Some folks in Nevada have taken to wringing their hands and writing letters since the federal government—under the careful broom of efficiency—decided to sweep away a few dusty grants that had long overstayed their welcome. The noise began after nearly fifty workers, hired with temporary dollars from the American Rescue Plan, became unemployed when the well finally ran dry.
That well, mind you, was never meant to be eternal. It was pandemic aid, not a family inheritance.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, whose politics lean like a Nevada fencepost in a one-way windstorm, took it upon herself to pen a letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now heading the Department of Health and Human Services. Her note carried the tone you’d expect from a woman discovering her silver spoon was missing. She called the cuts “alarming” and claimed the programs were “critical,” which politicians always say when it’s someone else’s money.
The root of the matter lies with a freshly minted outfit from Washington called the Department of Government Efficiency—DOGE for short, and not to be confused with any kind of doge from Venice or dog coin from the internet. DOGE was put in place by the Trump administration to tidy up the federal budget and send unneeded government programs packing. And tidy they did.
Some folks out West claim the grants were “essential.” But let’s be plain–these were temporary funds meant to help the country weather the COVID-19 storm, not build a castle on borrowed bricks. If you construct your house on a sandbar, don’t complain when the tide rolls out.
Cortez Masto insists these grants weren’t just for pandemic cleanup but were helping communities and tribal lands across Nevada. No doubt some good came of them—but so does rain, and we don’t bottle that up and bill the government. It’s the nature of emergency aid to end when it’s over.
And here’s the part the senator might prefer folks forget–under the Trump administration, efficiency wasn’t just a word—it was a mission. They didn’t come to Washington to fatten the hog–but to trim it.
The DOGE directive—that the grants were “no longer necessary” isn’t some cruel twist. It’s a return to normal, where states care for their own, and Washington minds its purse.
Public health leaders may be fretting, and some newspapers fanning the flames with phrases like “devastating effect,” but every good manager knows when to stop writing checks. Nevada received $2.7 billion in flexible pandemic aid. If $114 million of that went toward mental health– the state should have something to show for it that doesn’t vanish the moment the checkbook closes.
Cortez Masto’s letter may rattle around the halls of government for a while, but one suspects Mr. Kennedy has a stack of such letters and only so much ink in his pen. Meanwhile, the Trump-era effort to cut waste and restore sanity to the nation’s budget continues—quietly, steadily, and much to the dismay of those who thought the river of federal dollars would never run dry.
And that’s the thing about rivers–they don’t ask permission before they turn.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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