Adler: Indiscriminate DOGE cuts harm states, humanities, history and culture
DOGE is not what it purports to be. The indiscriminate, arbitrary cuts across dozens of federal agencies reflect neither its advertisement of efficiency nor its promise to root out waste and fraud.
The use of a chainsaw to reduce government spending – for the sake of cutting government spending – does not produce meritorious results of the sort that the employment of reason, discernment, and measurement of programs based on their value and service to the nation would achieve, if officials were true to their stated goal of reducing unwise and wasteful spending.
The result of the intemperate approach, rather, has been the infliction of the sort of carnage wrought by a wanton Florida hurricane that leaves a wide swath of pain, suffering and destruction that requires years of rebuilding and restoration. The exact toll of the DOGE chainsaw on the life of America and the lives of Americans may be incalculable – unlike, say, a business plan for spending reduction which implements a cost-benefit analysis that includes in its calculus the origins, purpose, utility, and impact of a program and what its retention or elimination might mean for the organization.
After three months of blind cuts to governmental programs, without evidence of waste and fraud, we find ourselves observing a funeral parade that includes libraries, museums, the arts and humanities, scientific research and medical assistance, and a diminished capacity for fighting disease and wildfires.
That’s not all. The elimination of USAID has hurt American farmers and the most vulnerable abroad. The elimination of inspectors general in numerous departments has removed those who hold governmental officials accountable. DOGE has cut VA benefits and staff and impaired our national security and national defense. The Trump-Musk cuts at the Centers for Disease Control included the elimination of the team in charge of researching IVF treatments, despite President Trump’s promise to expand access to those fertility treatments which, he has stated, would brand him as the “fertilization president.”
The DOGE decision to gut the National Endowment for the Humanities entails tragic consequences for Wyoming Humanities, a state treasure for its leadership in civic and cultural education. The Wyoming organization, like other state councils across the nation, relies heavily on NEH funding. The NEH grant to Wyoming Humanities for the 2025 fiscal year was axed immediately.
DOGE is not a governmental department, and it violates various provisions of the Constitution. Under the Constitution, Congress alone possesses the authority to create an office. Manifestly, Congress did not pass a law creating DOGE, yet it proceeds with the authorization and approval of President Trump, despite the president’s aggrandizement of congressional power. The role and authority attributed to Musk would, by any measure, elevate him to the status of a “principal” officer which, under the Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution, requires Senate approval, a function of its Advice and Consent authority.
Musk has not been nominated to an office, and thus his sweeping power represents yet another instance of executive aggrandizement. Finally, the actions of DOGE violate the appropriations power, vested exclusively in Congress. DOGE’s decision to rescind funds authorized by Congress, including those funds directed to the NEH and then sent on to Wyoming Humanities, represents a rank usurpation of congressional spending power.
For readers concerned about the future of Wyoming Humanities and the preservation of the Constitution, these three flagrant violations may ignite your passions.
David Adler, Ph.D., is a noted author who lectures nationally and internationally on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and Presidential power. Adler’s column is supported in part through a grant from Wyoming Humanities funded by the “Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Adler can be reached at david.adler@alturasinstitute.com.