ArcaMax

As Trump & Co. hurl horror after horror at us from the murky darkness of their extremely wasteful "war on government waste," I think of Lily Tomlin, who said years ago: "No matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up."

But no need to swat frantically at their every assault. Their Blitzkrieg against everything at once is an intentional ploy to divide us into small, separate scrambles to save this and that, rather than rallying a unified, furious opposition to them. The evil is not in the budget cuts, but in the cutters.

Second, let's be clear that their war-on-waste is NOT about eliminating useless taxpayer expenditures. Note that Elon Musk, President Donald Trump's silly "efficiency czar," ignores such walloping waste as Pentagon boondoggles and tax scams for uberrich hucksters ... like him.

But -- by gollies! -- those budget-whacking plutocrats are fearless when it comes to killing essential benefits for regular people. A longstanding energy program, for example, helps low-income families across America pay to heat their homes in bitter winters, and to cool homes in areas of brutal heat. It saves lives -- efficiently! -- being administered by a staff of only 25. But this month, Trump's government reform thugs stormed in, fired all 25 and shut down the program. As Sen. Ed Markey said, "This isn't reform. It's sabotage."

This is Jim Hightower saying ... Exactly! Soft words like "efficiency" are their knives for castrating government of, by, and for The People, allowing a cabal of Trump, Musk, and allied financial elites to impose a moneyed monarchy over America. But remember our history -- we democratic rebels won all-out wars in the 1770s and 1860s to defeat them. So, toughen up, here they come again.

YES, TRUMP REALLY DOES WANT TO KILL SOCIAL SECURITY

How ironic: The most inefficient bureaucracy in government turns out to be Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency."

That could be humorous, except that DOGE -- a creature of the right-wing Project 2025 -- has been devastating to millions of people. And it's about to get worse. Elon Musk -- the flighty uberrich autocrat put in charge of "efficiency" by his buddy Trump -- is now going after the Social Security deposits of 73 million senior citizens.

But wait, hasn't Trump himself promised (loudly and often) that he would not ax this essential retirement program? Yes ... but Elon is his "gotcha."

Rather than an honest kill, Musk is strangling the program with (believe it or not) bureaucratic red tape. Claiming to cutting waste, he's eliminating 7,000 people who administer the program, shouting, "Bureaucratic excess!" Except, Social Security is actually a renowned model of government efficiency, spending less than 1% of its revenue on administration.

By whacking the people who do the work, Musk is actually whacking the people who're due to receive their earned benefits. For example, he's decreed that the public no longer apply for benefits or resolve questions by phone, but now, must now travel in person to some distant Social Security office. But the staff there has also been decimated, so people who've come from afar are told to go back home and call for an appointment. Yes ... a call that will not be answered.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... What's at work here is a Musk-Trump ploy to wreck Social Security's remarkable record of efficiency. Their intent is to make the service so bad that they can then let profiteering corporations privatize your retirement.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate, Inc.