I am quite excited about President to be Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and even more excited to see that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are in a leadership role. This will be fun. [Admission: I am more excited about the Georgia v Texas SEC Championship game this Saturday at 4:00 PM, but I am still excited.]
Before we get too DOGEy, let’s review some history on the subject of bringing efficiency to the Jabba the Hutt Federal government. Buuuuuuurp! Excuse me.
Ronald Reagan in 1982 created the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC) via Executive Order 12369 to investigate and recommend changes to improve the financial and economic efficiency of the Federal Government.
It was headed by well-known and successful businessman, J Peter Grace, who charged the commission as follows: “Be bold and work like tireless bloodhounds, don’t leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency.”
Ronald Reagan gave them a more succinct direction, “Drain the swamp.” Haha, Ronald Reagan was the first President to admonish the bureacracy to “drain the swamp,” not Donald J Trump.
Damn, I miss the Gipper.
The Grace Commission — the $78MM private funded work product of 160 CEOs/senior executives, 2000 experienced business executives, and 36 task forces — delivered its report in January 1984 declaring if its recommendations were followed there would be a $424B savings in the next 3 years and as much as $1.9T by the year 2000 — just 16 years in the future.
The Grace Commission Report was 23,000 pages in 47 detailed volumes with 2,479 specific cost cutting and revenue-enhancing recommendations which again were estimated to save $424B over the next three years.
Opponents of the Grace Commission did not embrace the report and, instead, sicced the combined efforts of the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office on the report and opined it would only produce savings of $98B rather than the $424B.
They went on to suggest that there was too much outside government influence in the report — that is the way it was designed by persons without intimate knowledge of the government.
I would say it got Deep Stated.
While the Grace Commission was privately funded and relied upon private businessmen exclusively, the Simpson – Bowles Commission was a publicly funded political commission announced by President Obama in April 2010 via Executive Order. The objective of the commission was to reduce the national deficit and was chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson and former Small Business Administration head under President Bill Clinton and Chief of Staff of the Clinton White House, Erskine Bowles. [Have you met a lot of Erskines? I have not.]
The Simpson – Bowles Commission was 18 members strong with 6 each Dems/Reps and 6 private citizens.
The commission labored mightily for seven months and produced a report on 1 December 2010. Putting the final report to a vote came up short of the mandated 14/18 majority required to put it into effect. That was the deal from the start — 14/18 approval to effectuate it.
President Obama lost interest in the program and the recommendations — many of which were separated into individual initiatives with limited success — were never acted upon in whole. I think it would be fair play to call it a head fake.
I recall the enthusiasm of the report, but it included tax increases and other unworkable and wildly unpopular recommendations and it died a quiet, lonely, solitary death.
Well, dear reader, the thing is this — DOGE isn’t the first time a President or the Congress has attempted to tame the size, scope, and cost of the Federal government.
Both the Grace Commission and the Simpson – Bowles Commission were sincere efforts at dealing with the problem. They did not succeed.
Not a snowball’s chance in Hell it’s going to work, dear reader. Sorry.
It won’t work because:
1. There is no clear objective. The Manhattan Project had a clear objective. The building of the Panama Canal had a measurable outcome.
DOGE has neither of these things. It is a feel good, think big, social media driven, sloganeering, punish the Deep State Christmas party with two free drinks and a cash bar thereafter with exorbitant prices.
I keep hearing about a savings of $2T, but then I hear that’s over 10 years. We need a definitive objective in order to create a winning plan. Like the Manhattan Project. Boom!
2. The sponsors and leaders — Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy — are not political operatives and have limited knowledge of how the government is organized, what the fiefdoms are, where the bodies are buried, and how spending happens. Smart AF, but they are trying to dismantle something that has taken two centuries to incubate.
These are busy guys who will tire quickly of fighting with the Deep State and the Deep State will wait them out tirelessly.
The Deep State will work against any DOGE initiatives. Two years in Washington is like a 4-day weekend around Thanksgiving.
First test will be the mid-term elections in 2 years. The Trump admin has less than two years until the mid-terms.
3. Much of the work will require Congressional approval and the Congress will protect its sacred cows.
There will be much pearl clutching and the Congress will act just like they did during the military base closing iniatives. They wanted to close every base not in their state.
4. The Republicans are completely unable to operate like a solid block. It is their greatest failing.
Donald Trump will have more trouble with Senate RINOs and near RINOs — McConnell, Thune, Cronyn, Murkowski, Collins, Cassidy, Tillis, Ernst, Young, Curtis — than he will with the Dems. With a 53-47 advantage, Trump can only lose 3 of these folks to advance his agenda.
These RINOs will consume tons of energy, so much that people will drop dead from exhaustion.
If you want an insight, watch how Trump’s nominations fare in the Senate. If the Senate Republicans could close ranks, they could jam those nominations through in two weeks, but they won’t.
Trump will play “big ball” and will not squander political capital on any single nominee. Watch the fight around Hegseth. He doesn’t win the fight though he’s a decent nominee.
5. A good many of the obvious initiatives — shutting down the Departments of Education, Energy, revamping the IRS, and reinvigorating the DHS to focus on deportations — will require Congressional approval and funding.
6. There are a number of agencies, boards, commissions, endowments, foundations, and projects that Trump attempted to kill during Trump 1.0 that he will likely take a second crack at:
African Development Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
Appalachian Regional Commission
Chemical Safety Board
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Corporation for National and Regional Servic
the Delta Authority
the Denali Commission
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Inter-American Foundation
US Trade and Development Association
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Legal Services Corporation
National Reinvestment Corporation
Northern Border Regional Commission
Private Investment Corporation
US Institute of Peace
US Interagency Council on Homelessness
and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Have you heard of any of these entities? I did not mention the United Nations. Do you care about any of these entities?
6. Another initiative — relocating existing agencies out into the heartland — will consume gobs of time and suffer through a real estate acquisition torture test.
When Trump 1.0 ordered the Department of Agriculture to move to Colorado, Joe Biden moved it right back. This will be a nasty fight, but nobody said it would be easy.
OK, dear reader. Here it is.
DOGE is wildly popular in much the same way hot cider warms your belly on a frigid day. It is far more complicated when you get beyond the initial sense of warmth to make this stuff happen.
I want it to work. I want Elon and Vivek to slay those dragons and feast on their hearts, but, alas, I have seen this before. There will be some wins, but reduce the size of government by $2T and balance the budget? Nope. Sorry.
Trump 2.0 will have some great triumphs: The Wall will be built, wars will end, the economy will burst into flames, interest rates will come down, inflation will come down, the price of energy will dip, but the bloody Department of Education will still be operating and the teachers’ unions will still be powerful on Election Day November 2026.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Go DOGE! Go Dawgs!
