Every fiscal conservative’s dream is to take a wrecking ball to the federal government’s tangled web of useless departments and self-interested bureaucrats.
Over and over throughout history, government programs have proven to be ineffective at best and, at worst, exactly counter to what their purpose is.
Welfare programs that purport to help the poor actually incentivize them to stay impoverished. Planned Parenthood funding for “health care” is used to kill babies. Regulations meant to keep companies safe instead price them out of existence. Increases in education funding result in lower rates of academic achievement. Those are just a few examples.
Unlike any other type of business, when a government program doesn’t work — or when it creates the exact opposite result of what was intended — there is no accountability. Or at least, there was no accountability, until now.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of billionaire Elon Musk and fellow businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency, there is finally a glimmer of hope that we can finally rein in our federal bureaucracy.
Do you think DOGE will succeed?
When this writer first heard of DOGE, the intense excitement was quickly tempered by a feeling of skepticism. After all, many conservatives have talked the talk when it comes to cutting down the government. It’s typically the walking-the-walk part that trips them up.
That skepticism all but faded away on Nov. 20 when Ramaswamy and Musk released an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal detailing their plan in its entirety.
Contrary to what this writer once feared, the plan is incredibly detailed and thought-out, with many of the complex legal questions over whether such cuts are possible having already been ironed out.
Made Possible by Trump’s First Term
One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of federal government reform was the Chevron doctrine. In fact, many blame Chevron for causing the unmitigated growth of the so-called “deep state.”
The Supreme Court determined in the 1984 case of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC that any legal question regarding regulation not directly addressed by Congress can be decided by federal regulators.
When it comes to laws and regulations, gray areas over interpretation often prove to be the norm, rather than the exception.
So, as a result of the 1984 ruling, rogue, unelected bureaucrats were given free rein to interpret regulatory laws as they saw fit.
That all ended though, when the Supreme Court (a conservative-majority court, thanks to Trump’s first term) overturned the doctrine of Chevron deference in June.
According to Musk and Ramaswamy, this ruling — along with one other determined by the conservative court post-Trump’s appointments — paved the way for DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts.
“In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority,” the two businessmen wrote.
“Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.”
“DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.”
The Process from Audits to Layoffs
With the legal authority of two recent Supreme Court rulings backing their play, Musk and Ramaswamy will be free to make numerous cost-cutting recommendations to the president, based on their audit of federal departments.
Among these recommendations will be a long list of regulations that DOGE has identified as unnecessary or counterproductive.
Trump, using executive action, will “immediately pause” those regulations for review and, potentially, elimination.
That way, the business sector — and the economy at large — can begin to feel the freeing effects of regulatory red tape falling by the wayside before DOGE is even done with its work.
Musk and Ramaswamy suggest that “thousands” of regulations will be eliminated during this process.
As regulations begin to disappear, so will the need for many of the departments that monitor and enforce them. DOGE will also make sure the cuts extend into those departments, cutting jobs to a bare minimum in some cases, and completely eliminating departments in others.
“The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited,” the Op-Ed noted.
In addition, federal employees not immediately laid off will be required to put in some extra work if they want to earn their taxpayer-funded income.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” the two businessmen wrote.
In addition to those sorts of cuts, DOGE will also focus its attention on the roughly $500 billion of annual federal funding not authorized by Congress, mainly because this sort of funding is the easiest to eliminate.
After all, if it didn’t need Congressional approval to start with, such approval also won’t be needed for a reversal.
This also includes funds approved by Congress, but “being used in ways that Congress never intended.”
Two examples of this given in the Op-Ed are Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants (which total around $1.5 billion) and Planned Parenthood funding.
Suffice it to say, Musk and Ramaswamy have a plan of action, and they know how to use recently passed laws to enforce that plan.
For the first time in decades, the federal government may begin to shrink, which is great news for American citizens, because a smaller federal government means a freer United States.
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