Where Will DOGE Next Hang Its Flag? | Opinion

I first saw that scene when I was about 8 years old in a movie theatre in Sioux Falls. It made an impression at the time — mainly one of relief because I felt assured that nothing like that would happen here in the United States, especially after our nation helped defeat the Nazis in World War II.

During my most recent viewing of the film, about a week ago, that feeling of reassurance seemed much weaker than it has in the past. And no, I don’t believe that someday soon we’ll have the equivalent of swastikas waving from our flagpoles instead of the stars and stripes.

Maybe it has to do with the Vermillion City Council wondering aloud recently whether a substantial grant required to make substantial improvements to the City’s wastewater treatment plant will actually be awarded. The plans for these improvements have been ongoing for at least three years now, if memory serves correctly, and a $5 million EDA (Economic Development Administration) grant, which the City has already signed, will make the improvements a reality.

You never know when Elon Musk and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) will strike, however.

The board of directors of the South Dakota Shakespeare Festival (SDSF) learned that the hard way.

The festival has graced our community by bringing professional actors here for 13 consecutive years to perform a work of Shakespeare in Vermillion’s Prentis Park.

The festival receives a great deal of local support but also must rely on a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council. A story in today’s Plain Talk points out how, as SDSF Board President Greg Huckabee puts it, the festival and South Dakota have been “ravaged by DOGE.”

The South Dakota Humanities Council informed the SDSF last week that it is temporarily pausing all grant award notifications because of an “unexpected cut in federal funding.”

Christina Oey, the Humanities Council’s executive director, notes in her letter to the SDSF that “this development came as a surprise, particularly as a continuing resolution to fund the government was passed on March 15, 2025, which led us to believe our funding stream would remain stable.”

Talking about stability — or the lack of it — you’ll also read in today’s Plain Talk about the steps the University of South Dakota had to take to quell fears that ICE agents were roaming the campus, sniffing around for, I would suppose, any students and faculty from other countries (and who knows? Maybe U.S.-born ones, too?) who don’t have all of their papers in order and need to be deported to who knows where.

You’ll read that the university communicated in writing to faculty and staff on April 14, stating that USD has not had any recent federal law enforcement activity on campus. The letter continues to inform faculty and staff of resources available to them “for assistance in appropriately responding to state or federal law enforcement requests.”

None of this is reassuring.

All of this is likely why that scene with Captain von Trapp and the Nazi flag hit a nerve.

Stephen Fowler, writing for NPR, noted last month how DOGE is barely making a dent — its effect on the federal budget could easily be buffed out, in automotive terms. DOGE’s saving claims have been inaccurate and drastically overstated.

It’s through congressional action, not DOGE, where any changes to spending and revenue collection would happen at a meaningful scale, said Jessica Riedl of the center-right Manhattan Institute.

“Think of Congress and its budget as the debt-ridden dad on the way to buy a $250,000 Ferrari on the credit card, and DOGE is the $2-off gas card he used along the way,” Riedl said. “It’s great that he saved $2 on gas, but I think his wife may be more concerned about the $250,000 car.”

The Shakespeare festival amounts to — what? — maybe a penny, even less, on that $2-off gas card? The festival’s value to our community and to the many other organizations it touches is of incredible value year after year. But a grant of under $15,000 is somehow too much and cutting it will somehow relieve our national debt?

Fowler noted last month that for every dollar that the federal government has spent so far since the start of this fiscal year in October 2024, DOGE — which began operating in mid-January — has claimed to save the equivalent of about four pennies.

From Oct. 1, 2024, through Jan. 31, 2025, the federal government collected $1.6 trillion and spent $2.4 trillion, leaving a deficit of nearly $840 billion so far this fiscal year.

We can all agree that any reduction in the government wasting taxpayer dollars is a good thing. A community Shakespeare festival with a long record of success is beneficial, not wasteful, and points out how DOGE is demonstrating it has no useful purpose.

Riedl reiterates that Congress is the only place to find real savings, and even then it requires tough choices.

“DOGE has created this false perception that the entire budget deficit can be eliminated by going after waste, fraud and abuse and without making the difficult decisions elsewhere in the budget,” Riedl said. “And this exaggeration is making it even harder to do the real hard things that are going to be needed to fix the deficit beyond waste.”

In the meantime, we’re left to wonder where DOGE will strike next. We’re left to wonder where it will next hang its flag.