After it was announced that Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States, news came out by the second about new ideas and plans for the upcoming administration. One of these new ideas was that of the Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE). The President-Elect stated that this new group will be headed by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy a billionaire pharma businessman who also ran for President this year.
What exactly will this department do? Trump said that the DOGE will work to, “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” This does sound like a good idea seeing as the national debt currently sits at $36 trillion. How will the department go about this federal agency overhaul? Firstly DOGE is not technically a government department. There must be congressional approval before the creation of an official government agency. This technically means that Elon and Vivek have zero power or say about what happens with the budget, and how agencies decide to allocate their funds.
While legally speaking the two billionaires do not have any authority that does not mean that their words do not still hold weight. When Elon purchased X the company formerly known as Twitter he wasted no time in making changes where he saw fit. He took the companies work force from 7,500 down to 2,000. Musk and Ramaswamy are ready and eager to get their hands dirty. A meeting at Trump’s Mar a Lago estate in Florida with America First Policy Institute Vivek told them; “And I don't know if you've got to know Elon yet, but he doesn't bring a chisel, he brings a chainsaw, and we're going to be taking it to that bureaucracy…It's going to be a lot of fun."
The two believe that they can cut spending by $2 trillion, with a governmental budget of only $6.7 trillion. Elon has talked about how there are; “government agencies people have never heard of” and he made a promise the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. The DOGE might not have any legal power now, but two determined billionaires and The President of The United States will be sure to make their voices heard.
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