New information is emerging about what could be the most significant force in Washington ever to reign in the size and scope of the federal government.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to take shape. The agency is tasked with yanking back from millions of civil servants within federal agencies government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures. These unelected and unappointed individuals often perpetuate regulations that are costly and burdensome to individuals, businesses, and industries.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed yesterday, the named agency co-heads, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, mapped out a plan to cut the federal government down to size:
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.
Let’s take each in turn:
Cut regulations. Federal agencies have operated on authority delegated to them by Congress. The outcome has been reams of rules and regulations each month that were never greenlighted by Congress, the actual law-making body.
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.
Our minds at IWF immediately go to the sundry regulations we have fought against under the current administration—from the Title IX rewrite clearing the way for men to play in women’s sports to mandates on electric household appliances to the crackdown on freelancing and independent contracting in America—that could be on the chopping block. But that may only be the start.
Cut headcounts. Time is up for many federal workers whose jobs exist to create and enact regulations. This, of course, creates a perverse incentive to keep producing new regulations to justify their jobs.
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.
Cut costs. Last, but not least, they intend to save taxpayers money. Entitlements aside, federal discretionary spending is still massive and contributes to our nation’s bleak fiscal future.
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.
DOGE is not an agency and lacks the enforcement mechanisms necessary to enact their proposed reforms. They will report them back to President Trump, who could then use his executive authority to force agency heads to make changes.
Federal workers and big government champions are ablaze with fear and trepidation. They are being egged on by fearmongering Democrats such as one of my state’s U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who said, “There’s tremendous concern in all of our districts about what looks like a full-fledged assault coming on the professional civil service.”
The assault has been on taxpayers, households, and enterprises that have had to fight back against the financial, political, or cultural agendas of government workers who don’t act as if they work for the American people.
Organizations and government contractors can expect their grants and contracts to be scrutinized and even cut as President Trump makes good on a promise to take an ax to wasteful spending and regulations. We are here for the ride.