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Russell Vogt
February 26, 2025 this morning, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vogt and Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezel sent a memo to the heads of departments and agencies. The memo began. The federal government is costly, inefficient and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens. The American people registered their verdict on the bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy on November 5, 2024, by voting for President Trump and his promises to sweepingly reform the federal government. Vogt was a key author of Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration, and in July 2024, investigative reporters caught him on video saying that he and his group, the center for Renewing America, were hard at work writing the executive orders and memos that Trump would use to put their vision into place. But his claim that voters backed his plan is false. An NBC News poll in September 2024 showed that only 4% of voters liked what was in Project 2025. It was so unpopular that Trump called parts of it ridiculous and abysmal and denied all knowledge of it. But the policies coming out of the Trump White House are closely aligned with Project 2025 and, if anything, appear to be less popular now than they were last September. Under claims of ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the so called Department of Government Efficiency, or doggy, has been slashing through government programs that are popular with Republican voters like farmers, as well as with Democratic voters. Yesterday, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Douglas A. Collins celebrated cuts to 875 contracts that he claimed would save nearly $2 billion. But as Emily Davies and Hannah Natenson of the Washington Post reported, those contracts covered medical services, recruited doctors and funded cancer programs, as well as providing burial services for veterans. The outcry was such that the VA rescinded the order today. Still on the chopping block, though, are another 1400 jobs in the VA. Those cuts were announced Monday on top of the 1000 previous layoffs. Despite the anger at the major cuts across the government, Vogt announced that agency heads should prepare for large scale reductions in force or layoffs, and that by March 13 they should produce plans for the reorganization of their agencies to make them cost less and produce more with fewer people. Before Trump took office, the number of people employed by the US government was at about the same level it was 50 years ago, although although the US population has increased by about 2/3. What has increased dramatically is spending on private contractors who take profits from their taxpayer funded contracts. In his memo today, Vogt instructed agency heads to collaborate with the doggy team leads assigned to the agency who presumably report to Elon Musk. Also today, Trump signed an executive order putting the doggy team in charge of creating new technological systems to review all from the US Government and then giving the head of doggy the power to review all those payments. This order commences a transformation in federal spending on contracts, grants and loans to ensure government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public. The executive order says make no mistake, this order transforms federal spending by taking it away from Congress where the Constitution placed it, and moves it to the individual who sits atop the Department of Government Efficiency. Yesterday, the White House announced that the acting head of Doggy is Amy Gleason, who was hired on December 30, 2024 at the Technology unit that Trump tried to transform into the Department of Government Efficiency. Nevertheless, members of the White House, including President Donald Trump, have repeatedly referred to Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk appeared to be in charge of the first cabinet meeting of the Trump administration today. As Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny of CNN reported, if anyone was still in doubt where the power lies in President Donald Trump's new administration, Wednesday's first cabinet meeting made it clear it wasn't in the actual Cabinet. Katherine Doyle of NBC News described Senate confirmed department heads spending an hour as audience members. A photograph of the meeting in which Musk, wearing a Make America Great Again ball cap and a T shirt that said Tech Support appears to be holding court while Trump appears to be sleeping, reinforced the idea that it is Musk rather than Trump who is running the government. When Trump did speak, CNN fact checker Daniel Dale noted his remarks were full of false claims. Cabinet officers who had brought notes for the statements they expected to make, sat silent while Musk, the unelected billionaire from South Africa who put more than a quarter of a billion dollars into electing Trump, spoke more than anyone except Trump himself. Trump didn't turn to Vice President J.D. vance until 56 minutes into the meeting, and Vance spoke for only 36 seconds. But Trump appeared to be aware of the popular anger at Musk's power over the government and today dared the cabinet members to suggest they weren't happy with the arrangements. All cabinet members are extremely happy with Elon, trump wrote on his social media channel this morning. The media will see that at the Cabinet meeting this morning Is anybody unhappy? Trump asked the Cabinet officers during the meeting. When they applauded in response, he commented, I think everyone's not only happy, they're thrilled.
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Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, MA. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.