Good day all. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have come together with President Trump to look into how to cut the size of government, along with the out of control spending and regulations. This new “Department” has been named the Department of Government Efficiency, or, as a bit of humor on Musk’s part, DOGE.
Of course, the usual Deep State suspects are saying that it won’t be possible for DOGE to actually do anything. They are bringing in their “Experts” pointing out all the potential issues. The Democrat Party’s Propaganda Corps is also doing everything they can to assist, such as The Hill. Here are some of the details from, you guessed it, The Hill:
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to take the reins of the brand new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) under President-elect Trump — a panel with bold ambitions of slashing government costs and restructuring federal agencies.
However, it is likely to face numerous roadblocks in its efforts to effect change in the next administration given its seemingly advisory role, experts said.
“There’s the executive branch that might be in their way. The Congress might be in their way. The Constitution is a bit of an obstacle,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum.
“Other than that, clear sailing,” he told The Hill.
I don’t know anything about the American Action Forum other then what I found out researching things for this post. According to that tome of absolute accuracy, Wikipedia, They’re some sort of “Conservative” Think Tank. Looking at a few other details, I’d say they are actually part of the problem and not the solution. Their “Conservative” credentials are laughable. They appear, at first glance, to be part of the TransNational Globalist movement. Take of this what you will.
Trump announced Tuesday, November 12th, evening that the pair of tech entrepreneurs would jointly lead the panel, which will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government.”
It will partner with the White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “drive large scale structural reform,” with its work set to conclude by July 4, 2026, Trump said in a statement.
So that is the answer to Holtz-Eakin’s comments about DOGE not being able to do much. One of the ways to cut government is not to ask congress for any funds to pay for it.
“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time,” the president-elect said.
We’re already seeing members of Congress sending Musk and Ramaswamy lists of things that can be cut, some of them over a trillion dollars. Another target is the Pentagon. We do need to rebuild the military and that is going to include a lot of reequipping, recruiting and retraining. However, easily 30+ percent of the Defense budget is wasted. A lot of this is due to Congress and will require congressional action to correct. Another problem is how the procurement process works. That will be a multiyear project all by itself.
While DOGE is now set to become a reality, experts are skeptical about what it will actually be able to accomplish.
“It sounds to me like an outside commission that will give OMB recommendations on what they think should be done to improve government efficiency, and as such its powers are entirely advisory,” Holtz-Eakin said.
“They don’t have any authority to do anything other than say, ‘We think this will be good,’” he said. “Evidently, Mr. Musk has a lot of free time, and if he wants to waste it, that’s fine.”
What Holtz-Eakin, (Yeah, nothing like a snobby double barreled last name to say “I’m an over-educated snob), is not seeing are the other people that President Trump is putting into place. These are the men and women who will be working with DOGE to rip the guts out of their own agencies. They will have the authority to put the “Suggestions” of DOGE into place.
Government commissions such as DOGE typically have a large staff and budget and produce a formal report with recommendations for Congress, explained Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.
“But since this was not created by Congress, we don’t know what its authority is and what status it has,” West said. “I mean, any American can make suggestions on ways to cut the government budget, but the question — is anybody going to pay serious attention to this?”
Obviously, you and the other Beltway Bandits won’t be. However, you already have members of congress who talking with Musk and Ramaswamy about what can be cut or eliminated. Add to that we have a President who tried to drain the swamp last time, but now has what he needs to actually get it done.
Any major budget cuts would have to be approved by Congress, he noted. While Republicans have secured control of both chambers, they are likely to have a narrow majority in the House and lack a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
“It’s not clear that any draconian measure is going to see the light of day,” West said.
Would you care to put a small wager on this? The United States is essentially bankrupt, and it’s due to people like you who live by writing studies and reports with no intention of actually trying to get them implemented. Perhaps you should put down the cocktail and actually pay attention to the anger out here in Flyover country.
Shortly after the idea was floated earlier this year, ethics experts and former government officials raised concerns that Musk holding dual roles in his tech companies and the Trump administration could be a conflict of interest.
The issue here is that Elon Musk owns SpaceX and Tesla. They do business with the Government. I don’t think it will be an issue since it’s know that he has all this and if something comes up that might be a conflict, he’ll just hand it to Vivek. Besides, he won’t be the one ordering the cuts. That isn’t stopping all the Big Government types from whining.
“Handing the keys of government to those looking to profit from our government is extremely dangerous and a massive conflict of interest,” Zach Moller, economic program director at Third Way, a center-left think tank, said in a statement. “The idea of a Musk-run government efficiency commission is a farce and will lead to more waste, fraud, and rampant abuse of political power.”
“Americans would be right to suspect that Musk would use his newfound government powers to throw a lifeline to his teetering companies,” he added.
Last I heard, Musk’s companies were doing just fine. What’s probably got this bozo’s panties in a twist is that DOGE may recommend killing hundreds of billions in payments to all the causes this jerk supports. Now there are some things that can’t be cut, and I doubt that Musk and Ramaswamy are even thinking about them. Here are a few details from Deseret News:
But he may find cutting government spending more difficult because so much of it is locked up in promises made to creditors or to American taxpayers. In 2024, the federal government spent $1.1 trillion on interest payments on the nation’s debt, $2.9 trillion on Social Security and Medicare, and another $1.4 trillion in defense spending.
The interest on the debt will be paid, and that isn’t even on the table. The Defense Department is awash in waste. The trick is to make cuts that don’t effect readiness and actually improve our defense infrastructure. A lot of the waste is due to the incredible amount of bureaucratic nonsense that defense contractors have to go through.
The amount of paperwork for a box of screws is ridiculous. A lot of this is, sadly, caused by Congress, but they could probably find a couple of hundred billion in savings that can be put to things like replenishing our munitions, training and maintenance, not to mention pay raises for the troops.
Ramaswamy is firmly on the side of cutting spending. In recent days he has spoken about wanting to cut the federal bureaucracy, with the idea that this will be a place he can find significant savings. About 3 million Americans work for the federal government, not including military personnel or government contractors. Federal employees live in every state in the country, although the largest number live in the Washington, D.C., area, including the Virginia and Maryland cities that ring the district.
A lot of these departments and agencies are duplicative, and can be shut down. Many of these agencies are also way overstaffed, especially with managers.
Even cutting government employees will be difficult. Most are unionized, with 800,000 federal workers organized under the umbrella union the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE.
If you do layoffs, then the union can’t do much about it. There is also talk about revamping the civil service system. I suspect it will be “You can be in a union or you can have civil service protection. Not both.” They can also just not replace people who leave through normal attrition. If they do need to replace someone, they can be transferred in from another department that is overstaffed. (You can expect the Union to scream bloody murder on that!)
After the election, the AFGE released a statement that said, “During Trump’s first term, his administration tried to dismantle many of our negotiated union contracts, downsize and relocate federal agencies at great disruption and cost to taxpayers, and replace tens of thousands of non-partisan civil servants with political appointees who would blindly do his bidding.” The union said it would not “stand by and let any political leader — regardless of their political affiliation — run roughshod over the Constitution and our laws.”
And back then, you had the help of some of the Deep State RINO’s in congress. A lot of those people are gone and this time President Trump is a lot better prepared. One of the things the Union might try is a threat to go on strike. I really hope they do. It’s been a while since a union got PATCO’d and it’s long past due.
If, as I hope, Department of Government Efficiency finds trillions in spending that can be cut, I think that a lot of people are going to be surprised. I don’t know how the suggestions will be made, but I think a lot is going to end up on TwitterX. The idea will be to have voters call their alleged representatives and tell them to cut all that junk.
Now one thing DOGE might want to try is crowdsourcing the investigations. Whatever can be made publicly available, (And most of the defense budget as well as the intelligence services budgets can’t be made public), should be and people, on their own time, can start digging into everything. DOGE can use their paid employees to validate and verify any suggestions. Between those in congress who want to help and the average citizen, I won’t be surprised of they don’t find a way to cut at least half the budget and not have any effect on services. We might actually see things improve. We shall see.
Thatisall
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