To the editor:
It has only been 118 days since P47 took office. With the flood of executive actions and the mountain of legal challenges to his misuse of existing laws and his disregard for portions of the Constitutions; it seems like much longer to me. However, because of the nature of his inflated promises on the campaign trail, it is fair to take stock of some of his bluster.
He promised that prices would come down FAST, especially on groceries and gasoline. Grocery prices have decreased 0.4% from March to April. Eggs, meats, fruits and vegetables, bakery products, and dairy have all decreased. Nonalcoholic beverages have increased from March to April. So, the numbers show a positive trend, but do not meet my notion of coming down quickly. On Jan. 20, an average gallon of gasoline was $3.11. On May 18, the average was $3.178 (going the wrong way). Here in Athens, it was $3.23; today it was $3.29. Cost of other forms of energy have also increased: electricity (+3.6%) and natural gas (+15.7%) have increased. If I were grading the performance on this campaign promise I would give P47 a D+.
Next P47’s many times promised a huge deportation, “bigger than the mass deportation of President Eisenhower.” Most people including me, did not look back to the 1950s to see how big Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback” (a terrible name for a government program) deportation actually was. While the numbers are somewhat cloudy, the records point to 1.1 million apprehensions and between 250,000 and 300,000 deportations. To put that in perspective, during the last year of the Biden administration, more than 270,000 deportations took place. When P47 took office there were approximately 435,719 noncitizens with felony convictions (note that noncitizen does not equate with non-documented). Those would have been the obvious targets, but for some reason that was not the case. I’ve found various numbers for actual deportations since Jan. 20. Using the largest number, if projected to the end of the year, the total deportations would be over 520,000. That number is larger than Eisenhower’s numbers, but does not come close to a pace that would remove the 11–20 million he talked about on the campaign trail. Grade D+.
Let’s face it: By any measure DOGE is a failure. I’ll give it a F and here is why. Not counting all of the missteps and disruptions. Not counting the fact that by targeting probationary employees for termination, it has done little to root out abuse and corruption. The newbies are not the source of corruption. But let’s go to the numbers. Musk’s self-proclaimed target was $2 trillion. According to the DOGE website, as of mid-May, the savings have amounted to $160 billion. I will note that multiple sources refute that figure… but I’m going with it for this piece. The budget for the DOGE operation was approximately $40 million. Additionally, using the Economy Act of 1932, DOGE actually charged the different programs and departments for the “service” of dismembering them! Using their numbers, if projected through the twilight date for DOGE, the total “savings” would be $730.1 billion. A lot of money but far short of the target: $2 trillion. Grade F!
Tom Kinsey
Athens, Ohio
