DOGE has been in the news a lot recently, but many American citizens don’t know what DOGE is. (More confusion because of the term DOGECoin.) This column will attempt to make DOGE clearly understood.
On September 5, 2024, speaking at the New York Economic Club, Trump said he would tap Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if elected. The former president pledged to slash corporate tax rates for companies that manufacture domestically, aiming to drive manufacturing companies back to America. Trump had been discussing the idea of an efficiency commission with aides for weeks, according to Reuters with connections to people who were knowledgeable of those conversations. His speech on 9/5/2024, however, was the first time he publicly endorsed the idea. It was also the first time Trump said Elon Musk had agreed to head the ‘body’ (Department of Government Efficiency). Trump did not explain in detail how such a commission would operate, but DOGE would develop a plan to eliminate “fraud and improper payments” (made by our government) within six months of being formed.
On September 5th, Trump was not a sure win for the 47th U.S. Presidency, hence, you would get media hypes about Harris’s major tax-policy proposal and a pledge to support 25 million new small businesses and comments on Trump’s talk at ECNY as a low energy speech. Of course, three months later, everything is changed. The world, more genuinely and some reluctantly, welcomed Donald Trump as the U.S. 47th president. U.S. politics changed rapidly. Donald Trump had promised at least 11 things to do when he enters the White House again. Here, the author will only follow through the above discussion on government efficiency – what DOGE is and how it will work. In this humble citizen’s mind, government efficiency is a very critical issue for our nation. It is not just a philosophical question of Democrats preferring large government vs Republicans preferring small government. It concerns how our taxpayers’ money is being spent prudently or wastefully and how we can reduce our debt ($36 trillion/360 million = $100,000+ debt per American).
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created by President Trump on Jan. 20th with a mission to reduce federal spending. Fortunately, Trump has won with the MAGA mandate by both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. He is also supported by both Chambers of Congress with Republican control and more red state Governors (27 R:23B). The politicians in Washington were quick in endorsing the DOGE concept despite some critics voicing concerns about cuts that may affect essential services. On November 19th, Republican Senators Aaron Bean (FL) and Pete Session (TX) launched the ‘Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus’. In two days, Senator Jini Ernst (R-IA) was appointed to lead the Senate DOGE Caucus. On Nov. 21, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) planned to create a new Congressional subcommittee. A triangle structure of DOGE, the executive branch (U.S. DOGE Service), and the two chambers of Congress (DOGE Caucus and subcommittee) were ready to take on improving U.S. government efficiency.
Let’s follow further on the DOGE-related activities. In December, Senator Ernst introduced a bill, “Drain the SWAMP Act,” proposing to relocate 30% of Washington DC employees. December 17, the DOGE Caucus had its first meeting with 60 people, including three Democrats (Steven Horsford (NEV), Val Hoyle (ORE), and Jared Moskowitz (FL). Moskowitz had proposed to streamline the Department of Homeland Security by removing FEMA and Secret Services from its jurisdiction. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has taken the chairman position of the DOGE subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. Several Democrat representatives, including Tom Suozzi (NY) and Ro Khanna (CA), showed interest in joining the subcommittee. Supporters of DOGE are concerned with the bloated U.S. budget outspending the tax revenue and spiraling to a debt of $36 trillion. President Trump had wanted to cut programs that didn’t align with his policies by slashing federal workers and stopping funding. Now, we have seen the forces behind DOGE, but can DOGE fulfill its mission?
In Trump’s January 20th executive order, he housed DOGE within the White House by renaming the existing department in Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the U.S. Digital Service to the U.S. DOGE Service and defining a DOGE team as at least four employees (could be special government employee like Elon Musk), including one team leader, one engineer, one human resources specialist and one attorney, assigned to each agency such as the Treasury department. These teams are commissioned with a software modernization initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology systems as well as to advise the agencies on implementing the President’s DOGE Agenda. Musk, under this executive order, had begun work immediately. Musk first took on the Treasury
Department. Focusing on its payment system to identify federal contracts and spending on issues that don’t align with President Trump’s policies. Musk had said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in November that a goal was to cut $500B (7% of $67 trillion) in annual federal spending.
Musk claimed that DOGE has already saved taxpayers $1B by cutting out some crazy DEI contracts after DOGE had gained access to the payment system of the Treasury Department. Of course, Musk’s action has sparked some criticism from taxpayers, Democrats, and government watchdogs. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) wrote a letter on Feb. 3 to the new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that providing DOGE data access is “risking missteps that could result in a global financial meltdown that costs trillions of dollars and millions of jobs.” But in this author’s opinion, one can only protect the global financial system from a meltdown by fixing the annual American high-debt spending by cutting its wasteful spending and restoring a prudent budget planning process. The argument of exposing the private information of retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, and companies to a DOGE team is too risky and is simply illogical since DOGE must abide by federal laws just like Treasury Department employees.
The biggest can of worms discovered so far by DOGE is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) disbursing ‘aids’ to more than 100 countries. According to the Treasury Department (a letter to lawmakers on Feb. 4th), DOGE’s access to its payment system is limited to viewing. Hence, federal expenditure has not been affected. DOGE’s posting on social media on Feb. 5th acknowledged that SSA terminating its contract for the ‘Gender X initiative marker’ and removing all references to gender ideology from public applications saved about $1 Million. The critics worrying DOGE has access to the personal information of the 70 million social security beneficiaries are forgetting that DOGE works for the U.S. government just like any U.S. Treasury Department employee. Similarly, a group of labor unions filing suit to deny DOGE access to Labor Department data has no legal grounds since DOGE workers (including Musk) must be considered federal employees with a duty commissioned by the Presidential Executive Order to work with the labor data.
By the above descriptions, we should know that DOGE, created by President Trump, is a new mechanism to inspect government efficiency to discover government wasteful spending, immoral aid to terrorist groups, funding to media for creating fake news or conducting engineered opinion surveys, and any support to espionage work. USAID is like a cancerous organ being discovered; hopefully, by transferring the entire department under the State Department’s jurisdiction, it can remove all cancer cells. And more hopefully, many more agencies can be cleansed by DOGE.
What is DOGE? A bunch of young geniuses worked seventeen hours a day to discover the problems of the U.S. government. I think it is a God-Send idea or mechanism to make America Great Again (MAGA). That is why, the author stated in the title, what is DOGE, Read It Backwards. DOGE reads backward is eGOD, an emissary sent by God to help America. American citizens should thank God for the creation of DOGE!