To the Editor:

In his letter to the editor in last week’s East Penn Press, Mr. Knerr excoriated Democrats for their supposed objections to fiscal housecleaning of federal departments being conducted by Mr. Musk at President Donald Trump’s behest, using the analogy of a routine business audit. However, business audits are conducted by certified professionals without conflicting interests following established and transparent practices with built-in accountability and responsibility — and without significant policy and human consequences.

So far, it is not clear that those professional practices and standards are being followed by Mr. Musk and his team or that they have uncovered significant waste or fraud (according to published media reports).

I doubt there is any taxpayer — Republican or Democrat — who would object to rooting out government waste, fraud or abuse so I would reframe Mr. Knerr’s concern in a less partisan way and instead ask some other questions. What are the credentials of the people doing this fiscal work? How are they, in fact, conducting these fiscal investigations? How are conflicts of interest determined and dealt with?

Given the scope of this work, what are the guidelines and procedures for accessing and protecting the privacy of individuals’ personal information? Who or what government entity oversees this work and evaluates the findings before final decisions are made and announcements posted on social media? How is Congress involved in this work, given that these investigations concern, in some cases, money already appropriated by them? Who is being hurt and who is being helped by these fiscal activities and how much?

Roger D. Phillips

Alburtis