Bring on the DOGE

By Bernard Rowan

The DOGE stands for Donald Trump’s effort to save government money and return it to taxpayers. This Department of Government Efficiency, or the DOGE, isn’t a department of government. It’s a coterie of Elon Musk and his minions. They’re Trump’s favorite minions of the moment. MOMs as it were. In practice, Musk’s role is to slash jobs and try to shutter some parts of the government, with the future of savings in doubt. He’s now bureaucratizing himself with all employees ponying up details of their worth on the job. Who’ll read them? There will be lawsuits since his means of reducing waste and inefficiency are inefficient and likely illegal in some instances. In the background, some federal agencies, like the Social Security Administration, announce that a department is closing for savings and efficiency.

Trump proposes to return the savings in inefficiency to the American people as direct payments. The idea of paying Americans off for their support in this whirlwind of alleged government draining of the proverbial swamp is dubious.

There are nearly 4.5 million workers in the U.S. government, and about half of those are in the military. Walmart has 1.6 million workers. All that national government work for less than three times the number of people working at Walmart. It’s a bargain.

Elon Musk is a billionaire and a very smart and talented person. However, his view of government as a business has its positives and negatives. Few want a government that is a business, since profit is not what makes for good government in many cases. Fundamental investments, mission-driven priorities and long-term gains aren’t the stuff of the Wall Street divas and Fortune 500s or their fans.

Saving money is a good idea, and it is in its way a very bipartisan notion. As Trump’s counter-critics note, Bill Clinton made similar strides in his presidency, and as the Wiki page on DOGE helpfully notes, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan (who incidentally is said to have coined the phrase “drain the swamp”) and Barack Obama himself all had similar efforts — if the purpose is to save money and avoid unnecessary bureaucratic spending.

The need to avoid waste and reduce inefficiencies is a valid and valuable effort of keepers of the public purse. It also comports with the predilections of business types, who often count their profits by how much they can save on unnecessary expenses, while also deducting expenses to the penny from their tax bills.

Trump should be careful. Just as COVID stimulus checks fueled inflation in his first term, paybacks of these cuts will do likewise for Americans today. Many voted for him because of promises to make their pocketbooks and wallets better off. However, sending more stimulus checks in the form of DOGE savings back to taxpayers is another form of government stimulus. Trump may think he’s a good economist, but that’s not the case.

If Trump tires of Musk’s work, or if it backfires, Musk will lose the access that his pheromonic contributions purchased. After all, money buys access, and Musk was the top donor to Trump’s recent campaign.

Half of America likes Trump, and the other half doesn’t. He controls both houses of Congress, though not with much voting comfort to spare overall. The Republican Party is not on the same page, but Trump is its core at present. One should expect more from a person in Trump’s shoes. He should parlay his concerns into government reform of contracting and spending practices. He could use the dividends to shore up Social Security, a fund that will dry up before too long. He might fund a national infrastructure bill, another unfulfilled promise of his first term that is needed now more than ever.

The poison of DOGE is that it isn’t meant to get rid of government. I think we shall see the use of the savings to support Trump’s border police and whatever else they might be. I think Trump doesn’t want to reduce the size of government that much. He wants to make the government run on his self-image and in strict alignment with his orders and commands.

Yes, Trump was elected to change America, and we are in the midst, though early on, of his efforts to do so. Every president has the mandate to pursue his (not her yet) agenda. Trump is doing that, and quite frankly is off to a fair start.

An autocrat who is a dodger ultimately is his own worst enemy. Trump will weaken America at home and abroad, and the essence of this DOGE is more grave theater than gravitas. He proposes to fob off the country with a little to more-than-little check. Really? One-offs are not good government. But then again, Trump, the Doge of the USA, is not interested in good government.

Bernard Rowan ([email protected]) is associate provost for contract administration and academic services and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and a former visiting professor at Hanyang University.