At CPAC last weekend, Elon Musk was gifted an engraved chainsaw by none other than the international godfather of bureaucratic reduction himself, Argentinian President Javier “Afuera!” Milei. This was appropriate an appropriate gesture given the search and destroy mission in which Musk and his algorithm ninjas have been engaged for the past several weeks. However, while the documented waste, fraud, and abuse is approaching its first mile marker of $100B, it remains a matter of debate as to the best way to get rid of it.
The hard truth is that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has no Constitutional authority to cut spending. This power of the purse, outlined in Article 1, Sections 8 and 9 of the Constitution, is a critical element of our sacred separation of powers. Congress controls spending, not the Executive branch. So, as romantic as it may be to think of a DC Chainsaw Massacre, slashing away at wasteful and redundant government agencies like Milei did in Argentina, our system of government makes that exciting visual far more difficult. Trump may have given Musk cart blanche access to audit federal books, systems, and data, but at the end of the day, Musk wields something closer to a highlighter than a chainsaw. Neither Trump nor Elon can outright cancel the Department of Education, as what was born from Congress can only be killed by Congress, but that doesn’t mean they are powerless. While it is true that the only power Trump can really give Musk is the authority to audit and advise, important people are listening to him.
Those people are Trump-appointed secretaries, who may receive their funding from Congress, but they determine how it is spent. See, when Congress appropriates funds to the agencies of the federal government, it is often done with pretty broad strokes. Expense line items such as a cabaret show in Columbia aren’t voted on at the Congressional level. Such ridiculous spending occurs after the check has been written by Congress to “improve cultural relations in South America.” Once the money in hand at the agency, that’s when the wasteful spending starts. And that’s what DOGE and Trump’s lieutenants now heading up these agencies can stop.
Congress has only themselves to blame for DOGE’s inception. If they had been the slightest bit accountable and protective of taxpayer money, then Musk’s work would not be necessary. There have been decades of waste and abuse, but even in the instances of spending with purely good intentions, once the money is funneled through the inept and inefficient woodchipper that is the federal government, the intended beneficiaries end up receiving a teaspoon of the gallon that was taken from the productive taxpayers. This is not an exaggeration. Studies have shown that the dollars that actually get to a worthy recipient, say a USAID grant to Haiti, is a single digit percentage of the funding that was approved.
Speaking of USAID, it was sheer brilliance for DOGE to begin its quest with an audit of them. This agency was started with an executive order under Kennedy and it has essentially been a CIA slush fund with payments to globalist NGOs and big government democrat organizations. Musk knew that his first agency audit would be highly scrutinized. He also knew that foreign aid is woefully unpopular, and the abuse of taxpayer dollars found at USAID would be indefensible. He was right, and leveraging his social media spotlight, he made sure everyone knew it. The waste found there was so abominable that many critics have been shamed into silence, and now 70% of Americans want the Musketeers to unleash their prudent nerdery on all remaining government agencies.
But DOGE can only do so much, even with a little Obama-esque executive overreach. If the GOP-led Congress would grow a spine and go all in with Trump and Musk, the government could be changed forever. Worthless agencies could be closed and we could even get a balanced budget amendment which would fix our debt, deficit, and inflation problems. Congress should pass a bill codifying DOGE and firing all 3000 employees of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) who let this spending toga party continue for 100 years. The Senate should follow Sen. Rand Paul’s lead and move to aggressively cut the budget by $1.5T. The House should do the same and listen to Rep. Thomas Massie who just voted against the reconciliation bill that actually raises, not lowers spending.
It would be far more preferable for DOGE to b a chainsaw and not a highlighter, but if it is to be, it must be Congress to pull the starter cord.
