Saint Elon
Elon Musk x Vivek Ramaswamy: Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump announced these two oddball entrepreneurs would be leading a new government agency focused entirely on making the obscenely wasteful federal bureaucracy more efficient.
“The Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before,” wrote Trump in his statement announcing the picks. “It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time.” The name itself, which can be abbreviated to DOGE, is a reference to a cryptocurrency started as a joke, which Musk aggressively promoted.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2024
“While it is not yet clear whether this entity will exist within the federal government or outside, an official government agency cannot be created without an act of Congress,” scolded NPR.
The most immediate response from politics-watchers, and from diversity hire/Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has been to skewer the picks, pointing out that there are two people helming an agency focused on streamlining. Sure, I guess. There are lots of ways this could go poorly. But why the immediate negativity?
“All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency,” wrote Musk on X. “Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.”
I’m sorry, but this is a helluvalot better of an idea than not having this department at all, and allowing federal bureaucracy to continue to balloon. The most reasonable objection so far has been from economist Russ Roberts, who points out that, though cutting spending is politically unpopular, that’s the thing that will really make a dent:
The real challenge with actually reducing the size of government is not about waste, fraud, and abuse. It’s about cutting spending which means making people unhappy. That art requires will more than skill. We’ll see. https://t.co/loMQ8dKUcu
— Russ Roberts (@EconTalker) November 13, 2024
He’s not wrong, but if Musk and Ramaswamy can meme and post their way to real power within the federal government, and use it for good not evil, saving taxpayers a little bit of money, count me a supporter.
Over the last 2 years, the Supreme Court has ruled that the administrative state is behaving in wildly unlawful ways. But slapping the bureaucracy on the wrist won’t solve the problem, the only right answer is a massive downsizing. https://t.co/EfdJzd9XuT
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 13, 2024
Secretary of ax-throwing: President-elect Donald Trump just picked Fox News’ Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary. Hegseth served in the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, but has otherwise been in the media since 2014, making him a nontraditional choice to lead the 1.3 million acti
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