When the DOGE comes a-knockin'
In his debut column, 24sight's resident wise man Ian Walters assesses the dangers of government and governmenters
Friends, I’m pleased to reveal 24sight News’ newest column.
“The Booboisie” is penned by veteran communicator Ian Walters, a paean to H.L. Mencken, who popularized the portmanteau of “boob” and “bourgeoisie”, a century ago, and inspired by the man who injected the first half of the term into pop culture a half century later, P. J. O’Rourke. Walters writes with the grace of a cable pundit wrongly touched by another pundit, but also the caustic eye of a veteran software programmer concerned that scented candles are making you infertile.
All complaints can be written and hand-delivered to the SpaceX launchpad, Brownsville, TX. Just stand there a bit, look directly up into that big ol’ tube and hold still.
Cheers,
Tom LoBianco, co-founder 24sight News
You’ve heard it before, maybe even said it a few times yourself, “I’m sick and tired of these unelected bureaucrats ruining my life!”
Fortunately for you, elections have consequences. Help is on the way, in the form of new, fresh, innovative, unelected bureaucrats.
The Department of Government Efficiency is hard at work doing what dozens of seasoned politicians failed at decades prior. Simpson/Bowles? More like simps getting bowled over because they were too polite.
What America needs is more memeingful action.
To get there, they’ll have to expand the scope and size of the federal government.
(Your elitist friends may tell you that only Congress can truly create new federal departments, replete with mono-pour concrete buildings just off the 395 on-ramp in downtown Washington. They may even try to use big documents to argue that only Congress controls the power to cut spending. You just reply, ‘If you’re so smart, how come you lost the Latino vote?’”)
Worried the DOGE might not be up to the task? Concerned they might lack appropriate amount of “administrative experience”? Fret not. These guys are rich.
The power of their amassed fortunes reflect superior status. How many entities did you absorb into your empire today? Do you even disrupt, bro?
Instead of pleading with exhausted Democratic rank-and-file to pay the rest of what she owes her high-powered campaign consultants with multiple mortgages to make by the end of the month, Vice President Kamala Harris should submit the request to DOGE co-chair Elon Musk.
Trade deficits with China the size of one influencer’s daily earnings? Spending blowing past revenue faster than a quantum chip calculating whether a lawmaker will bend on the latest fighter jet program? Look to the entrepreneur with drastic rap tactics and a long history in the world of white-paper writing.
Americans’ exhaustion with the promises and ditherings of Washington is easily understood.
On January 23, 1996, a sultry former Arkansas governor with a deep faith in the power of neckties said what Republicans had been saying for years earlier: ‘The era of big government is over.”
Almost three decades later, lawmakers still shiver at the prospect of the death of Big Government. Which is why so many have formed concurrent DOGE caucuses in the House and Senate.
The immediate task is cutting $2 trillion from the larded federal budget has drawn intense interest from those with the most to lose.
The scolds of Congress, like Sen. Rand Paul, may protest that the overwhelming majority of federal spending is for the military and legally required spending on things like Social Security and Medicare.
But the newest federal department has shown us before even being formally created, that a blue check on X.com and a pro subscription to Canva is often mightier than the wealthiest wingtipped lobbyist in Washington or the most cantankerous libertarian.
But we citizen soldiers will have to do our part, too, in furtherance of the American Cause. Myself, I have said good riddance to Grey Goose vodkatinis. I put America first and switched to Tito’s.
Should this brave effort to save our almost 250-year radical experiment in self-governance fail, there’s always Mars. (Wealthy, powerful experts will get to go, you should become one before it’s too late.)
And if you find yourself stuck down here after all the smart people have fled the planet, there will be new disruptors layering upon the white-papers of cost-saving crusaders past.
When they tell you they’re from the government and they’re here to help, just pour another Tito’s.
Ian Walters is a professional piano player in the Washington metro region. In a previuous life he was the longtime spokesman for the Conservative Political Action Conference. He writes The Booboisie regularly for 24sight News.
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