EDITORIAL: Government by chainsaw

Give Elon Musk credit for getting one thing right. He chose the perfect metaphor for his crusade to cut the U.S. government down to a shrunken size he deems acceptable—a chainsaw.

Performing at a gathering of conservative political activists, Musk, in oversized sunglasses and a black MAGA hat, with a look of manic glee on his face and the demeanor of someone who had overdosed on Red Bull energy drinks, pranced on stage flaunting a chainsaw.

Being a certified genius, Musk knew the implement would accurately represent his power and mission, leaving no doubt that he is not performing surgery on the government, but is clear-cutting it in the manner of chainsaws mowing down a forest.

Yet, as smart as he is, Musk doesn’t seem to be aware of what is in that forest. There has been no sign that he knows, or cares, much about the government services provided by the agencies and programs he has crippled or shut down by firing thousands of government workers.

Some of the consequences of his government dismantling are obvious. The callous firing of federal employees with a curt emailed notice in what is reported to be one of the largest employment cuts in U.S. history is a daily news event. His shut-down of USAID, provider of food and health care in many needy countries, caused shudders around the world.

But the other damage being done under the over-simplified rationale that all government is wasteful and most of its services unnecessary is just starting to unfold. The only certainty about it is that, sooner or later, it will affect every American.

A freeze on federal grants that was announced by President Trump as part of Musk’s shrink-the-government campaign and then temporarily rescinded has municipalities that had been promised grants on edge, including cities and villages in Ozaukee County and the county government itself.

Loss of the grants would be setbacks for the communities, but Trump’s signal that previously approved federal funding could be canceled is posing a far more serious threat to a project that is essential to protect one the country’s most important resources and the millions of people it benefits.

Construction of the barrier needed to prevent invasive Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan and causing irreversible damage to the fragile ecosystem of the Great Lakes has been put on hold out of uncertainty over whether the federal government will make good on its commitment to fund its share of the project.

The project at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Ill., on the Des Plaines River about 30 miles from Lake Michigan, has been started under an agreement that its cost would be paid for mainly by the federal government with additional funding by the states of Illinois and Michigan.

Work being done on the complex barrier by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources was halted in February out of fear the Trump administration would renege on the federal funding. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said $117 million in grants have already been withheld from the project by federal officials since Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiated its ruthless government downsizing campaign.

The effort to save Lake Michigan and the connected Great Lakes from the carp is a government responsibility owed to its citizens, not a frill to be eliminated so that its hundreds of millions of unspent dollars can be added to DOGE’s victory list. The invasive fish, brought from Asia and released in American waters, are massing a short distance downstream from the Brandon Road lock.

Populations of the foreign carp species, which can grow to more than four feet long and 100 pounds, have exploded in the Mississippi River basin and the tributaries leading to Lake Michigan. Videos of swarms of the aggressive fish leaping from the water are viral internet fare.

Scientific studies have shown the monster carp could colonize more than 90% of Lake Michigan and with their voracious food consumption make the lake untenable for the desirable fish that sustain the commercial and sport fishing industries and their significant contribution to the economies of Great Lakes states.

While the bulwark needed to repel the invading carp awaits its fate, the image of Musk’s chainsaw performance lingers, not only in the U.S., but around the world where the internet displayed the spectacle of the wealthiest man on Earth, who sits at the right hand of the leader of the wealthiest nation in the world, celebrating, among other achievements, the end of America’s humanitarian aid to people in less fortunate countries.

The robust and effective U.S. aid programs recently dismantled were influenced by a seminal book of the Vietnam era that exposed arrogance in America’s foreign-aid policies so offensive to third-world countries that it opened the door to communism at the expense of capitalism and dictatorship at the expense of democracy.

The title of the book was “The Ugly American.” It would be a fitting title for a poster of the chainsaw spectacle.