Instead of saving trillions, Trump has asked Congress to codify $9.4 billion in cuts. That’s right. $9.4 billion, which to the federal government is like $9.40 to me.
DOGE promised to cut a bloated federal bureaucracy, a worthy endeavor that lawmakers haven’t taken seriously. But from the start, DOGE, led by an unelected official with no government experience, embarked on chaos. It threatened to fire employees who didn’t adhere to its demands, unsuccessfully tried to take over the U.S. Institute for Peace, and altered its website to remove fictitious cost savings.
In other words, DOGE was a fantasy that showed running a business is far different from running a government. (Trump is finding that out, too. End the Russia/Ukraine war in 24 hours? Right).
Musk has “stepped back” from his DOGE work while criticizing Trump’s signature, “Big, Beautiful (Budget) Bill” that doesn’t cut spending, but adds trillions to the deficit over the next decade.
After a few months of DOGE and its antics, the lessons should be:
- You can’t take a sledgehammer to government bureaucracy and expect it to change overnight. It’s too big and complicated, and making cuts for cuts sake can harm everything from national security to the education of our children.
- Businessmen aren’t very good at running governments. Musk may have thought that he could snap his fingers and savings would appears, as he did when he cut 6,000 jobs after he purchased X, formerly Twitter, and laid off staff at Tesla and Space X. It’s stunning no one thought to explain that he could make that decision with no buy-in since he owned the companies. In the case of DOGE, Musk doesn’t own the United States.
- You must always anticipate lawsuits, which happen when interest groups (on either side) don’t agree with government actions and threaten to stop initiatives. Legal action may have been mitigated if DOGE had a plan beyond mayhem. For example, if the government wants to buy out employees as a cost-saving measure, it should be able to, provided it has a well-thought-out and easy-to-explain policy. Instead, many employees met DOGE’s clumsy announcement with suspicion since they were caught off guard and told to make a life-altering decision quickly.
- You can count on lawmakers looking out for their own. Rep. Mike Turner, in essence, said, “Nope,” when Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth called for 8% annual cuts to the defense budget. Turner knows reductions to Wright-Patt weaken national defense and Ohio’s economy, so there’s no chance cost-cutting goes through without a fight. Other Republican lawmakers have also fought against cuts that harm their constituents.
So, now what?
There needs to be a thoughtful effort to reduce a bloated federal bureaucracy, stop out-of-control spending, and address Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. People don’t want to hear this, but the country can’t afford the social safety net as currently constructed, and needed changes will likely reduce or delay benefits. What does that process look like? How do we get there?
Congress, not the White House, should appoint a special committee and give it time — six months? 12? — to develop a deficit reduction plan that can be implemented as quickly as possible.
There are lots of smart people who can analyze expenditures and figure out where to cut and modify without simply reacting and declaring victory. That’s not an effective plan.
Oh. Don’t let unelected businessmen with no government experience lead the committee. That would lead to DOGE2 and that wouldn’t be good for the country.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday.