Don’t DOGE Michigan

Guest Opinion

By Sam Inglot | April 5, 2025

As the tsunami of executive orders and funding cuts from the Trump administration makes its way to Michigan, people across the state need to be prepared to stand up and fight back against this assault on our day-to-day lives and more attacks that will inevitably follow. And if you think DOGE is just something coming down on us from Washington, D.C., know that Republicans in Michigan are looking to replicate the disaster here in our state.

Libraries, veteran healthcare, and funding for farmers: These are just a few of the programs threatened in Michigan (and across the country) as the result of President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to pull resources away from our communities to fund tax cuts for the rich.

The agency at the helm of this nonsense, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is anything but efficient—it’s actually making our lives more difficult. Not even 100 days into office, the chaos and unpredictability that’s come from the MAGA movement’s crusade against essential government services is putting many folks on edge, and understandably so.

Community services and agencies that provide food to families, educate small kids, and protect our Great Lakes from invasive species are now wondering how they’re going to keep the lights on with funding freezes. Federal employees are set to lose their jobs, even at critical agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—yes, that’s the agency that forecasts weather—and the U.S. Postal Service, which is a lifeline for our rural communities getting mail service.

And these massive cuts to social services aren’t the only thing you should be alarmed about; DOGE is going after our personal data as well. At a Michigan Senate Oversight Committee hearing, Professor Hilary Allen testified that “DOGE employees’ access to banking, personal, financial and health data raises significant privacy concerns and identity theft risks.” Basically, what Trump and Musk are doing with our federal dollars is the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night.

Not only is DOGE’s dismantling of key institutions impacting how working families are going to get by, but at the state government level, Republican officials are starting to parrot what MAGA is saying in Washington. Take none other than state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R - Porter Township). Nesbitt is talking loudly about his plans to bring DOGE-like attack plans to Lansing.

We already have a blueprint for how Nesbitt’s plans will work out: former Gov. Rick Snyder’s legacy. Folks may not know that his administration decimated the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s funding before the Flint water crisis, paid for tax cuts for businesses by hiking taxes on working families, and privatized food services in Michigan prisons, which put corrections officers and inmates at risk.

However, based on what’s happening at the federal level and Nesbitt’s strong rhetoric, there is every reason to believe that Nesbitt's burn-it-all-down ideas on public services will make Snyder’s look like a scented candle in comparison.

Nesbitt, the former state co-chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a prominent right-wing corporate bill mill, is calling to “dismantle” state government, something that the more genteel Snyder would never dare say. In pulling a page from the Trump playbook, Nesbitt seems to be more interested in hyperbole and destructive slash-and-burn deregulation than doing anything that will lower costs or improve the lives of working Michiganders.

At the time of writing this piece, thousands of contracts and dozens of programs remain illegally frozen by the Trump Administration, and DOGE is a bull in a china shop, breaking important programs that Americans need to live a good life.

“This is going to destroy whole regional economies in rural areas around the country,” said Matthew Fletcher, an Indian law professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

The fact is that people’s jobs are being ripped away, healthcare is on the chopping block, and our sense of security is on the ropes as a result of Trump and Musk’s authoritarian agenda. Working class Michiganders from Monroe to Marquette are prepared to resist this billionaire-backed agenda wreaking havoc on our lives. I urge you to contact your state lawmakers and tell them to not DOGE Michigan.

Sam Inglot is the executive director of Progress Michigan, a nonprofit communications advocacy and government watchdog group.