At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.
This is both infuriating—think of all the lives and careers utterly ruined because of all this—and yet unsurprising. For me, it recalls a terrific piece from my colleague Jacob Rosenberg, who argued that despite the tumultuous nature of Musk's actions, the moves imposed by DOGE are far more familiar to the average American than you might think.
It’s downsizing; it’s layoffs; it’s control by one annoying guy who for some reason is richer than you and is convinced that “working the weekend is a superpower.” It’s government run like a business. (Specifically a start-up.) The president not as democratic leader within a system of checks and balances, but as an imperious CEO with the power to do what’s needed. It’s dictator as boss, and boss as dictator.
I think when you consider that businesses are run by dictators—that a firm is not a democracy—it makes sense why a series of rich guys at the top of the capitalist world think government can be run without following any laws.
As I recirculated the piece on social today, many of you appeared to agree. One reader wrote: "Yes. Exactly what I experienced during a 35-year career in Corporate America. Downsizing and re-orgs were always on the menu." So take this familiarity and magnify it by a thousand. What do you get? Sure seems like our capitalist machine is humming along quite nicely.
