by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
A lot of jokes about Elon Musk are making the rounds, in light of his new role in identifying government waste, fraud and abuse. One says after he puts a car into orbit, outer space will be full of germs and diseases, no longer auto-immune. Another asks what he has in common with Thomas Edison. Answer: they both got rich off Tesla.
The mission of the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) that he will co-chair with Vivek Ramaswamy, is not a joke, though. In fact, the idea of reducing wasteful spending has already achieved some level of bipartisan support in Congress. Leaders on both sides are saying no one should oppose efficiency, which is easy to say before anyone has had to vote on any specific program cut.
Every government program has a constituency and even scaling back any program will be a major political challenge for Musk and Ramaswamy, especially since DOGE is, at least so far, an advisory group without legal authority. We have seen such proposals before, many times in my own memory, and government is bigger now than ever, and is $36 trillion in debt, not counting the $75 trillion in unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. If there was ever a time for DOGE, it is now.
Thousands of Americans are taking the challenge seriously and sending innumerable suggestions about government programs they think should be cut. No one has asked for my opinion, nor is anyone likely to, but just in case…
