Some losses are inevitable when you overhaul a system. The bigger threat is letting the government drown in debt, which would be an existential risk to democracy. If the U.S. collapses financially, lamprey control is the least of our problems. The idea isn’t to nuke every program. It’s about cutting bloat and reallocating resources. Sure, some useful things might get trimmed. But staying on our current path until the whole system fails would be worse.