Trump's war against corruption and crimes. The opposition (US & world) panic and confused.

 

Article's purpose and background

This short article is to highlight radical actions taken by the President Donald Trump to clean up the federal government from corruption and inefficiency to reform it to be market friendly. His ideology is to cut the deep federal bureaucracy and regulations and reduce budget deficit and debt so that the economy can grow faster competitively through markets with lower inflation. The short background of the topic is as follows.

  • Unlike in Sri Lanka, Donald Trump has already commenced historic actions against the corruption of the federal government as promised at the Presidential election. As promised, he immediately after taking oath on 20 January 2025 established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk, a top global businessman in the US, to audit all federal government agencies, assess the performance and efficiency on tax payers' money, detect wasteful spending and close or reform such agencies without delay.

  • The DOGE has got the access to information and payment systems of federal agencies in order to detect wasteful spending and questionable operations based on a simple question of the purpose to tax payers.

  • The DOGE officials are not normal government auditors who ask for hard copies of sample documents for audit that takes years. Elon Must has employed young software engineers who get the access to operations systems of the agencies and work day and night to retrieve historical information hiding in all corners on operations. Then, questionable transactions and payments are immediately informed to the President and media with printouts. 

  • On DOGE's findings, several agencies have been suspended, e.g., UASID and CFPB, giving shockwaves to both the US and the globe. Many agencies such as Department of Education and Department of Transportation are in the list for closure. The DOGE releases details of questionable spending items of corrupted nature on almost daily basis making political news. It is reported that nearly US$ 95 bn of wasteful spending is already saved through suspension of such spending. The DOGE's target is to cut nearly US$ 2 trillion of federal spending within two years. At the Cabinet meeting held today, Elon  Musk told the media that the government would go bankrupt without the technical support of the DODE, given the structure of budget deficit and debt stock (Watch the video of Elon Musk at the Cabinet meeting) (Video 2) (Video 3).

  • Trump Administration has given an ultimatum to all federal civil employees of nearly 2 million to early retire by 6 February 2025 with wages of 8 months or confront termination of employment. It is reported that many federal employees have accepted the option to retire.

  • The DOGE is to audit the US gold reserve held in vaults at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and to ensure whether the gold is there in physical or in paper as recorded because it has not been audited since 1953. It is reported that the Fort Knox gold reserve is around 147.3 mn troy ounces with a book value at 1974 prices (i.e., US$ 42 per troy ounce) against the value of US$ 428 bn at current price. It is also reported that the total US gold reserve is around 248 mn troy ounces (nearly 8,133 MT) at book value of US$ 10.5 bn. and current market value of US$ 760 bn. There is speculation that Trump Administration plans to monetize the gold reserve to reduce the federal debt burden.

  • The DOGE has already visited the Tax Department, PENTAGON, Social Security System and Treasury Payment System for audit and is in the process to audit the central bank (Federal Reserve).

  • Reciprocal tariff policy has been launched and diplomatic discussions have been commenced with foreign governments to implement the policy.

  • The opposition and public interest groups have rallied against the President, DOGE and Elon Musk and taken a series of legal actions to block the DOGE for access to federal information. In retaliation, President Donald Trump and Elon Must have threatened investigations on the wealth accumulation of lead-Democratic politicians for prosecution against corruption.
DOGE e-mail to federal employees 
to report their individual work accomplishments

The latest federal panic has arisen from the DOGE e-mail to all federal employees sent on last Sunday (23 February 2025) requiring them to report by Monday their work accomplishments in the last week in five bullet points or failure to respond would be treated as resignation.

  • President Trump commented that this information will help detect whether employees really exist in respective agencies because it has been found that some employees never attend office or gone dead while continuing to receive respective remuneration on their names even after the retirement since the retirement files are not completed.

  • Elon Must commented that information received would be assessed through AI to identify employees between wasteful work and productive work. He also commented that some employees did not know their job description and contribution to the society and, therefore, the e-mail was meant to spot outright fraud from people on the payroll who were not working at all.

  • It is reported that nearly 40% of federal employees have responded to the e-mail and necessary policy action will be decided on those who did not respond in due course. It is well known that state employees world over are reluctant to assess work performance due to various reasons, given the structure of the bureaucratic system including the legal protection to state employees.

Concluding remarks

  • Unlike in new governments of many countries, Trump Administration has got no honeymoon or celebration time. It has immediately commenced to keep promises radically. Therefore, the delivery in just one month is both radical and remarkable.

  • It is reported that some of reforms to federal agencies and bureaucracy are what several past Presidents proposed but failed to activate or proceed.

  • As promised at the election campaign, the President Trump and his team seem to be dynamic and energetic to deliver the national mission. All members of the Cabinet have been appointed for the delivery of the same announced mission without any variations and, therefore, no private missions or ideologies are confronted.

  • The speed, braveness, dynamism, focus and team coordination exhibited from Trump Administration are exemplary to national leaders of other countries if they intend to be on real national policy delivery in a time frame. 

  • As usual in politics across the world, allegations against the past President and government leaders have become a routine of the Trump team.

  • What Trump Administration is doing to fight corruption and make the economy more efficient and productive through market forces is a historic lesson to governments of the other part of the world which shout at corruption of past governments in the media while operating in the same corrupted governance system until voters overthrow them too on same corruption charges. Finally, countries and generations of people live in de facto bankruptcy being the reality of the countries of successive governments talking of corrupt-free, good governance.

(This article is released in the interest of participating in the professional dialogue to find out solutions to present economic crisis confronted by the general public consequent to the global Corona pandemic, subsequent economic disruptions and shocks both local and global and policy failures. All are personal views of the author based on his research in the subject of Economics which have no intension to personally or maliciously discredit characters of any individuals.)

P Samarasiri

Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Sri Lanka

(Former Director of Bank Supervision, Assistant Governor, Secretary to the Monetary Board and Compliance Officer of the Central Bank, Former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Board and Credit Information Bureau, Former Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka, Former Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Author of 13 Economics and Banking Books and a large number of articles published.)

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