coherent definition or examples of what constitutes waste, corruption, nor abuse in their rhetoric.
An article in the Examiner, (As Congress Examines Medicaid Budget, State Group Shares Worries About the Program’s Future, 5-14-25) on Medicaid funding, quoted the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services definitions of waste, corruption (fraud), and abuse. It also mentioned that a number of cases of fraud are working their way through the system. This suggests that A) such definitions and processes exist, B) other departments within the administration have similar definitions and processes set up, and C) departments were investigating waste, corruption, and abuse prior to the recent executive orders of the president and “axe”tion of DOGE.
Given Musk’s eye-catching chainsaw soundbite, let’s put this into imagery that makes sense out here in the Hardwood Forest: timber harvest. I wonder what kind of logging operation DOGE is up to: A) Clear cutting, B) high grading, or C) selective harvest?
A) If you clear cut land, unless you carefully replant, you get opportunistic trees which are of little value. In the political world, when you clear cut programs you get cronyism and grifters.
For instance, President Trump recently pitched the idea of having a “universal flu vaccine”. This is based on 1950’s and 60’s technology to which two of the doctors advising him happen to own the patten.
B) If you high grade the forest, you remove the best quality trees leaving only “junk trees” of little future value. Without mature parent trees, the forest will not have seeds to repopulate the forest with quality tree seedlings.
For instance, a friend was a manager in a federal department. DOGE demanded that he select a couple dozen “probationary” employees to eliminate. These were newly hired scientist who would be generating data on of economic value to grow our factory production. They were all told (through a vague DOGE email, not by the manager) that they were being laid off due to poor performance. The manager was then given the option of early retirement, or take the buy-out with compensation through September. He opted for early retirement and agreed on an exit date in 2 weeks to help with the transition. On the Friday that he was supposed to retire, they asked him to stay on another week. He cooperated, only to be walked out of office on Monday. There are a couple of dozen votes the GOP will never get in future elections. There are a group of highly trained researchers who will not be helping our government build a better economy. High grading destroys the forest.
- C) Selective harvests are a process that take decades. When a land owner prepares, with expert forester help, they start by harvesting trees that will never grow into valuable timber: the stunted trees, the gnarly trees, the insect or weather damaged trees (e.g. low productivity, bureaucratic redundancy, violations of fiduciary responsibility, etc.). Every few years, the owner harvests some of these, allowing the more productive trees to grown into valuable assets. The land manager preserves the best trees which will provide seeds to regenerate the forest, so that when quality trees are harvested (e.g. retirements, promotions, etc.) Without the waste, corruption, and abuse of the early harvested trees, the valuable trees grow better.
I am reminded of the parable in Judges 9, in which the forest calls to various trees to be its leader. All the trees give reasons that they will pass. Finally, they ask a brambly, thorny bush to lead the forest. Though low in stature the brambly thorn blush claims that all the other trees can rest in its shade, otherwise the bush will burst into flames and consume the whole forest. False promises lead to retribution and a destroyed forest.
Oscar Larson
Baker, WV
