politics

Observation by Qin Peng: How does Musk’s DOGE work? Very challenging.

Paul WilkinsNovember 20, 202427 mins

【Epoch Times November 20, 2024】Hello, viewers, welcome to “Qin Beic Observation”.

Today’s focus: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by the world’s richest man, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, under the Trump administration, has attracted global attention. Everyone acknowledges the inefficiency of the US government and the need for reform. However, can he really accomplish this daunting task?

Standing in front of Trump and Musk are two “tigers”, how will they overcome them? Is the goal of cutting $2 trillion from the budget achievable, or is it just a clever political move by Trump?

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The abbreviation of the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, is quite interesting. It is similar to Musk’s favorite meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, so it’s obvious that Musk chose this name as a tribute to Dogecoin. Everyone is aware of this, and Dogecoin has surged as a result.

However, the Department of Government Efficiency is not actually a government agency; it is more like an external brain working outside the US government, providing recommendations for reforming federal agencies to the White House. This arrangement is very helpful to both Musk and Vivek, allowing them to continue working in the private sector without resigning or needing Senate approval to hold office.

DOGE has grand goals. In nominating Musk and Vivek to lead the department, Trump stated that they will “abolish bureaucratic agencies, cut excessive regulations, reduce wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies – crucial to the ‘Save America’ movement.” “It could be our era’s ‘Manhattan Project.'”

Its specific goals include ending its mission by July 4, 2026, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence. At that time, a smaller, more efficient government will be their gift to America.

Almost everyone agrees that the US government is inefficient, and the country’s staggering debt of over $35 trillion has become a ticking time bomb that needs reform. However, it’s easier said than done.

In US history, both Republican President Reagan and Democratic President Clinton have tried similar initiatives, achieving impressive results, but ultimately falling short of their goals.

Because, on the road to government reform, there are two major obstacles, one is Congress, and the other is the government.

In 1982, President Reagan directed chemical chief Grace to establish a private team called the “hunting dog” team to delve into government inefficiencies. Two years later, the team of about 160 corporate executives (later known as the Grace Commission) issued over 2,000 recommendations, claiming they could save over $424 billion within three years.

However, most of the proposals required congressional action, and at that time Reagan did not control Congress, so most plans were not implemented.

Nevertheless, the plan had some positive impact. Last year, the non-profit organization “Citizens Against Government Waste,” responsible for the Grace Commission’s mission, stated that by implementing the Commission’s suggestions and its own, the US government has cumulatively reduced spending by $2.4 trillion since the 1980s.

Clinton’s practice was a mixed bag. He successfully reduced government deficits, achieving rare federal budget surpluses, and cut over 300,000 federal employees, although some of the layoffs were groundwork laid during Reagan’s tenure. However, only about a quarter of the legislative action proposals Clinton needed were approved by Congress. In 1999, the Clinton administration claimed to have saved $137 billion. However, the Government Accountability Office stated that this figure included some double counting and was closer to $25 billion.

For Trump, there is some good news, as he now controls both houses of Congress. Budget cuts only require a simple majority in both houses to pass. This gives Trump and Musk a significant advantage, allowing them to accomplish tasks that Reagan and Clinton were unable to complete.

However, there are still major obstacles ahead. For example, Trump plans to abolish the Department of Education, but dismantling the agency requires the approval of 60 senators. In the deeply divided two-party system in the US, this is a significant challenge. If the Department of Education remains intact, the Trump administration will have to implement various measures to improve education, such as eliminating critical race theory and ending the “gender madness” in public schools.

Furthermore, even with Republican control in the Senate, there may still be resistance. For example, hawks in both parties may oppose cutting Pentagon spending, which is one of the largest parts of the federal budget.

Additionally, the US federal government, unlike Musk’s startups, is vast, with offices not only in Washington, D.C., but also nationwide. Taxpayers expect to have face-to-face communication with officials from the Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration. Importantly, federal employees belong to a union that could use relevant laws to push back.

Nevertheless, Trump and Musk are forging ahead, coming up with some solutions.

One of them is Musk’s announcement on X: “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be made public online to maximize transparency. “Any time the public thinks we’ve cut something important or haven’t cut the waste, please let us know! We will also create a ranking of the dumbest tax expenditures. This will be both tragic and amusing.”

This participatory and supervisory approach not only harnesses public wisdom to ensure more executable solutions but also, importantly, creates strong public pressure on Congress and federal government agencies, significantly increasing the likelihood of congressional approval and subsequent implementation.

Musk’s approach is indeed clever. Otherwise, offending millions of US government employees and interest groups over large-scale institutional reform would be very risky.

Moreover, Trump plans to challenge a key provision of the 1974 law known as the “Impoundment Control Act,” which requires the president to spend the appropriations unless Congress decides to abolish the act. However, Trump stated last year: “Using impoundment will provide us with an important way to eradicate the deep state, drain the swamp, and starve war profiteers.” “Through impoundment, we can simply cut off the money.”

A video released on November 18 by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shocked many Americans and revealed the wasteful spending in the federal government. The video highlighted where your tax money goes:

– $100,000 for studying if tequila or gin makes piranhas more aggressive
– Nearly $1 million for studying if cocaine makes Japanese quails more sexually promiscuous
– $750,000 for researching if the moon landing was “a giant leap for mankind”

There are many other crazy projects, including:

1. Paying the deceased. In 2023, the federal government issued $1.3 billion in checks to deceased individuals from the IRS, Medicare, and various veteran organizations.

2. Dubious scientific research. According to the Washington Times, in 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $549,000 to a Russian lab that conducted experiments on cats, including removing parts of their brains to see if they could still walk on treadmills. A lab in Florida also received $477,000 to fund research on “transgendering” monkeys (injecting male monkeys with female hormones).

3. Vacant federal buildings. According to a report from the Public Building Reform Committee in March of this year, federal agencies on average use only 12% of their headquarters space. The General Services Administration spends $2 billion annually to maintain government offices and $5 billion on leasing space.

4. Gender identity and DEI run wild. Trump plans to clean up the Department of Defense, including firing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has been pushing DEI initiatives. The Department of Health and Human Services also spent $38.7 million to hire 294 employees to oversee DEI initiatives.

5. Funding adversaries. From 2017 to 2022, the State Department donated nearly $58.7 million to the CCP. Nearly $100,000 went towards promoting “gender equality” through the use of comic strips in The New Yorker magazine.

6. What’s even more terrifying is that the Government Accountability Office estimates that federal agencies lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually due to fraud.

So, how to cut this spending? One method is to improve efficiency by reducing staff. Recently, in an interview with host Tucker Carlson, Musk mentioned plans to streamline the current 428 federal agencies down to 99, preparing for a large-scale reduction of up to 77% of the workforce.

His plan includes three core strategies. First, completely eliminate government bureaucracy by abolishing redundant departments and personnel to increase the efficiency of existing staff. Second, significantly reduce excessive regulation and wasteful spending, including reviewing projects such as the monkey transgender research at the Department of Agriculture. The third is to reorganize federal agencies, consolidating overlapping departments to lighten the taxpayer burden.

Musk has the courage to implement his plan. In 2022, after acquiring X (then called Twitter), he laid off 80% of the workforce, not only saving the company from a $3 billion funding gap but also leading to further growth.

However, a few days ago, American expert Fukuyama wrote an open letter to Musk, pouring cold water on his plans and warning that wholesale layoffs in federal agencies could backfire.

Fukuyama mainly cited seven reasons: 1. Federal employees have ironclad legal protections. 2. The current number of employees is the same as in 1969, not a large number. 3. There is a severe shortage of key positions. 4. Our low work efficiency is due to too much control by Congress and the federal government. 5. Bureaucrats shouldn’t be subject to democratic processes; getting things done is what matters. 6. The federal government has an aging workforce, so layoffs will be more significant. 7. We can choose to selectively comply with laws passed by Congress.

However, Trump apparently disagrees. He stated that he would reissue an order issued in the final days of his first government to more easily hire and fire federal civil servants using Schedule F.

After massive downsizing, how can the government continue to function normally? At least three methods can be used:

Musk takes a zero-based approach, a crucial factor in his disruptive innovations in various industries. He says that from a constitutional and legal perspective, it is necessary to determine which departments are legally mandated versus those the government has added to itself. The government tends to grant itself more power and then do things it shouldn’t.

Typical examples of government overregulation include two instances Musk highlighted: the government requiring SpaceX to report on whether rocket landings harm sharks at sea or impair the hearing of seals, and the New York State government, in an effort to protect animals, removing and euthanizing a squirrel named “Peanut” before Election Day this year.

In 1955, US tax laws comprised less than 1.5 million words. Now, that number has exceeded 16 million words. Due to this complexity, Americans spend a total of 6.5 billion hours preparing and filing taxes each year. This system needs simplification.

Back in the last election, Trump proposed abolishing 10 old regulations for every new law, significantly reducing the federal government and societal resources.

In June 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found several critical federal IT legacy systems in need of modernization:

Outdated systems: Systems are outdated or obsolete, operating for 8 to 51 years.
Unsupported hardware and software: Systems use software and hardware no longer supported.
Security vulnerabilities: Known security vulnerabilities exist when systems are operational.
Older languages: Some systems use older computer languages such as Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL).

Many voices of dissent are saying that cutting $2 trillion from the government budget is simply impossible. They assert that the top three largest expenses in the US government budget in 2023 were for Medicare, Social Security, and defense, which together account for nearly 65% of total spending. Subsidies for low-income individuals and veterans make up an additional 15%, and interest on national debt takes up 10%. Even if Musk cuts all federal employee wages, subsidies for minority groups, funds for undocumented immigrants, and other miscellaneous expenses, the total is only less than $200 billion, which is less than a tenth of the $2 trillion Musk mentioned. Even by firing all federal employees, the problem wouldn’t be resolved.

But is it really that simple? If it were, why would Musk wade into this quagmire and set such a high goal? Some say that Musk’s intelligence is currently the highest among humans, suggesting that it isn’t so straightforward.

Veronique de Rugy, an economist at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank, has detailed suggestions on achieving a $2 trillion budget cut, including:

Ceasing funding for public broadcasting corporations.
Privatizing the Federal Aviation Administration.
Privatizing Amtrak. De Rugy pointed out that in other countries, such as Canada in 1996, air traffic control was privatized and has been functioning well, while the US government has faced many problems, especially in the Boeing company’s management. Japan successfully privatized its national railways in 1987.

Closing the Export-Import Bank. Currently, most of its activities only benefit ten large companies, with the largest being Boeing, which doesn’t actually need the money.

Stopping or reducing agricultural subsidies. Because most of the profits go to the wealthiest farms.

Energy subsidies. Cutting all subsidies, starting with Biden’s energy subsidy bill, which will cost $1 trillion over ten years and $4 trillion over thirty years.

Halting broadband subsidies. The infrastructure bill in 2021 added $65 billion in broadband subsidies, being inefficient and not achieving much. Using StarLink could significantly reduce costs.

Eliminating coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds, with all funds not yet spent to be returned.

Food stamps. They should be rolled back to 2019 levels.

Federal aid for public schools.

Reducing higher education subsidies.

The Department of Transportation. Besides privatizing Amtrak and ATC, most responsibilities would be delegated to state and local governments and the private sector.

Community development programs, including Community Development Block Grants. There have also been many reductions and reforms in healthcare insurance, including canceling all price controls.

As for seemingly impossible military spending, Trump and Musk have proposed methods such as reviewing project usage, reducing foreign aid, promoting world peace, having allies share the burden, and more to lower costs; and for healthcare expenses, at least reducing fraud could help.

But it is noted that the radical reforms proposed by de Rugy are very extreme, and such a sweeping change within the short span of 18 months, even with Republican control in Congress, may not be feasible.

Thus, some analysts believe that Trump and Musk may not necessarily need to fully achieve the $2 trillion in spending cuts. Setting such a high goal may also be a very shrewd political move.

For example, the timing of the department’s continuation until July 4, 2026, is intriguing. Appearing to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary, it is also strategically positioned in a period of absolute power to accomplish their intentions.

Furthermore, the massive and bold reform has the benefit of holding a Damoclean sword over everyone’s heads. Internationally, it challenges American allies and partners, withholding subsidies from non-cooperating parties; domestically, implementing various reform measures, with certain departments failing to execute the plan, enables the government to reform, making them the immediate indicators.

Is this how things are unfolding? It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. We know that Trump’s appointment of Congressman Matt Gates as Attorney General is currently under much scrutiny. Last Sunday, Senator Markwayne Mullin, who has been harshly critical of Gates, agreed with Gates’s views: Gates stated that if the FBI and Justice Department do not “comply,” the US should eliminate them.

Mullin stated, “I actually agree with what Matt is saying. Even though it’s a little tough for me…”

“The Justice Department and the FBI have become politicized. There’s no question. We’ve seen what they did to President Trump.”

Of course, these are just analyses based on current information we have seen. How things will actually play out, let’s see what Trump and Musk have in store.

That concludes my discussion for today. For those who enjoy my program, please subscribe to my clean world channel. You can also leave topics you’d like to discuss in the comment section. Thank you!