Musk’s “Government Efficiency Department”: What will it do?

About the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) appointed by Trump to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the following is a little analysis: 1. Despite the name, which contains the word "department", it is not a government agency, but an external consulting agency. The reason for setting up an agency outside the government is that only Congress has the power to set up government departments and allocate budgets. This requires legislative action from Congress. Therefore, the simplest and quickest way is to set up a consulting agency outside the federal government to provide consulting services to the government. Musk has enough financial resources to fund this agency and does not need to rely on congressional/government funding. 2. The name is just a "stalk" that Musk likes (Akita dog doge). The virtual currency that Musk strongly promotes is also called Dogecoin. 3. External consulting/advisory agencies are very common. There are thousands of such consulting agencies at the federal level alone. Some of these agencies are funded by the federal government and Congress, while others are independently funded by the private sector; some include government employees, while others are purely private organizations. At the federal level, there is a special law, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which is responsible for relevant supervision. Considering Musk's financial resources, this consulting project does not need to rely on financial support from the federal government or Congress. The reasonable logic is that the clearer the boundary with the government, the better, so that it can be started at any time and not subject to the management and constraints of relevant laws. 4. Since this agency is outside the government system, Musk and Vivek will not become "government employees" - at least Musk will not. He just devotes part of his time to do one thing. 5. This external consulting agency will work with the support and cooperation of the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) of the White House. OMB is part of the White House. Its traditional function is to assist the federal government in budget management and coordinate and communicate with Congress on related matters. It is impossible for DOGE to work behind closed doors and out of the government system. OMB has sufficient authority to obtain accurate information about the budget and can link all federal government agencies, all relevant committees and important members of Congress, and various external consulting think tanks. With the support of OMB, DOGE can work effectively. 6. Musk claims to reduce more than 400 federal government agencies to less than 100 and reduce the federal government budget by $2 trillion. Some people think that Musk has enough authority to cut departments and employees as drastically as corporate layoffs. This is not the case: all these federal government agencies (and their budgets) were created by Congress in the form of legislation to meet specific functions; the basic budgets of these agencies are also determined by Congress. Everything has a legal basis, and it cannot be "cut at will". It must ultimately go through the congressional process.

7. So the "correct way to open" (and DOGE's working logic) should be:

8. Musk claims to cut 300 federal government departments and cut the budget by $2 trillion. The actual situation is that $2 trillion corresponds to nothing more than wages and procurement; 300 government departments involve countless civil servants, which are their jobs. After large-scale layoffs, these people may lose their jobs and may not be able to find jobs with the same income. In the government procurement part, after many departments were cut, there was no more procurement, and this part of the demand no longer existed. For those who still have procurement needs, Musk's direction is to further streamline expenses. For example, he believes that the federal government has too few bids, and more than 80% are targeted procurement, which may contain a lot of corruption and tricks. If a competitive mechanism is introduced, the budget can be reduced. But in any case, the US GDP is only more than 20 trillion US dollars, and 2 trillion US dollars is already part of the US economy and society. Large-scale cuts are equivalent to large-scale industrial restructuring (for example, China's real estate/construction industry directly accounts for 13-14% of GDP). So the situation will only be more complicated than Musk imagined. 9. Timing considerations: Trump said that DOGE's work must be completed on July 4, 2026, "a big gift package for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States." The key time points to consider here are: the new Congress (119th) will start on January 3, 2025 and end on January 3, 2027. The mid-term elections will be in November 2026. The results of the mid-term elections are uncertain, and the Republican Party cannot guarantee 100% control. In reverse, DOGE's work will be completed by mid-2026, and recommendations will be made to Congress. The Republicans should step up their efforts while they still control both houses of Congress and make a final decision. President Reagan also promoted a similar government streamlining plan, and his commission made 2,500 recommendations to the White House and Congress, but few of them were adopted in the end. This time, Trump-Musk certainly does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, but to make a final decision.