Accountability

Everett Dirksen was one of the most colorful politicians in the history of the United States. He first came to Congress as a house member in 1933. His political career came to an end with his death in 1969 while serving in the Senate. He was attributed with this observation about federal spending, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

A billion dollars today is just a rounding error in federal spending. Our national debt is approaching $37 trillion. The annual interest on our debt is more than $1 trillion! If you want to see federal spending in real time, go to usdebtclock.org. It will make you dizzy to see the speed with which the government is spending our money. And it is our money. There is a category that shows how much debt each taxpayer is responsible for — $323,047. In 1980 that number was $10,865.

I’ve watched the debt clock for years but this year they’ve added a new category. It’s called the DOGE clock, which shows how much money the Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk, is saving us by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. While I am writing this DOGE is saving each taxpayer $1,657. Of course, DOGE is the only government agency tasked with saving us money! What a novel idea.

Elon upset the beltway apple cart when he sent an email to all federal employees requiring them to reply with a list of five things they accomplished the week before if they wanted to stay employed. There was a collective bureaucratic outcry. Now, why wouldn’t they want to do that? It’s not hard and they should be doing it anyway. I have worked for two major corporations and had to complete weekly reports for my bosses in both cases. It was a standard operating procedure.

The reason we are nearly $37 trillion in debt is because there is a lack of accountability. And now that DOGE is requiring accountability, they are squealing like pigs stuck under the gate. And it’s not just the bureaucrats, it starts with the people we have elected to hold the bureaucrats accountable. They need to be reminded that it’s our money, not their money.

In defense of rank-and-file government employees, they are not the problem. If a government agency doesn’t hold their employees accountable, then the head of that agency is the problem. If our elected officials aren’t holding the agency heads accountable, then they are the problem. If we don’t hold those who we elect accountable, then we are the problem. Which takes me back to the debt clock.

While the debt per taxpayer is $323,047, the debt per citizen is only $107,021. That means taxpayers are paying the difference for citizens who don’t pay taxes. And yet those citizens who don’t pay taxes get to vote. Guess who they vote for — politicians who promise to take money from the taxpayers and redistribute it to non-taxpayers. They redistribute it to illegal aliens, foreign governments, and projects too numerous to count that undermine our country.

The opposite of accountable, according to Merriam-Webster, would be behavior that is irresponsible, unaccountable, exempt and immune. ?If any employee — government or otherwise — is irresponsible, they should be fired. If they are unaccountable, exempt or immune then their boss should be fired. Tolerating a behavior is rewarding that behavior. And behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. We are $37 trillion in debt because we have rewarded irresponsible, unaccountable, exempt and immune behavior for decades. To paraphrase Dr. Phil, how’s that working for us? At current rates our national debt will be over $46 trillion in 2029!

It will take a herculean effort to reign in the waste, fraud and abuse in our federal government. But as we know, the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. According to the DOGE website the estimated savings from “asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions” amounts to $105 billion so far. And that’s just in the first two months since its inception. It’s a good start because as we know, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

Note: The figures quoted were as of March 10, 2025. Those numbers will change since the debt clock is in real time.