DOGE ISN’T NEW

So, What’s the Fuss?

Democrats are cursing out Trump and Musk for trying to cut the size of government. But this idea is not new. In fact, DOGE is simply a renaming/replacement of the United States Digital Service (USDS), a program created by Barack Obama after the initial healthcare.gov flopped so badly. The idea was first to upgrade the federal government’s tech infrastructure, then to work with the Office of Management and Budget, to which the people reported. Automating more functions would inevitably lead to a smaller government and job loss. No one seemed to care that Obama’s actions were unconstitutional. And he did little with this agency.

An important point is that the people working on USDS did not need confirmation from the Senate, and many were temporary employees. USDS had an administrator; DOGE doesn’t really have one yet, as Musk is a temporary appointee. Trump’s plan does require an administrator at some point; Musk will not be that person. Musk is a “special government employee,” which means he isn’t full-time, nor is he a volunteer. This designation isn’t new. It was put in place in 1962 to cover people serving 130 days or less and there are more than 40,000 in the executive branch right now. Nothing new to see there. Even Biden rehired some of his appointees for a second temporary term.

Examples of these “special” people are attorneys at the DOJ who work on victim’s funds, some nuclear scientists at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and outreach specialists at the State Department. This is not some covert Republican operation, invented by President Trump.

Scaring Us About the Data

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent allowed Treasury employees to have access to the payment systems—the only real way to find out who is paid what in the Federal government. This data is critical. Almost every company uses this kind of information when they decide who to lay off. If you could lay off one person who makes only $30K/year or a similarly lax employee who makes $100K, it makes sense to dump the better paid person. These Treasury employees don’t care about anything except names, titles and salaries.

The next step—a reasonable one—asking people to submit weekly status—is pretty normal. In fact, only asking for five things you did last week is pretty lame. Many of us have always prepared status reports, if not weekly, bi-weekly, for our managers as part of our communications with them. Managers need to know what’s going on and this is an efficient way to keep track of high-priority work. It also helps them see when someone is struggling, or malingering. It’s a job. You should be able to account for your work.

A complaint was raised that a few of the DOGE workers used personal emails for government business; as we know, this is wrong and should be addressed. But let’s not forget that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did it for a long period of time, using it to speak about highly sensitive issues. There were NO consequences for her actions.

Not a Shadow Government

Alarmists claim that Trump is creating a shadow government, and yet, everything is out in the open. Each agency under him is required to form a DOGE team of existing employees to find waste and fraud. This is not only an appropriate use of resources; it is absolutely required if we aren’t going to go bust on paying interest on the federal debt. In fact, this kind of activity should have started many years ago, perhaps in Reagan’s term, where he tried to implement the many recommendations of the Citizens Against Government Waste. We’d be in far better shape now.

And speaking of shadow governments, does anyone think Joe Biden ran things during his term? There was clearly a shadow government calling the shots. We can suspect, but not know who was making the decisions, but it is clear it wasn’t Joe.

Proof That We Don’t Need Every Fed Employee

Remember Covid? Not a single federal employee lost their job during that time, but we kept being told that it could take two or more times the usual wait to get anything through the government. My husband’s passport renewal took six months. What were these well-paid, government employees doing? This kind of problem was routine during the lockdown and the only difference was that those who could work from home did so. Apparently, they weren’t working hard at all, were they?

The Need is Now

The US is broke. If we do not get on top of the waste, many institutions and people who depend on federal payments might find themselves unpaid or underfunded. It is a far greater emergency than any climate issue or other Democrat pet peeve. The amount of fraud in Medicare might be enough to save it. It’s time to look hard at the waste, fraud and indolence of federal employees. We can do this. We have to do this.