The DOGE Cheat Sheet

Is Government Efficiency an Oxymoron

Andy Kessler, in the WSJ, questions whether Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be able to take a hacksaw to government overgrowth. In other words, is a Department of Government efficiency a pipe dream?

Musk and Ramaswamy are looking to cut $2 trillion by eliminating or squeezing departments, commissions, and agencies: Slightly ambitious and quite the stretch. But go for it, applauds Andy Kessler in the WSJ.

Enough with the Wok Virus 

Dodge is a Muskian name based on Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that Mr. Musk hyped in May 2021.

The federal government has around three million civilian employees, with an average salary of $106,000. Dr. Anthony Fauci made $481,000 in 2022. There’s room to cut. Mr. Trump has said he may close the Education Department and move its function to the states. Good start.

Federal Trade Commission: Toss. The current FTC under Lina Khan has a worse record than the Chicago White Sox. The FTC already splits antitrust cases with the Justice Department, so move a few pro-consumer-competition lawyers there and then shutter.

Federal Communications Commission: Toss. The FCC caused the dot-com boom and bust. Net neutrality killed broadband in Europe yet was still reinstated here under the Biden administration. Spectrum auctions are why we overpay for cell service. Three economists in a back room can create and maintain a set of rules to keep access competitive.

Securities and Exchange Commission: Toss. The SEC missed the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, allowed crypto and SPAC pump-and-dumps, and missed the FTX fiasco. Free trading requires setting and enforcing simple rules.

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Toss. This will finally end corn subsidies for Iowa. We can move food-stamp administrators and funding to states.

Federal Reserve: Shrink. The central bank missed Bidenflation. Dart throwers could do better than its 400 Ph.D.’s and cut its funding.

Defense Department: Squeeze. Reallocate spending to drones, ships, and defense systems such as Patriot missiles. Antimissile defenses can be a giant export business.

U.S. Postal Service: Toss. End its monopoly on first- and third-class mail. Go private. Amazon trucks already come to most neighborhoods every day.

Mr Kessler’s ideas are not limited to the above. 

Others to toss: Fracking happened despite the Energy Department. Do we need it? Trump tariffs will curtail imports, so we can shrink the Export-Import Bank by at least half. Close the Small Business Administration. And what does the Commerce Department even do?

Labor Department—union puppets. Transportation Department—its mileage and electric-vehicle mandates killed Detroit, although Mr. Musk may want to run the department himself. Environmental Protection Agency—reduce its carbon footprint. Housing and Urban Development—it isn’t the ’70s anymore. Interior—outsource parks to Disney. Veterans Affairs—can’t they use the same hospitals as the rest of us, no matter who pays?

A Ruthless Elon Musk

Musk often thinks he can do the job better himself, but it won’t be easy.

Even Mr. Musk admitted in October to the existence of strong antibodies against change: “There will be immense opposition, obviously, to making government more efficient from entrenched interests that currently benefit from sucking away vast amounts of taxpayer money.”

Mr. Kessler is correct: Except for cause. Federal employees can’t be fired.

But DOGE could urge Congress to eliminate departments and then offer to relocate people who won’t leave their jobs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggests Guam, at least for the Food and Drug Administration’s nutritional scientists. Most will quit.

More than Shrinking the Bureaucracy. DOGE can do more, assures Mr. Kessler.

Digitize the entire government so every citizen can interact with the government via smartphone. America could hire the entire country of Estonia to implement it.

DOGE, a Pipedream?

To make real spending cuts, Congress needs to reconfigure Social Security and Medicare, cut back payments to states and shrink foreign aid. But even if Mr. Musk’s DOGE simply trims some bloat and saves a few hundred billion, it will be worth it.