Back in the DOGEhouse: Democrats just love to hate Elon Musk
Elon Musk has announced that, in the coming months, he will be spending more time managing Tesla, and less time on his Department of Government Efficiency. Although good news for Tesla shareholders, this is bad news for our country.
Musk’s pivot is not shocking, but it should anger every patriotic American. The left is guilty of carrying out one of the most despicable vendettas of all time — against Musk and the car company he founded. Why? Because Musk has been volunteering his time to help streamline and modernize our government. Americans no longer wear poodle skirts or eat TV-dinners, but they are saddled with a federal bureaucracy propped up by 1950s-era technology and systems. It is absurd, and DOGE has been working at warp speed to make it better.
The left’s insane outrage over Musk’s investigations into federal waste and fraud has driven attacks against Teslas for months, with cars being vandalized, drivers being harassed and dealerships being firebombed. Not one Democrat has called for an end to the madness.
The incessant attacks have helped drive a downturn in sales of Tesla cars, disappointing earnings and a stock that is down 37 percent just since the beginning of the year. After all, who would want to put themselves or their families in danger by driving a Tesla? In response to the company’s travails, Musk has agreed to spend more time at the helm.
Far from calling off the brutal attacks against Teslas, Democrats have cheered the company’s struggles. Tim Walz, Minnesota’s witless governor and one-time vice-presidential candidate, publicly celebrated the drop in Tesla’s stock price last month, before realizing that his state’s pension fund owned more than 1 million shares of the company.
More recently, Minneapolis police arrested a Minnesota state employee who had been caught on surveillance video vandalizing several Teslas and causing about $20,000 in damage. The local police chief described this as a felony. But Hennepin County’s elected district attorney, Mary Moriarty — one of the wokest and softest-on-crime prosecutors in America — declined to press charges.
Why this hatred for one of our country’s most brilliant business leaders? After all, it was not long ago that Time named Musk 2021 Person of the year,with the magazine’s editor-in-chief saying, “few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too,” referencing SpaceX, another of his companies, which has revolutionized space travel.
Democrats’ antipathy toward Musk goes back to his 2022 purchase of Twitter and subsequent campaign for free speech. When Musk revealed that Joe Biden’s government had colluded with Twitter (and other social media platforms) to ban dissonant opinions about COVID, his fate was sealed. Democrats were not appalled that the feds had engaged in censorship, they were mad at Musk for publishing the notorious Twitter files that bared their misdeeds.
The Twitter purchase put Musk in the hot seat, and attracted the enmity of the Biden White House. Though the billionaire entrepreneur had made electric vehicles a reality, thus enabling the climate ambitions of the left, that he had done so without the use of union labor put him in the doghouse. When Biden hosted a White House summit on EVs, Musk was not invited, even though Tesla was by far the nation’s biggest producer of electric cars.
That wasn’t his only punishment. Last October, the New York Times reported that the Biden regime had “targeted” Musk’s companies “in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews.” This, despite relying on SpaceX for NASA’s rocket schedule and launching most of our Defense Department’s satellites.
Democrats’ animus toward Musk has only increased since Trump appointed him a senior White House adviser. Elizabeth Warren epitomizes her party’s attacks against Musk, which have been incessant, personal and dishonest.
Early on, the Massachusetts senator accused Musk of being a “freeloader” and not paying taxes; it turns out he has paid more in taxes than any other American, including $11 billion in 2021 income taxes alone. More recently, Warren has accused Musk and Trump in a campaign video of wanting to “take a chainsaw to your Social Security,” despite White House denials. Warren knows better but wants to score political points by scaring vulnerable seniors that they may see some drop in payments.
Warren is incensed that the DOGE team appears to have targeted 47 Social Security offices for closure, with some associated personnel to be laid off. She calls the rumored closures a “backdoor way” to prevent people from accessing their benefits. What she doesn’t reveal is that the agency has about 1,230 offices around the country; fewer than 4 percent, which attract the least traffic, are likely to be shuttered.
Warren is especially angry with Musk because DOGE went after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the senator’s 2011 brain child that critics charge has operated beyond its mandate.
For the record, the CFPB is an out-of-control and unaccountable bureaucracy that early on punished firms on the novel grounds of “disparate impact” and is the poster child for regulatory overreach. Currently, it is determined to impose top-down regulations on financial institutions, including setting caps for late fees on credit cards at $8 (versus the industry average of $32) and limiting overdraft fees on checking accounts to $5 (compared with the average of $35). While consumers might applaud these rules, they will prove at best a short-term benefit.
Price controls, whether on banking functions or eggs, invariably come at a cost, usually by limiting supplies. Restricting what banks or credit card companies can charge for delinquent accounts will likely push those institutions to drop low-credit customers, hurting the very people Warren says she cares about.
As Congress dithers over making essential cuts to our swollen federal budget, DOGE has stepped into the breach. Working on behalf of the American people has cost Musk a fortune; attacking him and his companies is not how he should be rewarded.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5266419-musk-tesla-government-efficiency
Published in The Hill
