It’s not hard to lampoon DOGE, the misnamed “Department of Government Efficiency” sprung from the fevered brains of President-elect Donald Trump’s favorite tech oligarchs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
The DOGE has grand ambitions — eliminating government regulations, jobs and agencies and slashing federal spending by $2 trillion — but no powers.
It won’t be a government department or even a formal advisory committee, say Musk and Ramaswamy. Instead, it will be a “lean team of small-government crusaders” feeding the Trump White House ideas for cutting the “deep state” down to size.
They maintain, implausibly, that Trump can drastically shrink the federal government through executive orders alone. Apparently, they expect Congress and the courts to roll over and grant Trump autocratic powers to “restore” democracy.
But before Democrats dismiss the DOGE as just more MAGA trollery, it’s fair to ask — where’s their plan for making government more efficient and effective?
