With This Congress, Was DOGE a Waste of Time?
After saving online free speech and funding Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Elon Musk was lauded as the man who would save the American people from the wasteful corruption of our bloated federal government. Under his leadership, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was going to expose the deepest and darkest secrets of an utterly inefficient government apparatus and provide both the executive and legislative branches with clear guidance on areas of financial mismanagement, abuse and fraud.
But that was Jan. 20, 2025 — just over four months ago. Now, Elon Musk — perhaps the most prominent entrepreneur of the modern age, for whom no challenge is too great — has announced that he's going to cut back on political spending, that he's "done enough" and will be stepping back from DOGE.
And why? Well, because after uncovering billions of dollars of inefficient waste — albeit far from the trillions promised by the ever-hyperbolic Trump administration — Congress has essentially placed DOGE's recommendations in a trashcan marked "storage."
"Elon Musk took massive incoming — including attacks on his companies as well as personal smears — to lead the effort on DOGE. He became public enemy #1 of legacy media around the world," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — one of the few remaining grownups in American politics these days — said on X. "To see Republicans in Congress cast aside any meaningful spending reductions (and, in fact, fully fund things like USAID) is demoralizing and represents a betrayal of the voters who elected them."
Absolutely. So, what's going on here? After all, what's the point in going through all the effort of hiring the consultants to search through your books if you're not going to bother to follow any of their advice?
Well, perhaps it's because efficiency and reduced spending was never the goal here?
Why would the Trump administration and the Republican Congress be blowing out government spending, leveraging the same-old Washington trick of initiating spending today and promising hypothetical cuts far enough in the future to guarantee that they will never happen? Why would they be digging their heels in over doomed entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — that are slowly dragging us toward a cliff? Why would we be building the supposedly corrupt and broken FBI a brand-new shiny headquarters?!
In the end, the goal of DOGE was — like much of the Trump administration's media focus — nothing more than a marketing campaign. Yes, it resulted in initial cuts to spending programs under executive control, but for spending controlled by Congress, it's game over. Not to matter! By justifiably exposing the Biden administration's stunning disregard for the American taxpayer, the Trump administration is able to play a constant game of whataboutism by pointing to the madness of — for example — $8 million for LGBTQ+ initiatives in Lesotho, that "nobody has ever heard of." This keeps Biden in the conversation and allows them to continue living in campaign mode, meaning that they are able to avoid accountability for decisions made today by presenting Biden as the immovable greater of two evils.
But may I remind the American people that Joe Biden is no longer president — thank God. No, Donald Trump is president of the United States, and the Republicans — for now — control both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Election season is over, and the American people demanded more than sound bites on spending during the last administration. They want the efficiency they were promised. Time for Congress to deliver.