President-elect Donald Trump
announced Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswami were chosen to lead a new federal agency, the Department of Government Efficiency.
The pair, tasked with dismantling the federal bureaucracy, cutting unnecessary regulation, optimizing government spending, and restructuring government agencies, provided some clarity.
Editorial Wednesday about how DOGE operates and its future strategy.
They opened by pointing out that the country is effectively run by unelected bureaucrats with little accountability.
Most legal edicts are not laws enacted by Congress, but rather “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected officials, tens of thousands of which are promulgated each year. Most government executive decisions and discretionary spending are not made even by the democratically elected president or his political appointees, and government agencies consider themselves immune to firing thanks to civil service protections. is carried out by millions of non-appointed and non-elected public servants within the United States.
Understanding that this dysfunctional situation is “anti-democratic and contrary to the vision of our founders,” the two emphasized the need to correct bureaucratic bloat and how DOGE I showed you how useful it is.
Musk and Ramaswamy now appear to be helping the Trump transition team form a group of “small government crusaders.”
White House Office of Management and Budgetoversees the implementation of the President's vision across the executive branch.
The two men bill themselves as “external volunteers, not federal employees or employees,” and will advise the organization as it seeks deregulation, mass layoffs and cost-cutting.
deregulation
Rather than relying on new or existing legislation to effect change, DOGE will rely heavily on executive action based on the Constitution and two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
State of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Roper Bright v. Raimondo.
“The Constitution does not allow government agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations in place of laws passed by the people's representatives.”
in west Virginia v. EPAIn a June 2022 decision, the high court considered whether a federal agency, in this case the EPA, can adopt a resulting regulatory scheme without first being granted authority by Congress.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in the court's opinion that the decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions at a level that would force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate energy was “a very serious and consequential decision. ”. [that it] It is left to Congress itself, or to a body acting pursuant to a clear mandate from its representative body. ”
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion: “The Constitution does not permit government agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations in place of laws passed by the people's representatives. It is the proper state of the legislature to do so.” These are rules for governing society. ”
in
Roper Bright v. Raimondoa judgment was issued in June 2024, but the High Court overturned this judgment. chevron doctrine Previously, courts were supposed to defer to regulators' interpretations of federal law when the law in question was vague or silent on the issue.
The Supreme Court held that courts must exercise independent judgment in determining whether a government agency acted within its statutory authority and will not defer to the agency's interpretation of the law simply because the law is ambiguous. The court ruled that it could not be done.
Musk and Ramaswamy said the two cases “suggest that the current amount of federal regulation exceeds the authority Congress has under the law.”
This can be a daunting endeavor, given that there are hundreds of federal agencies, each of which has developed a plethora of rules and regulations in recent years.
Federal Register, daily archive of rules and regulations,
reportedly The book ended in 2023 with over 90,000 pages, and America ended up adding 3,018 federal regulations to the book. This year, federal agencies passed 66 major rules in April alone, 34 of them by the George Washington University Center for Regulatory Studies. shown It was economically important.
“Identifies the minimum number of employees necessary for the agency to perform its constitutionally permissible functions.”
In their editorial, they suggested that legal experts at federal agencies will use advanced technology to more quickly apply the Supreme Court's two decisions to such federal regulations. Although he did not specify which technology, there is no doubt that generative artificial intelligence systems will help.
DOGE plans to submit its findings to President Trump on the regulations that are likely to be invalidated by the two rulings. “This will never free individuals or businesses from illegal regulations'' passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy. ”
Preempting accusations of executive overreach, the pair said, “Using executive orders to replace legislation by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront; “Using executive orders to rescind circumvented regulations is legal and necessary.” This is to comply with the recent order of the Supreme Court. ”
Mass layoffs by the federal government
In addition to eliminating extraneous bureaucratic bureaucracy, the duo plans to hand out pink slips en masse to redundant bureaucrats. Ultimately, Musk and Ramaswamy believe that fewer rules on the books will likely require fewer enforcement officers.
DOGE will work with agency-embedded appointees to identify the minimum number of employees necessary for agencies to perform their constitutionally permissible and legally mandated functions. The number of federal employees to be reduced would need to be at least proportional to the number of federal regulations that would be repealed. Not only would fewer officials be needed to enforce fewer regulations, but agencies would also create fewer regulations if their scope of authority was appropriately limited.
Perhaps anticipating accusations of callousness, the pair suggested that a group of bureaucrats forced out of federal agencies would be given assistance transitioning to the private sector. Those unwilling or unable to hack it in the real competitive world may instead be offered early retirement incentives or severance pay for voluntary retirement.
“If I had to commute, I would quit.”
The pair also suggested how Trump could get around issues that stand in the way of statutory civil servant protections and President Joe Biden's rules to keep bureaucrats accountable. The president clearly has the potential to carry out the death penalty.”reduction in military strength“Do not target specific employees”prescribe the rules governing competitive services;thereby “reducing”[ing] From mass layoffs to the relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area, administrative overcrowding is occurring. ”
Among the rules that could prompt bureaucrats to take drastic action would be a requirement to work five days a week.
“If federal employees don't want to go to court, American taxpayers shouldn't be paying them to stay home, which is a privilege during the coronavirus era,” they wrote.
Several federal officials who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity acknowledged that they would not be able to complete their return to work.
“The stress will be tremendous,” said one bureaucrat. “I'm at the point where if I had to commute, I would quit. I'd like to take this as a sign to move on and start a new chapter in my life.”
cost reduction
They and Mr. Trump believe that the Foreclosure Control Act of 1974, which prohibits the president from making spending cuts approved by Congress, cannot withstand a Supreme Court challenge, but that DOGE would instead “make more than $500 billion a year.'' “Aiming at federal spending.” From $535 million annually to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion in grants to international organizations, to nearly $300 million in grants to progressive organizations such as: It is used in a way that it is not intended to be used. Planned Parenting. ”
While DOGE's report on X has emphasized the potential for cuts and savings, a July Congressional Budget Office report emphasized: noticed The $516 billion in 2024 spending included 491 lapsed spending authorizations. Of this, $320 billion was provided for activities whose mandates expired more than a decade ago.
In addition to defunding Planned Parenthood and other organizations as much as possible and ensuring that taxpayer money is not wasted on partisan pet projects that lack Congressional reauthorization, the DOGE duo They are reconsidering their procurement processes and moving forward with large-scale projects. Audit during temporary payment suspension.
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