In March, the Maine State Auditor’s office released its annual state government audit, which reviewed a sample of $37 million worth of government contracts to help the state improve its processes regarding spending and contracts with vendors. The audit is critical to ensuring transparency and responsibility within state government.

So, why does this matter? The audit is not intended to solve every issue with every state government program. However, it identifies areas within state-administered programs that could benefit from improved processes and controls; in short, where the state can do better.

To be clear, despite the misinformation that’s out there, the State Auditor, Matt Dunlap, stated plainly that Maine’s finances were secure and not at risk, and the report found no evidence of wrongdoing, waste, fraud or abuse. In fact, this year’s audit found fewer deficiencies than last year; a sign of positive progress.

However, the report still identified deficiencies that require correction to ensure that programs meet their requirements and that funds are being spent effectively and responsibly. I take these findings seriously, and Democrats are committed to working with state agencies to address these issues.

Some politicians have seized on this report to serve their own political agenda. The reality is this type of report is governing at its best: reviewing the state’s practices to ensure that taxpayer funds are managed effectively so that programs can better achieve their goals.

Let’s contrast this with what we are seeing in Washington right now. I’ve written about how Elon Musk’s DOGE team is ransacking the federal government. We’re seeing whole programs get eliminated on a whim, or based on some incorrectly applied algorithm. These cuts and firings hurt Mainers. Recently, they fired the entire staff that administers the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program that thousands of Mainers rely on in the winter to stay warm. They didn’t eliminate the program per se, but if you fire all the people who manage it, it cannot operate effectively – or at all.

They’ve made other decisions based on an ideological agenda in some instances and vindictiveness in others. Currently, the U.S. Department of Education is threatening all federal K-12 education funding for our state because they do not like that Maine follows the law regarding the participation of transgender students in school sports. This comes on the heels of the Social Security Administration’s acting director admitting that they targeted Maine because Gov. Janet Mills told President Trump that our state would follow the law.

In the short time it has existed, DOGE hasn’t actually saved taxpayers money or made the government more efficient. It has wasted hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars based on its reckless actions, while putting people at further risk. All the while, billionaires cut deals to preserve their own contracts and push tax cuts for themselves while the rest of us pay more for food, energy and housing.

Throughout my career, I have heard time and time again, the false binary of “big government” versus “small government.” This sentiment does us all a disservice. Governments are needed to ensure basic standards in a society and can accomplish, at scale, what markets and private charity cannot. We shouldn’t be asking whether the government is too big or too small, but whether it is working for us.

If we believe in the necessity of government services, then practices like an annual state audit are critical to our mission. These types of smart, sober assessments are how we improve our management of public dollars. A state audit might not be as exciting or headline-grabbing as the world’s richest man running around with a chainsaw like an overgrown toddler, and it might not serve the political agenda of politicians seeking to score cheap points – but it’s more effective.

If we want to make government work better for the people it serves, we do not need immature antics, politicized talking points or arbitrary cutting. We need public servants to carefully examine what we do and let us know how we can improve.

Marc Malon represents House District 133, part of Biddeford, in the Maine House of Representatives. He can be reached at marc.malon@legislature.maine.gov.