The Spire

Liam Offer ‘27 & Aidan Traverse ‘26

Guest Writers

On January 20th, Donald Trump formed the now infamous organization: the Department of Government Efficiency, aka. DOGE. Originally slated to be co-run by former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, control of DOGE is now solely in the hands of the painfully unfunny, Roman saluting, foreign billionaire. The organization is almost entirely comprised of college students and former X/Tesla employees. This noble group of small-government crusaders immediately went to work, illegally obstructing the day-to-day operations of numerous agencies, and spreading like a disease through the already ailing mechanisms of our republic. Most notably, they have cut off funding to USAID and placed several top officials on administrative leave—DOGE achieved all this through executive action and, in a matter of weeks, paralyzed the very inner workings of our Government, much to the detriment of the American people. 

What’s so concerning or ‘undemocratic’ about halting a few payments to a bloated government agency? Although an executive agency, the power of the purse lies solely with Congress — neither the president nor an organization named after a 2010 internet meme has the authority to block payments allocated by Congress. This may seem like a small issue–most Americans probably had no idea what USAID was before it hit the news cycle–but it speaks to a much broader trend of the Trump administration ignoring all checks and balances placed on it. This flagrantly undemocratic attitude was best reflected in a tweet by Vice President and former lawyer JD Vance: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Of course, anyone who has taken a high school civics course knows that it is directly within the power of the courts to define the boundaries of executive power. 

Faced with these facts, arguments will flood haphazardly out of the conservative’s mouth. Unfortunately, these arguments are so ill-thought-out and so numerous that it would take many pages to respond to them all. Still, it might be useful to look at the most prominent of these sentiments, which is the idea that USAID is a fraudulent organization and needs to be cleansed regardless of the constitutionality of that cleansing. For instance, when asked whether the firing of 17 inspectors general – including that of USAID – by Donald Trump was illegal, former Never Trumper and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said: “Well, technically yeah, but he has the authority to do it. I’m not losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out.” Although in response to a different illegal move by the administration, Lindsey Graham’s comments exemplify modern Republican reasoning. In the case of the USAID cuts, this reasoning fails on its face for two obvious reasons. Firstly, USAID provides records of its expenditures – although some must be omitted due to their classified nature. Secondly, regardless of any alleged misuse of funds, it is not the executive’s job to halt funding to this agency. That function falls squarely under the purview of Congress, or if genuine fraud is suspected, the agency ought to be investigated by the Department of Justice.  These increasingly dangerous actions of the Trump administration are no coincidence. They are part of the largest expansion of executive power in recent memory. Donald Trump and his handler Elon Musk, along with a legion of redpilled Zoomers, are hellbent on the destruction of democratic norms. The system of checks and balances, so cherished by our wise founders, only survives if both sides want it to — it is the responsibility of every American, Democrat or Republican, to spit in the face of these want-to-be dictators and defend the republic from their continued assault. Only this will ensure that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.

Copy Edited by Charlotte Collins ’26

Featured image courtesy of The Washington Post