It didn’t take long for Democrats to lose their minds once President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) put their promises into action.

For days now — make that about eight years — we’ve been hearing shouts from the Left that democracy is under siege, we’re in a constitutional crisis, and Republicans are going to starve senior citizens and schoolchildren.

No one seemed to care when both Democrats and Republicans in Congress kicked the can down the road and saddled our children and grandchildren with insurmountable debt. At least Republicans have recovered their common sense, thanks to the leadership of Donald Trump.

Democrats are the pot calling the kettle black. They’ve engaged in bureaucratic, wasteful, reckless spending for decades with no accountability. At the same time, they’re going after DOGE and pretending it’s not accountable to the people. In reality, it’s undoing many things perpetrated by the unaccountable.

Five former U.S. Treasury secretaries recently penned an op-ed in The New York Times. Nowhere in the op-ed does the Times reveal that all five former secretaries are Democrats appointed by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. That alone destroys their credibility.

“While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming,” they write. “We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.”

They add, “A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”

On this point, they’re correct. Congress does have the power of the purse, not DOGE. Of course, that’s what makes their warnings about democracy so laughable. DOGE is merely looking for wasteful and fraudulent spending, not actually making cuts to those programs.

As John O. McGinnis writes at City Journal, “Musk’s access allows him to see government payments and make recommendations but not act on them himself.”

The fact the Left is so apoplectic over an audit should raise more concerns than the actual audit itself, but it’s really not surprising. Democrats need Big Government to remain a viable political party, and Elon Musk suggesting we not only need to cut spending but eliminate government agencies altogether is a direct threat to their power. New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer made that abundantly clear when he shouted, “They’re taking away everything we have.”

While Democrats continue parroting catchphrases about DOGE’s threat to our Constitution, none of them has ever asked whether all of the money our government spends is constitutional. After all, we’ve seen some outrageous and unethical use of federal funds recently uncovered by DOGE.

As our own Nate Jackson writes, “Opponents of Trump’s move correctly note that Congress has the constitutional power of the purse — the authority to allocate spending. They argue that Trump does not have the power to override Congress. But what if the spending is unconstitutional? No one seems to care about that.”

The former secretaries go on to claim, “No Treasury secretary in his or her first weeks in office should be put in the position where it is necessary to reassure the nation and the world of the integrity of our payments system or our commitment to make good on our financial obligations.”

Again, they’re correct. But the only reason Americans are being reassured about receiving Social Security and other benefits is that Democrats have lied to them by claiming Elon Musk is stealing money from these federal programs. It’s a blatant attempt to mischaracterize DOGE and prevent anyone from uncovering the real problem.

For now, Republicans need to hold their ground and let DOGE sift through every single government agency while letting the American people see what our government has been up to all these years. Then, it’s time to get Congress on board.

“The president should use his position to lead the conversation on debt reduction, propose spending restraint, and veto irresponsible budgets,” writes fiscal hawk Veronique de Rugy, “The longer legislators avoid making tough choices, the worse the crisis will become. We need our legislators to circumvent more drastic and painful adjustments in the future.”

We’ll have to face this reality sooner rather than later. It will be a challenge for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who needs to unify the GOP and pass budgets with real spending cuts, even if it requires passing individual spending bills.

The road ahead won’t be easy. There are legal and political hurdles to overcome, but nothing President Trump or DOGE is doing threatens our Constitution. As constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley writes, “The courts may oppose certain moves by Trump and DOGE, but these are decisions of process, not policy. Eventually the president will be able to pare government spending, which is what the Democrats are really upset about — not the invented ‘constitutional crisis.’”

The real threat to our Constitution is wasting a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reduce trillions in federal debt while making our government smaller, more efficient, and accountable to the American people.