A former government insider who worked at a department taken over by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is warning Americans that the services they depend upon are likely to get much worse in the coming months.
In an interview with CNN, Merici Vinton, a former worker with the United States Digital Services that was taken over by Musk earlier this year, said that DOGE employees who came into her department showed little knowledge for the inner workings of government services, as well as a "careless disregard" for how their actions might impact American citizens.
In fact, Vinton thinks that what DOGE is doing is the opposite of the kind of work that the U.S. Digital Services was created to do.
"I came to government to really build great experiences for people, to interact with government to get their benefits easier, to file their taxes easier, to get their tax refunds quicker,” Vinton told CNN. “That’s why I joined government. What I see DOGE is doing is, they’re actually breaking a lot of that down. They’re actually breaking those things apart.”
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She also said that, while Americans may not understand how Musk's actions are affecting their daily lives, they will feel it in the coming months.
"I want Americans to try to understand it and to believe it and to understand that what it is is a wrecking ball, and that it’s not a scalpel,” Vinton said. “It is going to dramatically decrease our government’s capacity to deliver services and benefits in the next few years. This is real, and it’s not in a bubble."