Hardly a day goes by without continuous updates from Washington DC on plans of and actions by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, commonly referred to as DOGE.
President Trump created DOGE with an executive order on the first day of his second term, affirming it is a key element of his second term agenda. Elon Musk is heading DOGE as a Special Government Employee.
Strong resistance to DOGE started immediately and has not slowed since then. A lawsuit challenging the legality and authority of was filed the same day DOGE was created. Since then, numerous lawsuits have been filed, including those charging DOGE’s efforts to access federal agency data violate federal privacy laws.
As of now, questions on how many and exactly how the U.S. Supreme Court will address these lawsuits is anyone’s guess.
One question not receiving much attention is the history of and possible lessons learned from past efforts on improving government efficiency and reducing government spending.
The first such effort occurred in 1947 when Congress created the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, commonly referred to as the Hoover Commission, as former President Herbert Hoover chaired it.
In 1953, Congress approved the Second Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government also commonly referred to as a Hoover Commission, as former President Hoover chaired it.
In 1982, former President Reagan created The President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, commonly referred to as the Grace Commission, as it was chaired by corporate executive J. Peter Grace, who was an industrialist and CEO of W.R. Grace and Company, a diversified chemical company.
In 1993, former President Clinton launched the National Performance Review (NPR), also commonly referred to as Reinventing Government. Leading it was former Vice President Gore.
Former President Obama established three groups. They were the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform whose co-chairs were former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, the Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force, chaired by former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin, former director of the Office of management and Budget and former Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair. The third group, Campaign to Cut Waste, was a large group of Obama administration officials with the stated goal of “hunting down and eliminating misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the Federal Government.”
In a recent article on President Trump’s DOGE initiative, John Kamensky, Emeritus Senior Fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of Government, and Mark Abramson, President at Leadership Inc. suggest the following key elements are important for success in federal government spending change efforts:
“Making government work better can gain significant support in Congress as was seen in the first Hoover Commission and the Reinventing Government initiatives. When recommendations need congressional approval, being fast can make a difference. When a reform initiative spans the life of more than one Congress – and there is a chance that either house may flip to the opposing party – then bolder recommendations can be jeopardized. Moving fast also allows more time to focus on implementation. This was a strength of the Reinventing Government initiative.
Reform efforts that try to make government cheaper, such as by eliminating programs or reducing headcount, necessarily involve Congress. Such an emphasis was a stumbling block for the Second Hoover Commission and the Grace Commission. Including career civil servants in the work of a reform initiative can increase the success of the “improving program” initiatives since they can gain “buy-in” from the civil service. In contrast, the ‘eliminating programs’ approach has been predominately staffed by individuals outside of government, and civil service ‘buy-in’ was not sought.”
Kamensky and Mark Abramson conclude with writing, “At the time of this writing, DOGE has not been operating like any of these past reform efforts, where the need for change is assessed, and recommendations are made for the President and Congress to act upon.”
I suggest there is a crucial omission from their observations on the underlying rationale on President Trump’s decisions to move quickly and aggressively on the DOGE agenda. Those decisions include bypassing Congress for input on and approval of DOGE goals and operations.
I suggest Trump’s thinking reflects a sense of urgency on addressing the steadily increasing national debt. In 2000, that debt was $5.659 trillion, approximately fifty-six percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By 2010, the national was $13.562 trillion, approximately ninety-three per cent of GDP. It is projected to reach $37 trillion in June of this year.
Despite current and yet to be filed court challenges to DOGE, it remains to be seen what the final decisions will be on those court challenges, especially any rulings handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
I suggest any mandates on congressional involvement on DOGE plans and actions may not be relevant going forward, even if the courts rule that a president cannot implement DOGE activities without some levels of congressional input and/or approval.
The current Republican majorities in Congress have been relatively uninvolved in any efforts to slow down or stop DOGE plans and actions.
If court rulings do limit the scope and authority of DOGE, I suggest Congressional Republicans will move to approve whatever is deemed legally necessary to allow DOGE plans and actions to continue.
As always, that could change based on the results of the 2026 midterm election cycle, which is already underway.
I further suggest, if Republicans retain control of Congress in the 2026 mid-term elections, they will be even more inclined to approve future DOGE plans and actions at least through the end of Trump’s second term.
If the Democrats regain control of the House, the Senate or both, DOGE will be no more than a footnote in the history of Trump’s second term.
David Reel is a public affairs and public communications consultant in Easton.
david h wing says
What is DOGE?
James Nick says
Mr Reel makes note that the national debt has grown to 93%. He attempts to convince the willfully naive that massive cuts to the government workforce is the key to reigning in the debt and deficit. He urges trump to get more wood chippers so DOGE can move even faster to reduce government spending before this country wakes up and comes to its senses.
At the same time Republicans want to cut taxes up to $5 trillion over 10 years mainly by extending trump’s first-term tax cuts. And this is on top of the more than $20 trillion of new debt already projected. They also want $340 billion in increased spending for defense border security and deportation efforts. trump also talks of returning more savings to people with tax rebates and balancing the budget while never touching Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – a mathematical impossibility.
Republicans have long argued tax cuts juice the economy with growth, creating more taxable income and wealth. But this experiment has been run over and over again with the same result. Since trump’s 2017 tax cus, for example, deficits are up 248%. Any growth that may have been achieved was swamped by spending. Implementing tax cuts has become the operational definition of political insanity.
Mr Reel gives voice to the kind of fiscal magical thinking that has prevailed in conservative circles for decades: “We can tax-cut and spend our way out of this”. But it never works. Higher deficits from tax cuts and increased spending on top of the tariff-induced inflation coming to your wallet soon will put even more upward pressure on prices and interest rates than there already is. In fact, trump has more-or-less promised that Americans will suffer “some pain” but at least this time it will be good, honest Republican inflation (https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-americans-could-feel-pain-trade-war-with-mexico-canada-china-2025-02-02/).
Make no mistake. Cutting government spending through indiscriminate reductions in force is NOT what’s going on. It’s a pretext – a cover story to dress it up and make it seem more palatable. In reality, DOGE is Project 2025 in action. trump is simply and systematically checking all the checkboxes. Project 2025 called for mass deportations, eliminating the Department of Education, and slashing climate protection. Check! It also called for eliminating job protections for thousands of government employees and replacing them with political appointees. It’s purely ideological. Having conquered the Judicial and Legislative branches of government, it is a purge of the woke, the elite, the experts, the institutionalists, the democrats – anyone and everyone that could undermine a permanent conservative oligarchy of overlords in the Executive branch.