Last November, when DOGE remained a gleam in president-elect Donald Trump’s eye,  its leader apparent promised, via a post to his favorite (because he owns it) social media platform, that “[a]ll actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.”

On February 3 that same man — Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter — revealed (in the same format and on the same platform) the emptiness of the promise: “With regard to leakers: if in doubt, they are out.”

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill, Senators grilled Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, bulldozing her into a 180-degree turn from her former opposition to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Act, which allows the US regime to nose around in American’s communications without warrants in the name of surveilling foreigners.

They also tried to get Gabbard to renounce her prior support for a presidential pardon of American hero Edward Snowden, driven into exile for blowing the whistle on the US regime’s illegal surveillance schemes in 2013. Gabbard gave up less ground there, only going so far as to oppose FUTURE exposure of the regime’s crimes while she might be involved in the commission of those crimes.

Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation, also came out hard against a warrant requirement for Section 702 searches. Previously promoted as the solution to past administrations’  use of the FBI as a cudgel against their political opponents, he made it clear he plans to pick up that cudgel and wield it at least as vigorously, if not more so.

As on many other issues,  The Trump regime is already exposing itself as “new boss, same as (or maybe worse than) the old boss” on issues like government transparency, government surveillance, and government lawfare.

I find neither that, nor the excuses Trump’s supporters trot out for it — he’s “playing 6D chess” or “fighting fire with fire” or whatever — surprising.

While there are good reasons for actors both good and bad to consider Trump an especially dangerous politician, he is and always has been just a politician.

He spent 16 years running for president (starting with his failed bid for the Reform Party’s 2000 nomination) before winning the first time.

Over that period, he transformed himself from a life-long, standard-issue progressive Democrat into a more theatric version of right-wing faux-populist Pat Buchanan.

Not because his core philosophical beliefs changed — there’s really no evidence he ever had any core philosophical beliefs in the first place — but because he craved power.

When he gained power the first time, he used it for his own benefit and the benefit of his cronies, not for your benefit.

Now that he’s gained power again, he’s doing the same thing.

Just like every other president.

The unique danger of Trump is that million of Americans continue to believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that he’s somehow different. That gives him a freer hand to act exactly like his predecessors … only more so.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“With education funding following the student rather than being assigned to government-run institutions in a growing number of states, ” JD Tuccille writes in his annual “National School Choice Week” piece at Reason, “more families are choosing what works best for their kids — and the majority are satisfied with their decisions.”

On the main metrics Tuccille, and other “school choice” proponents use to measure success, that celebratory tone seems justified.

I don’t have a problem with school choice, correctly defined.

I don’t think those metrics correctly define it, so I’m not celebrating.

More and more state governments are, indeed, implementing or expanding “school choice” programs: Vouchers and tax credits for use at private schools, charter schools and “open enrollment” options for government schooling.

But are those programs “steps in the right direction” when it comes to either educational quality or actual choice?

Government (aka “public”) schools, including charter schools, may offer cosmetic differences, but their curricula and other standards are all set by government.

Vouchers and tax credits can be used at private schools … if those private schools accept those government-mandated curricular parameters and other standards. “School choice” as currently defined effectively turns them into government schools.

And government schools, by most methods of accounting — standardized test scores, parent opinion, etc. — don’t seem to do a very good job of teaching kids to read, write, and do arithmetic.

Suppose the government offered you these choices:

It would provide you with groceries in return for your tax payments, but those groceries would consist entirely of apples, ground beef, and white sandwich bread.

Or, it would give you a partial refund of your taxes in the form of a voucher or credit to spend on groceries … defined as apples, ground beef, and white sandwich bread.

“School choice” as currently defined brings to mind an apocryphal quote, attributed to Henry Ford, regarding his company’s Model T: “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.”

Real choice entails a range of options, not just various ways of choosing the same single option.

Today’s “school choice” regimes actually REDUCE real choice by imposing “as long as it’s black” requirements on the institutions where vouchers and tax credits can be spent.

Do supporters of the current “school choice” paradigm believe the long arm of  “as long as it’s black” won’t soon reach out to strangle the surviving bastions of real choice — homeschooling and cooperative “microschool” projects — too?

We can continue to tolerate government control of education, or we can exercise real school choice. We can’t do both. The former, by its very nature, obliterates the latter.

Real school choice requires separation of school and state.

“National School Choice Week?”

No. “National School Choice: Weak.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last November (“The DOGE Plan to Reform Government”), Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy asserted that “[r]equiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”

With Donald Trump’s inauguration as president,  that recommendation from Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s “DOGE” project — a powerless advisory mill disguised as a “Department” of Government Efficiency — actually got accepted. In a day-one executive order, Trump directed department and agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

So, how “efficient” is that idea, really?

I’m a fan of terminating government employment, whether through resignations or firings. So long as those employees aren’t replaced, it’s a win for America. Not on “efficiency” grounds, though. I don’t want the government doing what it does more “efficiently,” I just want it doing less of what it does.

I’m also a fan of remote work in the private sector. If the work actually gets done, it saves employers money, saves employees time, and saves everyone unnecessary inconvenience.

In the government sector, well, see above — I prefer government employment inconvenient, unpleasant, and expensive so that fewer people are willing to accept it.

But from a “government efficiency” standpoint, the “return to office” mandate is a disaster in conception and will likely prove a disaster in execution. Let us count the ways.

First of all, “efficient” employees are highly motivated to get the job done rather than mess around. The kind of person who will take on an unnecessary commute just to sit all day in an uncomfortable office is probably only motivated to collect a paycheck. In other words, the most “efficient” employees will be the ones most likely to self-terminate and return to the productive sector.  I like that outcome, but “government efficiency” fans shouldn’t.

Secondly, to the extent the departing “efficient” employees get replaced, they’ll be replaced by the same kind of inefficient holders down of chairs who remain, lowering overall “efficiency” even more.

Thirdly, consider the costs to the taxpayer. Every government employee who works from home means less money spent on electricity, building maintenance, security screening at office building entrances, etc. Every government employee who comes to the office means more money spent on all those things. Not very “efficient.”

Finally, consider the inconvenience to everyone, government employee or not. Traffic in Washington, DC and surrounding areas has been the subject of constant complaint for as long as I can remember. It’s about to get much worse. A whole bunch of cars that came off the beltway and sat in the driveway starting in 2020 are about to start moving around again, gumming up the works and slowing everyone down.

Overall, none of that sounds very “efficient” to me.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY