I think most people, even those among us who may disagree strongly with the present administration in Washington, D.C., can applaud it for pursuing at least this one goal.

That is, cutting the federal budget. It has to be done. Indeed, it has needed to be done for many, many years and through many administrations on both sides of the aisle.

Great so far.

But, as I wrote in this column not long ago, I have a serious bone to pick with the powers that be in Washington, D.C. Not with the laudable goal I mentioned above, and not with the personalities involved, but with the ways they are going about “cutting the fat.”

Questioning methods, as I see it, has nothing to do with politics or personal animosities, as I’ve heard many defenders of the administration claim of its critics. And it shouldn’t. Doing so should be neutral ground. Indeed, I have never read or heard anything in any party platforms that demands the methods being employed here as essential to a party.

Given the sheer number of firings, the volume of human beings caught in the net, now well past the tens of thousands, there were bound be bad eggs among the ranks. But not everyone is a bad egg.

So it makes me wonder: how did the new administration learn all those bad things about all those employees they claim to have found, all in the span of a few weeks? How could they have interviewed that many people, scanned their files, or talked to their bosses to size up their performance?

That old reliable, the calendar, tells us they could not have possibly done those things. They did not have the time. Indeed, it gives me the strong impression they are making this up as they go along.

I have known since I was a kid that, from the head of the local water board to council members, governors and representatives, all the way to the top, that acting out of ego and score settling were not in the job descriptions of any public servants. And that failing to handle responsibly the powers we the people have entrusted with them is to court disaster.

And, what’s more, any administration that acts in the hasty manner outlined above has not earned the right to malign anyone — if such a right exists — as a lazy shirker, a leech, a do-nothing.

It all reminds me of what a member of a city council I once covered said: “I don’t get mad. I get even.”

I don’t want that. Do you?

Turning to another topic, I am mystified by the deep cuts in funding for universities, museums, libraries, schools. What’s that about? Assuming there was a rationale, I went looking for one. I searched high, low, middle, couldn’t find a thing,

What can justify cutting $150,000 in yearly grants to a school district in New Mexico that it uses to fund a yearly history contest for middle and high school students when the administration is also talking about plunking down at least $50 million for a pass-by military parade?

So in the absence of a reasonable explanation, let me fill the void with a couple of my own guesses about such cuts.

To make war on the intelligentsia, for the satisfaction of those people who grumble about “those eggheads in their ivory towers?”

To dumb down the rising generation of Americans?

Because of dislikes long fed and watered against those people believed to have “done me wrong,” no matter how long ago the infraction might have occurred, or what a trifling thing it was?

If you can help me find a reasonable explanation, I’m all ears.

Write to us. We like it.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@auburn-reporter.com.