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Much like so much about President Donald Trump’s agenda and the highly polarizing political times we live in, careful and objective analysis of DOGE and its leader Elon Musk’s efforts to right-size government is hard to come by as hysteria, chaos, and misinformation dominate the airwaves.
Some of this chaos is the fault of critics of the administration, who are willing to throw any criticism they can at the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE to see what sticks. Some of it is by the design of DOGE, where Musk and other DOGE architects have conceded the point that to make an omelet they are going to have to break a few eggs.
And some of it is a by-product of DOGE being a little, well, chaotic, and less precise and clear than even they would like to be (an $8 million savings being credited as an $8 billion savings, for example). The purpose of this article is to separate fact from fiction and provide those interested in rising above the polarized narratives an objective look at the state of DOGE.
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The Department of Government Efficiency, led by civilian mega-billionaire, Elon Musk, started with tremendous public support, and there is no question that the aim behind it still has strong public support.
Argentinian President Javier Milei gifted Elon Musk a blinged-out DOGE chainsaw to help him cut through wasteful spending. (X/@JMilei)
Right-sizing government, eliminating fraud and waste, and making some effort to limit the administrative bureaucracy that most Americans intuitively know has overwhelmed the federal government are all noble goals that enjoy widespread support from the American people. As time has progressed, some early achievements of DOGE have been worthy of praise, and some tactics have called into question if this is going the way the American people had hoped.
The email directive that all federal employees respond with some justification of what they are doing and how they spend their time is a good example of DOGE’s “chaos by design.” It led to no less than new FBI Director Kash Patel pushing back. The actual Office of Personnel and Management did the same, saying that a response was voluntary and a failure to respond would not be grounds for termination, which was followed up with a communication from Musk and DOGE (which Trump supported) saying a failure to respond would be grounds for termination!
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The lack of clarity here may be part of “purposeful chaos,” but it has managed to do two things, one positive and one less son. First, it has put into the public square that there are questions of governmental employee productivity, and that the new administration wants employees living off taxpayer money to be accountable. The whole conversation has re-oriented the public to questions about efficiency, productivity and accountability – pretty common and accepted concepts in the private sector.
But the negative side is that it has started to force the public to ask if DOGE is a change agent or a chaos agent, as the lack of clear technique, legality and organized protocols is poisoning the public well. Time will tell if the latter point or former point prevails in public consciousness.
The critics who believe DOGE to be a “constitutional crisis” lack credibility. They were silent when the Biden administration ran without any clarity as to who was really in charge. They have not worried about the grotesque abuses at USAID, at regulatory agencies behaving outside their jurisdiction, at governmental entities that functioned without accountability. And the president most certainly has plenary authority over the executive branch, whether or not people like what has become of the executive branch.
On the other hand, if the real goal of DOGE is to transcend headlines, hype, clicks and public fury, there is no way the endeavor can succeed without Congress. DOGE is too limited in scope, power, and means to make lasting and meaningful change to the waste and fraud of governmental operations and spending without Congress.
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As DOGE, Musk and orders for governmental employees to email what they do all day grab headlines, Congress is engaged in an actual budget fight that has real teeth. What they spend, cut, and tax in the years to come will be law as a result of what Congress decides out of this process.
The need of the hour is DOGE to set a tone – not of chaos and fury, but of prudence and common sense – and for Congress to work off of that tone to do sensible reform to our budget. It may not get a lot of social media likes, but our kids and grandkids will say thank you.
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