Trump and DOGE have taken a chainsaw to countless government programs that millions of Americans rely on.

Here are 7 ways DOGE is ruining your life. 

First: DOGE is making it harder to feed yourself.

It’s no secret grocery prices are high right now. Even worse? Food may not even be safe to eat. Due to spending freezes enacted by DOGE, FDA workers have been forced to slow or even stop routine testing of food products for dangerous bacteria and chemicals. 

And the Agriculture Department has fired hundreds of workers — including those who inspect imported foods and crops. Without these workers, food is at risk of rotting at ports of entry — which will shrink our food supply and drive prices even higher.

If you can’t afford to buy any food right now, you’re not alone. While food banks are scrambling to keep up with soaring demand, DOGE is cutting nearly $1 billion from crucial USDA programs that help feed the hungry.

Two: DOGE is making natural disasters more deadly.

It’s cutting hundreds of jobs at the agency that houses the National Weather Service, which warns us about extreme weather and studies the climate.

And if your house is destroyed in a natural disaster, you’ll have a harder time rebuilding it. 

That’s because DOGE has cut more than 200 employees from the already-strapped Federal Emergency Management Agency and frozen more than $100 billion in grant payments. Without these FEMA grants, communities like Los Angeles and Asheville, North Carolina will struggle to rebuild in the wake of devastating disasters.

Three: DOGE is making it harder to travel — and more dangerous.

All of this is bound to stress you out. Why not take a trip to clear your head — perhaps to one of our beautiful national parks? 

Well, DOGE has even cut 1,000 workers from Americans’ favorite federal agency: the National Park Service. These cuts have caused long wait times to enter national parks, reduced park hours, and put the parks at risk of falling into disrepair. Few staff are left to clean up trash, maintain wildlife health and water quality, and help mitigate fire risk.

If you do decide to make the trip, be warned: DOGE cut 10 percent of workers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that keeps our roads safe. And it cut 400 workers from the Federal Aviation Administration, many of whom maintain vital flight equipment and support air traffic controllers.

Four: DOGE is making it more likely that you’ll get ripped off.

If you have a bank account, credit card, or have ever had to undergo a rental background check, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has had your back against financial predators. Now it’s essentially gone. 

In 2023, the CFPB returned more than $100 million to Bank of America customers after it found the bank was illegally charging junk fees, withholding credit card rewards, and opening fake accounts without customers’ knowledge. That’s just a chunk of the nearly $20 billion the agency has returned to consumers since it was founded in 2011.

But because of DOGE’s attacks, the CFPB can’t keep you nearly as safe from scams. 

It’s already dropped at least nine cases against financial predators under its current acting director (and Project 2025 author) Russell Vought. And it’s beginning to roll back rules that would have saved consumers billions of dollars every year — such as capping credit card late fees at $8.

Five: DOGE is harming veterans who have protected you.

DOGE has already fired 2,400 employees from Veterans’ Affairs and is plotting to fire 80,000 in total — many of whom are veterans themselves. It has also canceled hundreds of contracts, which have caused delays in clinical trials for veterans battling cancer, increased wait times at mental health centers, and put veterans’ health care access at risk. 

Six: DOGE is effectively cutting Social Security.

Even if you don’t receive Social Security right now, your parents’, grandparents’, or other loved ones’ benefits are at the mercy of Musk’s chainsaw. The Social Security Administration is closing offices all across the country and firing thousands of workers who provide services to recipients.

Customer service call times have skyrocketed, with reported wait times of four to five hours. Website crashes have increased and some low-income seniors and disabled people have been mistakenly told that their benefits were suspended. 

Seven: DOGE is cutting services to enrich oligarchs like Musk.

Musk claims that DOGE cuts are necessary to save taxpayers money, but he’s not interested in cutting anything that lines his pockets.

He’s set to make a pretty penny from the government’s coffers. His corporations were already some of the biggest government contractors, but while DOGE was gutting the federal workforce, SpaceX received a whopping $5.9 billion contract from the Pentagon.

And DOGE has made cuts to at least six agencies that were investigating, or previously fined, Musk’s corporations. 

That includes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has multiple active investigations into Tesla. These firings mostly targeted staff overseeing the self-driving technology that Tesla has been trying to roll out for years.

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So, at the end of all of this chainsaw-induced chaos, what are we left with?

These cuts are barely saving anything, and the disruption they’ve caused far outweighs any savings.

Musk has already backtracked on his “savings” goal from $2 trillion down to $1 trillion and, most recently, an expected $150 billion. That’s just two tenths of one percent of the federal budget. 

All the government services you are losing are for almost nothing.

That’s because DOGE cuts were never really about saving the government money — they were about benefiting a small group of billionaires.

What DOGE is trying to do is help clear the way for tax cuts that will predominantly go to billionaires and their corporations.

So what can you do about it? Demand Congress stand up to Musk and protect the essential services we all rely on. 

Thanks to massive public outcry, the Social Security Administration has already walked back its wildly unpopular plan to cut phone services.

We have the power to fight back. 

Our government is supposed to serve everyone, not just billionaires.