Tag Archives: DOGE

Diary of the Second Addams Administration.

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            Is the bureaucracy of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States lean, agile, innovative, and filled with able idealists?  Or is it bloated, hide-bound, unwieldy, and ill-suited to the needs of the new century?  It’s a fair question to ask. 

President Donald Trump and Court Wizard Elon Musk appear to believe that it is the latter, rather than the former.  For Trump, there seems to be the added flaw in the bureaucracy’s hostility to him during his first term.  He may well want “revenge” both for their past hostility and to prevent anticipated resistance in his second term.  For his part, Musk portrayed himself as battling an “unelected bureaucracy” in order to “restore the will of the people.” 

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken on the task of reducing the federal workforce.[1]  In mid-February 2025, DOGE began firing people in big chunks and very rapidly.  In addition to the thousands of US AID workers on the chopping block, the Department of Agriculture took a heavy hit: 4,000 at the Department and a further 3,400 at its subordinate National Forest Service.  Health and Human Services lost 5,200; the Energy Department lost 2,000; and the Department of Veterans Affairs lost 1,000.[2]  Within these departments, some areas were hit particularly hard: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Nuclear Security Administration.  More lay-offs took place at the Federal Aviation Agency and the National Park Service.[3]  All this is alarming to terrifying. 

At the same time, and with murky intent, DOGE went after the vast troves of data on ordinary Americans held by the federal government in the data centers of the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury, and other agencies.[4] 

In his first term, Trump caught a lot of criticism for treating China as a real danger by plastering it with tariffs, trying to build a wall at the southern border to resist massive illegal immigration, and denigrating our NATO allies.  Then Joe Biden kept the tariffs, Russia’s attack on Ukraine revealed that the European allies have been pacifists for decades, and the failure to resist illegal immigration helped cost the Democrats the 2024 election.  Now, some Democrats are admitting that a problem exists, even while they drag on Trump’s coat-tails.  One journalist at the Washington Post accepted that problems did exist with the federal bureaucracy, but objected to indiscriminate mass firing.  On the other hand, others stuck to their last, claiming that the firings were part of “a coup.”  Competent civil servants would be driven out to make space for incompetent Trump loyalists.  That argument is hard to refute when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, and Peter Hegseth can be offered as evidence. 

Two questions arise.  One, is Trump just trying to scare the bureaucracy into compliance?  Two, how can a log-jammed legislature reform and reduce a behemoth? 

[1] “Trump makes mass layoffs across government,” The Week, 28 February 2025, p. 4. 

[2] Currently, the federal government employs about 2.1 million civilians and about 600,000 military personnel. 

[3] For context, the Department of Agriculture which includes the National Forest Service, employed 93,000 people at the end of the Biden administration, so the cuts amount to about 7.5 percent of the workforce; Health and Human Services employed about 83,000 people, so the cuts amount to about 6 percent of the workforce; The Department of Energy employed 14,000 civilians and 93,000 contractors, so the cuts amounted to 14 percent of the civilian workforce; and the Department of Veteran Affairs employed over 400,000 people, so the cuts are microscopic. 

[4] Why do they need such information?  They aren’t saying.  Why not?  They’re up to something. 

Ruthless.

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            Here’s the rot at the heart of the Republic: American voters of both parties have come to love “free stuff.”[1]  In a Democracy, politicians and political parties see the road to their own success running through giving voters what they want.  For Democrats, it means Tax-Spend-Elect; for Republicans it means Tax Cut-Spend-Elect. 

            As a result, in 2023, federal spending hit $6.75 trillion, with the federal deficit (not debt, just one year’s worth of spending above revenue) hitting $1.8 trillion.[2]  That deficit is 6.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  That isn’t a record.  It has been surpassed before.  However, those other peaks occurred during some kind of emergency: wars, recessions, etc.  Those conditions don’t apply at the moment. 

“Goo-goos” hate this trait.[3]  In the present day, all sorts of experts and commissions offer warnings of coming catastrophe and plans to avoid same.  The trouble is that this is like trying to talk a drunk into giving sobriety a spin.  It isn’t going to happen until they “hit bottom” or have a “moment of clarity.”[4]  What might bring on such a change? 

            Can you cut federal spending by shrinking the federal government?  YES!  And this idea is supported by a majority of Americans.[5]  Can you cut a LOT of federal spending simply by shrinking the number of civil service employees?  NO! 

First, the cost of salaries for all civil servants runs in the area of $200-$250 billion a year.  You will recall (from just above) that this year’s deficit is $1.8 trillion.  So, $200-$250 billion is about one-eighth of the deficit. 

Second, there’s interest on the debt at $882 billion.  An actual default, not just cuts to existing spending, may be coming.  We’re not there yet and we may be able to fend it off. 

Then there’s “discretionary” spending.  This includes the defense budget and everything else.  This comes in at around $2 trillion.  You can cut the defense budget a bunch.  You just have to believe that we are entering an era of peace and tranquility in which no other country will seek to challenge American interests. 

            Third, there’s the elephant in the room: “mandatory” spending on Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and related programs.  This amounts to $4.1 trillion, more than double “discretionary” spending.  “So taming mandatory spending means reining in benefits.”  Ouch! 

            It seems impossible for either Congress or the American people in their present state of desiring “free stuff” from the government to address this issue.  Nor will they raise taxes. 

However, there is scope for executive action.  For example, one “Goo-goo” estimate suggests that as much as $1.4 trillion could be saved by reversing Biden administration executive actions.  All we need is a ruthless lame-duck president who doesn’t care about established traditions or Beltway verities or even what he may have promised to get elected. 

[1] This has become a cultural force.  How and why this has happened is worth exploring. 

[2] Greg Ip, “Cutting Deficits Is Easy—Just Unpopular,” WSJ, 27 December 2024. 

[3] See: Goo-goos – Wikipedia 

[4] You might think that the recent unpleasantness with inflation fueled by deficits would have awakened ordinary Americans to this issue.  It doesn’t seem to have done the trick.  Or perhaps the pre-existing interest groups and political habits were just too strong for a not-yet-crystalized change of attitude.   

[5] According to an Ipsos poll, 57 percent of Americans favor downsizing the federal government.  “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 December 2024, p. 17. 

In a Bunch.

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            Elon Musk is the owner of SpaceX, Tesla, X (called Twitter), “and, oh, some other stuff.”  He is the current “world’s wealthiest person.”  When NASA and Boeing couldn’t find a way to safely retrieve two astronauts from the space station, they asked Musk.  He obliged. 

            During the first Trump administration, Musk became exercised over what he saw as Progressives’ censorship of speech that they disliked.[1]  He bought Twitter, then used it as a platform to support Trump’s run for a second term.  He also spent $190 million in support of Trump during the months before the November 2024 election.  Now he is a court “favorite.”[2] 

Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been instructed to create an extra-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).  Their mission, should they decide to accept it, is to identify “trillions [as in $2 trillion] in possible budget cuts.”  More than that, they will “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federl Agencies.”[3]

This development stirred up the hornets.  Normally, government officials and politicians spend a lifetime in public employment.  Their wealth is in the stock market and real estate investment.  If necessary, it can be placed in blind trusts.  This creates a reassuring sense of propriety among the public.  Not Elon Musk.  Like Donald Trump, he’s going to continue operating his big and important firms even while looking for places to cut spending (i.e. jobs).  “Look, and by the way,” he’s a Libertarian with a lot of government contracts.  So not fair! 

Democrats warn that Musk “could reap a windfall from deregulatory moves” if he has some kind of leverage on government agencies that regulate his business empire.  That’s a more than fair point, so it is fair to ask how much leverage he would have.  The “DOGE” would be a non-governmental advisory committee, not a real government department.[4]  The “DOGE” could recommend changes, but they would need Congressional action to take effect. 

Then there is Musk’s record on overhauling his own companies.  After he bought Twitter, he fired 80 percent of the employees.  That definitely got expenses down.  Will he recommend the same thing to the federal government?  Cutting the Departments of Education seems like a no-brainer, while foreclosing on the Housing and Urban Development would free up office space.  It would be necessary to cut 85 percent of government’s non-entitlements, non-defense, and non-interest payments to get $2 trillion out of the budget. 

If it can’t all be got that way, then sacred cows are going to “Bovine University.”[5]  Some people believe that Trump and Musk are “planning to cut Social Security and Medicare.”  Perhaps all of the chopping by Musk and Ramaswamy in the rest of the government is intended to show that the national finances cannot be repaired without “changes” (either cuts or efficiencies) to these two programs.  All this—mindlessly—leaves higher taxes off the table. 

[1] “Payback: The United States of Elon Musk,” The Week, 22 November 2024, p. 34. 

[2] See: Favourite – Wikipedia  It’s actually kind of reassuring. 

[3] “Trump’s MAGA administration takes shape,” The Week, 22 November 2024, p. 4. 

[4] Without wanting to stretch the point too far, during the Cold War the U.S. government had a group of “wise men” to consult on international crises.  See: Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (2013).  Curiously, Isaacson now is at work on a biography of Musk.  Similarly, the “9-11 Commission” made important suggestions about improving government action against foreign terrorism.  It isn’t clear how these recommendations have been followed. 

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_4h5A5z_A