Money is really what matters in Washington

OPINION:

A few years back, I was talking to about three dozen Republican Senate staff members about the size of government. In an attempt to ascertain what they actually knew about the topic, I asked them how much the federal government had spent in the previous fiscal year.

No one knew the answer or could even guess within a few hundred billion dollars. At the time, it alarmed me that Senate staff — who are paid to know fundamental things about the federal government, like how much it spends — were so poorly informed.

Over time, however, I have concluded that most people have trouble telling the difference between the wheat and the chaff of Washington. That lesson was emphasized Friday when President Trump invited Sen. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, to join him on Air Force One to visit and view the wreckage of the fires in Los Angeles.

You may remember that Mr. Trump has showered Mr. Schiff with all sorts of pejoratives over the course of the past seven or so years, and with good reason. Mr. Schiff was the most tenacious of Mr. Trump’s tormentors in Congress. For his part, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was waiting on the tarmac to greet Air Force One. Earlier in the week, as part of a charm campaign, Mr. Newsom ordered flags to be raised to full staff on Inauguration Day to celebrate Mr. Trump’s reascendance. Again, this even though Mr. Newsom has been a reliably tart critic of Mr. Trump.

But it turns out that none of that matters. Money matters in governing, as it does in a distressingly large part of the human experience. Mr. Trump, Mr. Newsom and Mr. Schiff all know that the taxpayers are going to ship their cash to California; the only questions among these three men are the size of the payment and the conditions that will be attached. All the political Kabuki that came before (and will come afterward) is irrelevant.

Similarly, at his swearing-in last week, Mr. Trump ensured that the most well-known rich people in America — Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. — were seated in or near the front row. It seemed like an odd choice for the tribune of the working class to have the rich kids in front.

But they were there in front — whether they knew it or not — as trophies of war, a war Mr. Trump has won. Again, it was their money that mattered, not their stated politics.

Finally, last week in Washington, the gang over at the Department of Government Efficiency lost Vivek Ramaswamy and their general counsel. The effort to find that $2 trillion in federal government waste and overspending is less than a week old and is already starting to wobble. At the same time, the chairs and ranking members of the appropriations committees in Congress were busy with the actual work of government — figuring out who and which programs would get how much from the taxpayers. Again, there is wheat and there is chaff. When watching what goes on in Washington, it is important not to confuse them.

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.