This is a non-sequitur. The raw numbers are irrelevant. What are those employees doing? In abstract, I support a smaller government. In practice, Chesterton’s

This is a non-sequitur. The raw numbers are irrelevant. What are those employees doing? In abstract, I support a smaller government. In practice, Chesterton’s Fence is an important principle to remember. For example, the TSA is largely security theater. It would be a real win and legitimate cost savings (unemployment numbers aside) to dismantle the TSA and go back to metal detectors and simpler X-ray machines run by private companies in airports. On the other hand, getting rid of USAID diminishes America’s stature in the world. Where do you think our power comes from? It’s not solely due to our nuclear arsenal. These people are destroying the US government’s capabilities and influence for bizarre ideological reasons that are largely grounded in equally bizarre fictional views of the world. It’s going to be _more_ costly, devastatingly so, to US citizens both financially and otherwise in the short and long term. They could have reduced the size of the government strategically and they could even have done it using this same illegal DOGE technique, but it would have required care and thought, grounded in actual reality.