Imagining a World Without DOGE

Trump and Musk poisoned the well for meaningful fiscal reform for twenty years. But what if they didn't?

Now that the Department of Government Efficiency no longer exists, let us go back to what I said in May:

The Trump White House and Elon Musk screwed the pooch on DOGE. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for meaningful cuts to federal spending was completely wasted due to ego, incompetence, and forgetting to adhere to the Constitution and laws of our country. The two men have poisoned the well for meaningful fiscal reform for twenty years, all in the name of revenge politics. And they accomplished absolutely nothing in the process.

These statements are truer now than they are today. Today, we know that Elon Musk gutted key government agencies without Constitutional oversight, and used his status as a “Special Government Employee” to dismantle aspects of government oversight that were inconvenient to him. We also know that the Trump family has increased their net worth by billions of dollars at a time the US deficit is increasing at a nearly unprecedented of $1 trillion every two months.

So how would America be different if DOGE never happened