Tag: DOGE

Don’t Sell DOGE Short—Yet

Connor O’Keffe for Mises.org 

When he returns to the White House early next year, President-elect Donald Trump plans to appoint Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. While not an official federal department, the Administration’s plans for DOGE are similar to the Grace Commission under Ronald Reagan and the “Reinventing Government,” or “REGO,” initiative under Bill Clinton. The president will task Musk and Ramaswamy’s team with researching, developing, testing, and writing up actionable steps for Trump and his team to effectively cut government spending and federal regulations.

In an op-ed last week, Musk and Ramaswamy laid out some initial plans for tackling the bureaucratic behemoth in Washington. They point to two recent Supreme Court rulings—West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) and Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024)—in which the Court ruled that federal agencies cannot impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions without specific congressional authorization and that courts are no longer required to defer to agencies’ interpretation of their own authority. In citing these cases, the authors argue that a significant number of federal regulations currently on the books are technically illegal and, therefore, can and should be eliminated by executive order.

The two also professed their plans to trim the federal workforce by requiring remote federal employees to return to the office and to move agencies out of DC to regions of the country more relevant to what they oversee. The article ends with calls to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to overhaul the federal government’s procurement process, and to address the significant amount of waste, fraud, and abuse that taxpayers are forced to fund each year.

Musk and Ramaswamy’s plan has gotten plenty of criticism and skepticism from libertarians and small-government advocates, mostly because of its total reliance on politicians who have every institutional reason to decline the cuts. And, last month, I argued that even if DOGE achieved everything it set out to achieve, it still would fall far short of what’s needed to get the country off our current path to economic and societal destruction. While the vision laid out by the two DOGE leaders in the WSJ is a bit more robust than I had expected, I still stand by everything I said in that piece.

But there is a component of DOGE, and the broader movement behind it, that many free-marketers are too quick to dismiss or take for granted—the cultural component.

Anyone who understands that radical changes are necessary to fix our current national predicament also needs to understand how radical changes actually come about. As Robert Higgs detailed in his book on the subject, the biggest, most consequential changes to the American political and economic system have all taken place during a crisis.

Generally, at any given time, the public is not in favor of big, sweeping societal changes. Many may want them in theory, but when it’s time to actually sit down and make the change, it’s very hard to get enough people to accept their lives being upended for something they’re only told will make them safer or more prosperous someday in the future.

But in the depths of a crisis, when the status quo is bad enough, it’s much easier to get enough of the public to passively or actively accept expansive changes to how our society operates.

The strict speech controls and criminalization of political thought implemented under Woodrow Wilson were only really possible because of World War I. The government’s devastating economic power grab under Hoover and FDR could only have happened during the Great Depression. More recently, it was only politically possible for the George W. Bush administration to eviscerate the public’s right to privacy and launch a disastrous multi-trillion-dollar War on Terror because of the horrific attacks on 9/11. And the Fed was only able to get away with its recent, historic level of money printing that fueled price inflation, made most Americans poorer, and generated much of the economic chaos we are dealing with because of the government lockdowns in response to COVID-19.

Thanks to a number of ongoing government programs, it’s not a question of if we will face another crisis, but which one and when. For instance, Washington’s escalations against Russia could prompt a severe Russian response, what the American government has enabled Israel to do to the people of Gaza could lead to a major terrorist attack on an American city, or the historic economic downturn that was made unavoidable by the Fed injecting a historic amount of cheap money into credit markets could suddenly materialize.

These looming crises could provide the political establishment with their next opportunity to grab power they could not get away with grabbing in “normal times.” Much of the political class’s propaganda is meant to “prime” the American public, so when these crises hit, their instinct is to look to the government for help and to hand over more control over their lives in the name of ending the crisis.

But crises also present opportunities for improvement.

Think of an alcoholic who wakes up after a bender only to realize he missed his daughter’s high school graduation. The pain of that realization could drive the man to pick the bottle back up and sink deeper into his addiction, but it could also drive him to finally begin cleaning up his life.

The same thing can happen on the societal level.

It is unlikely that the DOGE team will just draft up all the necessary cuts needed to fix our many national problems and that Donald Trump will simply implement them on some random day without facing serious and immediate political consequences. The more likely path out of our mess will resemble the alcoholic’s path out of his.

If a crisis hits and enough of the public understands that something the government did is to blame for it and that giving the same people who brought the crisis about even more power is the worst possible response, comprehensive political and cultural solutions would not only be possible but likely.

This is why countering the political class’s propaganda and getting more of the public to see the truth is a prerequisite for actually solving our issues.

That can often feel like a hopeless endeavor. But look at how much excitement and energy there is right now about DOGE. Musk and Ramaswamy are drawing a lot of attention as they hype people up about cutting government spending. They have embraced Ron Paul as an inspiration, ally, and advisor for the project. And their plan to start a podcast focused on their effort ensures that it will remain at the center of the public’s attention throughout DOGE’s run.

Is the level of public awareness about the causes and solutions to our problems anywhere close to where it needs to be to put us on a better path the next time government intervention blows up in all of our faces? No.

But just as Trump’s second victory demonstrated that the establishment’s propaganda can be defeated, the enthusiasm for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency means we are already closer than many of us thought.

And that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

The last time the mere mention of moving agencies out of DC happened threats of resignations were great. My response is “good”! The agency would be able to hire an individual closer to where the agency’s focus is with a more direct knowledge. There is the plus of not having to pay to relocate thé mediocre employee.

Laying Out the Vision for DOGE

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy explain what they hope to accomplish and how it can happen.

By: Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post November 25, 2024

With the possible exception of further Supreme Court picks, the facet of Donald Trump’s incoming administration that most excites me is the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Advocating to reduce the size and scope of the federal government is pretty much the core of our mission and work here at The Patriot Post.

As a side note, there’s also the hugely entertaining proposal floating around — fed by Musk’s own trolling — that the billionaire entrepreneur might buy MSNBC and turn it into a legitimate news channel as he did with Twitter, now X. But I digress.

Our Emmy Griffin previewed the idea of a government efficiency commission in September, and Thomas Gallatin analyzed its post-election announcement. Today, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote a joint op-ed for The Wall Street Journal outlining their vision.

They begin with a statement that would be music to the Founders’ ears: “Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government.” Indeed, the Constitution establishes three branches of government, but our nation today is primarily governed by a fourth — the administrative state.

Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats — tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision.

It’s also costly. The federal government confiscates trillions of our hard-earned dollars every year and yet runs deficits into the trillions anyway. We just surpassed $36 trillion in national debt. None of that includes the cost of regulations that hamper economic growth.

Three men know about the burden of government as well as anyone: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy. “We are entrepreneurs, not politicians,” the latter two wrote. 

“We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.”

If they are not elected and not even serving within the government, the question is how they’ll achieve their promised cuts. They explain:

This team will work closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget in the new administration. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, focusing on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

The plan might work — at least for the next four years — because presidents control the executive branch and, thus, most of the administrative state. Trump’s critics will scream about such “fascism,”but as usual, they will be turning that word on its head. Musk and Ramaswamy put it this way: 

“When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that Congress never authorized.”

The duo plans to cut the federal workforce, as well: 

“The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited.”

That’s not heartless, and it’s not even something Musk and Ramaswamy don’t envision for DOGE itself. “Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026 — the expiration date we have set for our project,” they promise. They’ve hit the floor running, interviewing job candidates for this temporary but critical venture and taking suggestions for cuts.

As I often joke with my family and friends, Eeyore is my spirit animal. I routinely find the humor in life, but I tend to see the glass as half empty. In this case, I’m realistic enough to know that government inertia is almost insurmountable. Even the eternal optimist Ronald Reagan saw that famously quipping, “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.”

That said, I hope Musk and Ramaswamy — and Trump — can realize the vision with which they conclude their op-ed:

 “There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.”

The DOGE Plan to Reform Government

Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decades-long executive power grab.

By: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy November. 20, 2024

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.

President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of America’s sharpest technical and legal minds. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, focusing on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. The court overturned the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024). It held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.

Critics will allege executive overreach when the president nullifies thousands of such regulations. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that Congress never authorized. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. Using executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront. However, using executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates. After those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn’t simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. However, the statute allows for “reductions in force” that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to “prescribe rules governing the competitive service.” That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has held—in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren’t constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of “rules governing the competitive service” that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing Congress-authorized expenditures. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by aiming for the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government’s procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can’t meaningfully close the federal deficit without aiming for entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud, and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end—and that DOGE aims to address by identifying and pinpointing executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.

With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

Mr. Musk is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla.
Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman, is the author, most recently, of “Truths: The Future of America First” and was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. President-elect Trump has named them co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency.