DOGE Cuts, Georgia Bleeds

When “President” Elon Musk was ushered into office by “Vice President” Donald Trump, he came with a simple mandate: Cut waste, fraud and abuse out of the federal government. In theory, that’s a laudable goal. The federal government is a behemoth, spending nearly $7 trillion per year and, at least at the beginning of 2025, employing 2.3 million people, making it the largest jobs provider in the country. Nearly 30% of those employees are military veterans, people who have given more than most in service of their country.

There is no question that our government is in dire need of modernization to better serve the 340 million people of this country, work that is best done with intention and deliberation to minimize the impact on Americans who rely on it for healthcare, retirement income, food assistance and international security.

Instead of approaching the challenge with a scalpel, however, Musk brought a chainsaw. There is an ethos in Silicon Valley, one which Musk has adhered to throughout much of his career alongside his fellow industry titans, who call themselves disrupters and live according to the mantra of “move fast and break things.”

For a startup, that can lead to eye-popping results. Many of the largest tech companies today were carved from that mold, taking huge risks and becoming Fortune 500 icons as a result. However, for every Meta or Uber, there are 10 similar companies that were pumped full of venture capital only to implode under their own weight. It is a high-risk, high-reward strategy where failure means simply moving on and trying again with a
new idea.

It should go without saying that the federal government is not a business. And it certainly is not a startup, given our 250 or so years of operation. Moving fast and breaking Medicaid, disrupting medical research and slashing every agency has real consequences for millions of workers and hundreds of millions of Americans.

While every state stands to lose a great deal, let’s focus on our own backyard. To start, Georgia is a “taker” state, which means we receive more money from the federal government than we put into it. It isn’t an insignificant figure, either – we get roughly $22 billion more from the feds than we send them each year. Our budget is balanced on the backs of oft-reviled states like California, Washington and New Jersey, which all pay more into the system than they get.

In other words, cuts to the federal government mean cuts to Georgia. Those impacts are already being felt in both large and small ways with the greatest impacts yet to come. Already, we have had 17 sites affected by the cancellation of federal leases, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ($2.5 million), the Forest Service ($1.4 million) the Bureau of Prisons ($864,000) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ($738,000). These cuts come as the “Musk administration” slashes the federal workforce, efforts which continue despite being rejected by the courts at every turn.

Perhaps the most visible of these cuts is at the CDC, which has been based in Atlanta for nearly 80 years and is known around the world as one of the most effective public health and safety organizations in human history. The CDC employs 21,000 full-time employees and contractors worldwide, including around 15,000 in Georgia, who work on everything from detecting and responding to new and emerging health threats to tackling the leading causes of death and disability for Americans, including heart disease and cancer.

Already, DOGE has laid off around 700 of those workers, some of whom may have been working on avian flu, which is one of the main drivers of high egg prices. Meanwhile, the other approximately 100,000 federal employees in Georgia are stuck in limbo, waiting to see if their jobs are next on the chopping block. For people hoping to buy a home or start a family, this uncertainty makes it nearly impossible to plan for the future.

It is a cruel joke to have two of the richest men in the world dictate what millions of struggling families do or don’t deserve. Trump and Musk have never had to wonder where their next meal would come from, only if it would be served on a gold or silver platter.

The oligarchs in charge of this country are cutting services and jobs to line their pockets with our taxpayer money, and until we stop them, Georgia families will continue to suffer. 

Tharon Johnson can be seen Sunday mornings on The Georgia Gang on Fox 5 Atlanta. He received a Green Eyeshade award in journalism in 2023.