Newly reelected President Trump (2025) wants to appoint Elon Musk and another billionaire, whose name I keep thinking is Rathersmarmy. I keep visualizing Rathersmarmy with a smile about eight shades brighter than any normal set of choppers. These two billionaires will be heading (if this department is approved) DOGE, (Department of Government Efficiency) a proposed government agency that will examine other government agencies and eliminate government waste. It is true that government agencies often have overlapping jurisdictions, and those would be a prime target for elimination. My question is: Do Musk and Rathersmarmy really understand the workings of the government of the United States? How many Political Science classes have they taken, that would explain just how the government of the United States functions?
For example, the federal Department of Education handed out $234.6 billion dollars during the 2021-2022 academic year. According to USA Today, unpaid student loans equal $1.74 trillion with 92% being federal student loan debt. President Biden tried several times to get the votes of those citizens by forgiving most of that debt, but failed in spite of several attempts to increase the federal deficit by trillions when it was all over. Not to throw out too many numbers here, but college enrollment has declined since 2010, with public colleges declining by 15.1%. Perhaps the federal Department of Education could use some attention.
While it seems like a good idea to review just what government agencies do and how much they spend doing it, a superficial glance at each agency would not be a solution. Like so many government programs, the results often create more problems than they solve, as demonstrated in the preceding paragraph. Are we to believe that Rathersmarmy and Musk are going to take a pay cut just to serve in our government? For starters, both could have served in the military, (even Musk could have joined after he gained citizenship) but neither served. Both could have taken the ASVAB “a specialized test assessing knowledge in English, math, mechanics, science, and electronics” and, if as bright as both claim to be, would have gone to officer’s school quite quickly. It seems they want to make America great, as long as they and their pals can stay filthy rich.
Something you never, ever hear a candidate say: “Elect me and I’ll close up all of those loopholes and get a few billion in tax revenue from those billionaires who don’t pay as much in taxes as the guy at the French fry station at McDonalds.”
What might be a better solution would be to consider all of the laws on the books, and eliminate archaic laws. The federal and state lawmakers of the U.S. spend countless hours dreaming up new laws, and while those laws address the needs of the citizens, some are ineffective and many have loopholes big enough to drive a Brinks truck through, and Musk, Gates, Bezos and their country-club friends (and don’t forget their lawyers) do nothing but look for those loopholes.

Billionaires such as Musk and Rathersmarmy have lawyers and accountants who advise them on how to escape paying taxes. That doesn’t make them geniuses of government. In fact, how many former lawyers and accountants that help the rich escape taxes run for public office? Have you ever heard of any of those professionals claiming tax-evasion credentials when running for a public office? Something you never, ever hear a candidate say: “Elect me and I’ll close up all of those loopholes and get a few billion in tax revenue from those billionaires who don’t pay as much in taxes as the guy at the French fry station at McDonalds.”
We hear of many billionaire CEOs, and you may have heard of CEOs who take a one-dollar a year compensation, one of the biggest impostures and quite popular. There are many tricks to get around paying taxes if you have the money to pay the lawyers and accountants who can find the loopholes. A dollar-a-year CEO might be compensated in stock, and not in dollars. The benefit of being paid in stocks is that the transfer of the stocks might be executed when the stocks are at a very low price, which then is taxed low because of the sunken price. The payroll tax is on the stock at its lowest, which then rises greatly, giving the CEO a huge paycheck that is taxed at a much lower rate. There are many more ways that billionaires escape taxes that Joe Lunchbox cannot do.
A realistic fear is that Musk and Rathersmarmy might just help their billionaire pals out by suggesting legislation with even bigger loopholes. The point here being that the U.S. is running a huge deficit, but at the same time, we have billionaires paying taxes that are less than any manager of one of your local burger joint. Not that taxing the billionaires would eliminate the deficit overnight, but over time, the budget deficit would not keep growing as it has been.
The IRA (Individual Retirement Account) is where the average citizen can invest their money tax free for their retirement, a great plan that I highly recommend. One trick of billionaires is to make donations to their IRA when the stocks of their enterprises are very low, and then when those same stocks grow, to vast amounts (into billions) all of the value remaining is almost completely untaxable. What would really be beneficial to the U.S. would be some of the lawyers and accountants who find these loopholes for billionaires to join the government and write legislation that eliminates the loopholes. It appears that examining tax legislation only to the extent that certain people can shamelessly exploit it, is close enough for government work.

The government would do well to have the genius of Rathersmarmy and Musk concentrate on how to prevent and prosecute cybercrime, but that won’t happen. As a recent victim of cybercrime, I can tell you that banks just pay you back, with no efforts on their part or the government to find and shut down the cybercriminals. Technology has been several miles in front of the government for some time now, and apparently the Trump Administration is willing to allow that distance to continue, if not stretch out even farther. According to Norton, cybercrime will reach $1.5 trillion by 2025, something that would challenge the genius of Rathersmarmy and Musk, but putting together a security package for Joe Lunchbox would lack the glamor that Rathersmarmy and Musk are seeking.
In January of 2025, soon to be President Trump has chosen two exceptional men for a daunting task. What Trump should do is assign them to the task of eliminating loopholes for billionaires in the tax code. While this reassignment might surprise Musk and Rathersmarmy, geniuses love challenges, as they are so often and relentlessly telling us. There is no problem that they can’t solve, again, another one of their remarkable characteristics that they are constantly championing. The talent is there. The problem is there. Let’s see if either of these two self-promotion experts really want to help the American people, or just squeeze them for more profits. You want to know what would make America great again? Let’s get everyone to pay their fair share of taxes. And public servants who don’t just choose what they want to do.