by Jeffrey A. Rendall
All I want for Christmas is a DOGE!
While this isn’t a typical holiday request – more likely people would prefer a furry, friendly kind of animal who greets them at the door to a static, cold, unfeeling stack of program cancellation papers – this year, in 2024, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is all the rage simply because the new non-government advisory board will bring something new and novel to the Washington swamp, an entity focused on cleaning up the gargantuan fiscal mess in the nation’s capital rather than bent on creating new complications.
The DOGE, if successful, will essentially be akin to asking for and receiving nothing for Christmas, yet will be like the best present America’s ever received as a gift. The political class didn’t talk much about it during the recently concluded campaign, but our elected leaders have piled up over $36 trillion in debt. And getting bigger by the minute, necessitating something drastic be done to rein-in the beast.
It goes without saying much of the total was from fraud, waste and abuse. The federal government has gotten so large and complicated that it’s simply not possible to keep track of it all. Fraudsters understand there’s plenty of room to maneuver, too, exposing the many, many departments and agencies to a relentless attack on their flanks.
Business entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have volunteered their time and expertise to DOGE, a “pet” that will require a great deal of walking to exercise it.
Where to start? That’s the operative question. In an article titled, “DOGE sets sights first on ‘low-hanging fruit’ of government waste, fraud and abuse”, Seth McLaughlin reported at The Washington Times recently:
Vivek Ramaswamy said [last week] that the Department of Government Efficiency’s initial focus will be weeding out the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government — not recommending ways to overhaul entitlement programs, the biggest drivers of federal spending and the national debt.
Still, Mr. Ramaswamy, who will co-lead DOGE with Elon Musk, said the group will seek to ensure that the entitlement programs are working as efficiently as possible in their current form.
“It’s irresponsible to begin a discussion around cutting entitlements before we’ve actually rung all of that waste and all of that excess error out of the system,” Mr. Ramaswamy said during an appearance at the Aspen Institute in Washington.
It would only make sense the new pushers of DOGE would look to cut the bloat first, though here’s speculating that the layers of fat run so deep and wide it will be nearly impossible to separate the semi-legitimate from the outright useless. Anyone who’s dealt with government on a regular basis recognizes that its virtually horizontal decision-making structure doesn’t lend itself to efficiency or getting things done quickly.
Just getting the jurisdiction correct can be half the battle. Who’s in charge here? Is this an HHS matter, or perhaps a HUD problem?
I don’t have a great deal of experience working in the federal government, but the time I spent there – in the Department of Justice’s Fraud section – over thirty years ago taught me a number of lasting lessons about how government works. Or should I say, how it doesn’t work. The stacks of case folders are practically endless and there aren’t enough cogs to run the machine. Who manages the budget? Does anyone care?
And this was just one portion of a large department. It’s unfathomable to contemplate where everything goes. No wonder the federal leviathan is so out of control.
McLaughlin additionally reported, for their part, “Mr. Ramaswamy estimated that ‘waste, fraud, abuse, error, or program integrity issues’ account for roughly half a trillion dollars in misused taxpayer dollars.”
I surmise Vivek is a pretty smart guy, but I can’t help but think he simply pulled the half-trillion figure out of the air and used it as a demarcation point. The fact is, neither Ramaswamy nor Musk nor anyone else has a grip on how much waste, fraud, abuse and error there is in government. Here’s betting they’ll devote much of their initial efforts to compiling a team and poring over reams of statistics to try and make heads or tails of it.
It will be a herculean task, but if there’s anyone human who can handle the chore, it’s Ramaswamy and Musk. I say “human” because much of the deciphering and discerning will likely be done with innovations in AI and other technologies. The political will must come from the elected office holders themselves. Much resistance will originate with public employee unions, pension chasers and career civil servants who swear they know it all.
Leaving the entitlement programs until the fraud and waste is rooted out still leaves a mountain of areas to delve into. My father’s testimonials about the atrocious excesses of Medicare are just the tip of the iceberg. Sooner or later eligibility will need to be addressed. Raising the retirement age or means-testing benefits won’t be popular either.
The federal authorities will discover that it’s much more challenging to cut jobs and red tape than it was devising the barriers in the first place. In essence, gifting efficiency and streamlining the process will bring accountability where previously there was none. But what about the lawyers? What about Congress? Will legislative staff be cut, too? Will office travel budgets be slashed? Pensions reformed? It’s hard to imagine.
The DOGE people deserve commendation for attempting to tackle the task. It’s one Christmas present Americans surely should appreciate. But the DOGE will also have a mind of its own. Here’s hoping it won’t be done away with simply for soiling the carpets.
Federal employees don’t go into work, a sickness that’s become endemic
One waste, fraud and abuse issue that’s received a lot of media attention lately is the notion that federal employees are no longer working in the office, preferring to extend their lengthy COVID-related “vacations” nearly five years after the pandemic first showed up. That’s right, America’s civil workforce is still working from the kitchen table, if at all, and the managers stare at each other unable to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, those big marble buildings in downtown DC and various places in the region sit practically empty. The only ones in these structures are the security personnel assigned to ensure peace and a safe environment for the workers, nearly all of whom are at home surrounded by their comforts unmonitored.
It’s clear one of the largest chores the president-elect and his DOGE crew has is to change the culture in Washington, turn it away from the entitled mentality that’s developed under the Democrat administrations and return to some semblance of the good ol’ Judeo-Christian work ethic. Will the new overseers have power to terminate employees for abuse of their privileges?
Beyond the basics, the federal government has simply gotten too large to manage. I don’t have the statistics, but how many departments and agencies have been added in the past couple decades? I don’t really know, either, but I can guess how many have been eliminated. Zero or close to zero.
Needless to say, there’s a ton of fraud and abuse and duplicity out there. As Ramaswamy advised, they’ll start with the waste and excess, a noble goal. Like Tom Homan indicated when asked, the deportation process starts with purging the criminals and worst offenders, and those alone will take a great deal of time and money to be rid of.
So it will be for the whole of the government.
You have to start somewhere. Even with the grandest of Christmas presents, there’s some assembly required. How about disassembly?
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Jeffrey A. Rendall is a senior contributor at Conservative HQ.
