DOGE (or: the Elmo & Vivek Show)

Maphistos_Sidekick · November 21, 2024, 2:15pm

This doesn’t really fit in any other thread, I believe. WSJ published an op-ed by Elmo and Vivek on where DOGE is going. Since we probably need a place for their future remarks, etc…

WSJ gift link: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020?st=GJ5TRU&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Text (long)

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.

President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.

When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates. And after those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn’t simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the statute allows for “reductions in force” that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to “prescribe rules governing the competitive service.” That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has held—in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren’t constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of “rules governing the competitive service” that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government’s procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can’t meaningfully close the federal deficit without taking aim at entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end—and that DOGE aims to address by identifying pinpoint executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.

With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

The_President · November 21, 2024, 2:18pm

The_Polymath · November 21, 2024, 2:21pm

They are probably waiting for Schedule F to get approved before taking a cleaver to public sector positions.

Its also very likely they will target areas that ultimately benefit their own business interests directly.

Its likely going to be very chaotic.

Indy · November 21, 2024, 3:24pm

Given a chance to provide examples of ways to cut $500 billion, they list three things that add up to less than $3 billion. Still have $497 billion to go.

I’m sure there are other posters who remember David Stockman and the book “The Triumph of Politics”. Reagan’s many years of rhetoric about cutting federal spending gave Stockman the confidence to compile a book of specific cuts. All Reagan had to do was initial the “Yes” at the bottom of each page. Reagan said “No” to far too many, and IIRC Congress said no to some more.

I expect that Musk and Vivek will run out of cuts that are popular with MAGA folks somewhere around $50 billion. And, I don’t think Trump is a true believer in broad spending cuts.

Fish_Actuary · November 21, 2024, 3:25pm

Sounds like a couple of micro managers. They seem to want an Act of Congress to set the floor plan of your local social security office and purchase a new chair for one of the employees.

ArthurItas · November 21, 2024, 3:59pm

This part is the key. Assuming the SCOTUS sides with Trump and says the President is free to cancel any expenditures that Congress has authorized, it lets him get rid of SS, Medicare, or anything else he wants and ignore the law. It would be a major change in the separation of powers.

The_Polymath · November 21, 2024, 4:12pm

Maphistos_Sidekick · November 21, 2024, 4:30pm

Is Trump 2.0 going to be a kakistocracy, or a kekistocracy?

AcademicActuary · November 21, 2024, 4:34pm

Still have 1997 billion to go to meet the Musk target.

now_samantha · November 22, 2024, 1:42am

You will never guess who is going to lead the House DOGE subcommittee.

The only question I have is whether MTG is the absolute worst possible choice, or if she is the 2nd worst possible choice due to the existence of her fellow nutjob from Colorado.

Busy_Bee4422 · November 22, 2024, 9:06am

I have been going through the retrenchments Musk carried out at X and Tesla. The most recent one at Tesla this year people found out they had been cut because their access card was no longer working. There’s a lot of centralised decision making with him I wonder if he will survive in govt where there’s a consultative approach to decision making. Govt never moves fast.

If they do a lot of what they plan it will be interesting to see what happens at the next election because then they will have been the cause of the pain.

Also it would be interesting to see if he wants to make civil servants at will workers.

The_Polymath · November 22, 2024, 11:19am

Elmo is now trying to threaten the UK

Busy_Bee4422 · November 22, 2024, 11:38am

This left me in stitches

Musk has started calling himself “first buddy” in relation to the president-elect

The_President · November 22, 2024, 11:44am

I don’t think DOGE has any actual power beyond coming up with ideas. Elon and Vivek both seem like high maintenance and annoying pricks that just won’t go away. TBH, if I were Trump I also would have made up some BS high level sounding positon with no authority and let someone else answer the phone every other hour when one of them calls.

I expect they will have a round 1 of interesting/controversial decisions announced Jan 21, a second round in March, and by April they will be throwing each other under the bus where they both quietly go back to their former lives with a statement from Trump saying mission accomplished after they found 15B in savings.

Fish_Actuary · November 22, 2024, 11:46am

Next election doesn’t matter. Trump can’t run again, so he doesn’t care.

SteveGrondin · November 22, 2024, 2:22pm

I imagine that she and Elon won’t get along well.

How many employees does SpaceX have? All it does is make and launch rockets and satellites. Surely the federal government should be a little bigger and more complex. Oh, and you know what is efficient? Not having office space for employees. Shows that RTW is just a “please resign” strategy.