by Susan Van Gelder
March 25—DOGE is hard at work slashing grants, contracts and firing employees in federal agencies. Musk’s/Trump’s rampage to eliminate federal waste and fraud with deliberate shock and awe thinly veils their real fascist agenda and sidetracks opponents into bewailing the illogic, cruelty and hypocrisy, and succumbing to real fear about the rush to a more dangerous world. All the more reason we need to pay close attention to the wreckage: to identify what to fight for and, ultimately, to create a world on revolutionary human-centered principles.
ON EDUCATION—DOGE FAILS MATH
Civil service workers and activists protest DOGE cuts outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo: FMT, CC BY 4.0
Researchers, both left- and right-leaning, studying cuts and firings within the Department of Education were “mystified” by DOGE’s actions. On March 6, the DOGE website, “Wall of Receipts,” listed 32 grants and 119 contracts “terminated for convenience.” Nat Malkus, of the American Enterprise Institute, used data from USA.Spending.gov to compare a leaked list of the 89 terminated Institute of Education Sciences contracts to data on the DOGE website https://doge.gov/savings. He said he found major inconsistencies, or a “mismatch” in how they defined the contract value and the amount saved.
Antoinette Flores from New America conducted similar research: “This is absolute hypocrisy…to improve student performance, you need to understand what is happening on the ground with students and evidence-based research on how to help students improve.” Flores concluded that DOGE doesn’t understand the math, nor do they “comprehend” [or is it care about?] interrelationships: the wide-reaching damage to agency functions, programs and people that are not directly slashed.
Besides tracking and analyzing DOGE cuts, it has become clear that the language used is another weapon in the drive to destroy American education, and needs to be challenged. We are already bombarded with derogatory language demonizing immigrants and foreigners, women and non-binary as “gender ideology” and Black people under the guise of “anti-woke.” Now the turn to “anti-Semitism” to describe peaceful protests has become a wedge to crack universities on many levels and destroy academic freedom.
ON AGRICULTURE—DOGE FAILS SCIENCE
There are far-reaching ramifications to the wealth of services the USDA will not provide now that 232 contracts have been cancelled. Almost half of those contracts, like for $275,943.00 for “expert organizational professional services to accommodate the constantly changing management of the Forest Service,” show zero savings from termination. Topping the removal roster: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA), climate change, leadership training and international consultation on changing climate. Cuts also target oversight of food safety, supplemental food (SNAP) and school lunch programs, the U.S. Forest and Fish and Wildlife Services, farming support and research and educational materials which aids small farms and food businesses.
WHAT’S WORTH KEEPING?
Fourteen Fisheries employees in “the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” were let go from the Great Lakes Sea Lamprey Control Program. Sea lampreys, minor pests in the oceans, have nasty sucker mouths full of ugly sharp teeth that kill desirable lake fish. The Welland Canal constructed to bypass Niagara Falls, allowed their population to explode to the size that it nearly eliminated fish stocks in all five Great Lakes, until a chemical control (TFN) identified in 1957 eliminated 90% of them without harming humans or desirable fish. To this day Canadian and U.S. experts cooperate to maintain control and restore recreational, tribal and commercial fishing. Losing just 25% control during COVID caused a sea lamprey population resurgence throughout the Great Lakes.
CAPITALISM ALWAYS CALLS THE SHOTS
The USDA cut two more programs on March 7: $660 million from the “Local Food for Schools” for 2025 and $500 million from the “Local Food Purchase Assistance” to support food banks. The purchase of domestic local foods improves farmers’ resiliency and reaches underserved communities without just relying on major food companies.
Wow! Feed schoolchildren and support farmers? A politician’s dream, until you notice that these programs support a food system that doesn’t just rely on major food companies. Local foods use less fossil fuel for transport and taste better than long-distance lettuce. Nope: too green for DOGE!
But they are not the only ones watching. Restoration and expansion of functions like these are also steps to combat global warming and ensure the health of future generations. Resisting fascism means looking for ways to fight for real reform as steps toward revolutionary development by and for humanity. Even “good” government programs are always in a capitalist context. USDA largely supports major agribusiness, subsidizes commodities for profit, and disregards environmental sustainability. But in this moment our task is to scrutinize the ruins and focus on what is worth fighting for.