To the editor:

I keep seeing Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the news doing their best to dismantle the functions of the federal government by cutting and freezing funding for the services that everyday Americans rely on. These billionaires and the ruling class want a small government not because of a sincere belief that small government is better for the people, but because they want to privatize it to make a profit off of everyday citizens. In his quest to curb government spending will billionaire Musk trim the federal contracts that go to his companies like Tesla and SpaceX? I doubt it. Instead, he will freeze funding that directly benefits the American public. Musk and others currently in power do not care about the wellbeing of everyday people. All they care about is enriching themselves.

You may think that these budget cuts are good, but cutting the budget just for the sake of cutting the budget is foolish and shortsighted. You may think that these government cuts won’t matter in your life, but you would be wrong. Cutting FAA funding will lead to more plane crashes, as can already be seen. Laying off thousands of VA employees will not lead to better outcomes. Gutting the EPA will not help the environment. Eliminating FEMA will not help those experiencing disasters. Deleting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as Musk and Trump have said they want to do, will only help corporations and big banks exploit everyday Americans. Since it’s inception the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned $19 billion back to the pockets of consumers. All these cuts will lead to is more money in the pockets of private corporate executives and a worse outcome for everybody else.

If we are so concerned about our taxpayer funds being misused, we should start with the only major federal department which has never, not once, successfully passed a single audit. In 2024 the Department of Defense failed it’s seventh audit in a row. If we want to curb runaway government spending we should perhaps stop giving trillions of dollars to the Pentagon.

Nicholas Demuth

Garvin