I want some of what local Republican legislators were drinking at the recent Lincoln Day dinner (Williamsport Sun-Gazette, Feb. 25, p. A1).

“So many good things happening”? Tell that to the researchers whose funding for studies on cancer, brain injuries and heart disease, among others, has been frozen. Or to the veterans who have lost support for medical and burial services because of canceled contracts. Or, perhaps, to the farmers Rep. Glenn Thompson applauded at the event, and who now can’t access grant money they had been promised to help with building fences or planting crops.

And if Rep. Dan Meuser thinks the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “is going to save us a lot of money,” he may want to check the math. Several media outlets already have documented countless errors in DOGE’s “wall of receipts.” And DOGE itself, quietly in the middle of the night, deleted the top alleged savings from its website when confronted with numbers that just didn’t add up.

This petty, reckless cutting of people and programs does not make government more efficient. Republicans lately have been preaching meritocracy; maybe it’s time they practice it.

BRAD NASON

Loyalsock Township

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom