Alright, so picture this—it’s February 14, 1903. Teddy Roosevelt, the guy who looked like he could wrestle a bear and win, decides, “You know what this country needs? A brand-new government department!” So boom—the Department of Commerce and Labor is born. A single agency overseeing both big business and workers. Yeah, because those two groups have so much in common. That lasted about as well as a first date where one person loves Ayn Rand and the other’s a union rep.
So, in 1913, they do the obvious thing and split it up—Commerce takes the business bros, Labor takes the working stiffs. Makes sense, right? Two separate groups, two separate interests, two separate offices where they can ignore each other in peace. And for over a century, it kinda worked! Until now. Until we get this administration. And let me tell you, they’re not splitting departments anymore—they’re shredding them like a tax return you don’t wanna talk to the IRS about.
Enter DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency. Yeah. DOGE. Like the meme coin. Like the joke crypto Elon Musk tanked on SNL. And guess who’s running it? Elon freaking Musk! Because nothing screams “good governance” like a guy who fired 80% of his Twitter employees in a week and then acted surprised when the website started glitching. This guy’s idea of efficiency is “fire everyone and see if the building still stands.”
So what does DOGE do? It slashes everything in sight—USAID? Chopped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Gone. If you work at a government agency right now, I’d start learning how to juggle for tips at a subway station. They say it’s about “eliminating waste.” Yeah, sure—because the real problem in America was too many consumer protection laws. Next, they’re gonna tell us that child labor was just a misunderstood economic opportunity.
And look, I get it—government inefficiency is a thing. Ever been to the DMV? Yeah, it’s a nightmare. But that doesn’t mean we should hand over the whole operation to a billionaire who thinks work-life balance is something that happens to other people.
The point is, back in 1903, at least they had the common sense to realize, “Hey, we probably shouldn’t put the interests of factory owners and factory workers in the same office.” Now? Now we’ve got a department named after a joke cryptocurrency, run by a guy who sends cars to space while roads on Earth look like the surface of the moon.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Government’s on fire. Hope you got chocolates.
