Like a canoe heading for a waterfall, the U.S. government simply can’t sustain itself on its current course. We’re $36 trillion (that’s $36,000,000,000,000.00) in debt, a number that increases by about $100,000 every two seconds. That’s $323,000 for every taxpayer. I’ve checked behind the couch cushions and – I don’t know about you − but I don’t have the spare change to cover my share.
Over the past 20 years, we’ve settled into a fairly predictable cycle. Each party laments the national debt in campaign ads and news conferences. Some members of Congress suggest cutting programs or making agencies more efficient. Then the people affected by those suggestions scream bloody murder. The matter is conveniently dropped, but only after more spending is approved as a salve for the wound caused.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is popular with voters because the bloat is staggering. Something needs to be done. We need someone to step into the breach, cut up the government’s credit card − the American Excess card, if you will − and save us.
We need the economic equivalent of Ohioan Ulysses S. Grant. Gen. Grant led Union forces to victory in the Civil War, relying on his innate ability to stomach doing what was necessary no matter how horrendous the consequences.
The Union armies had two significant advantages over its Confederate adversaries − men and equipment. Early Union generals were too tentative, resulting in a bellicose quagmire. Other generals managed to get the army into battle, but when they won, they allowed the smaller, less-equipped armies to escape south to rebuild.
Even during his early days in the Western Theater, Grant acted differently.
At Shiloh, his army was whipped during the first day of battle − nearly pushed into the Tennessee River. Other generals would have loaded the men onto steamships and retreated across the river. But Grant went on offense. The Union attacked the following day, gained the advantage and won the battle.
It would become his calling card, not backing down. Once Grant was brought East, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee faced the military equivalent of a $36 trillion national debt. Grant had more men, equipment and horses and doggedly pursued Lee. It was unsustainable and resulted in the surrender at Appomattox in Virginia.
Despite Grant’s success, he faced tremendous pressure and criticism from Northern politicians and the press for continuing to toss his men and equipment at Lee. Many of the same people who criticized other generals’ lack of action flipped into criticizing Grant as a butcher for too much action.
Where painful decisions are necessary, there’s always an argument to take the easy way out. Why act if it might result in someone being hurt?
Because not acting can have the same effect. Grant knew that. The determination to make the necessary painful decisions separates authentic leadership from hyperbole.
So now we return to current times and economics. Painful decisions are necessary.
Nonprofit organizations and individual donors may need to intervene when the government can no longer fund programs.
This has been necessary for a long time, but instead of action, we’ve been subjected to a sort of bureaucratic NIMBYism: Cost cutting is fine as long as it’s not our department or pet project.
It appears that at this moment − and I know this will cause some apoplexy in the most liberal corners of social media − we may have our President Lincoln and Gen. Grant for the war on spending in Donald Trump and Elon Musk. My internal Grant impels me to make the comparison nonetheless.
Take this month's action against the U.S. Agency for International Development. Democrats vigorously defended the organization that, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, spent $70,000 funding a play in Ireland about diversity, equity and inclusion and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
As DOGE and the administration shifted USAID operations to the State Department, Democrats screamed. One fan of the bureaucracy said that “thousands, if not hundreds of thousands” of people would die as a result.
Folks, this was just a skirmish. This was the taking of Fort Donelson, which Grant achieved in February 1862. Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg are still to come.
This fiscal war − against the national debt − must be fought knowing that the casualties will be high.
Let’s hope that Musk is, indeed, a latter-day Grant, doggedly pursuing the spending that strangles our country, demanding the unconditional surrender of those who will somehow claim that cost cutting is necessary while also claiming that every government department, agency or program is indispensable.
Matt Dole is a political and communications consultant who lives in Newark and works in Columbus. This column originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
