A kicked DOGE hollers: Progressives' telling response to an agency cutting spending

As a big fan of what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is trying to accomplish, I have been heartily encouraged by its first two weeks on the job. All I need to hear to know it is getting traction is that the left has gone from accusing it of having no power to accusing it of having too much.

In Washington, when progressives yell that any conservative group has too much power, it usually means that things are starting to get interesting. Down South, we have a saying that captures the same sentiment in a different way: “A kicked dog hollers.”

A prime example: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is now complaining about all sorts of things regarding DOGE. One of his principal objections is that DOGE has no statutory authority to do, well, anything.

At one level, Schumer is technically correct. At another, more important level, he is entirely wrong.

DOGE, which, in fairness started as little more than a well-oiled public relations campaign, is now a real part of the federal government. It has set up shop within the confines of a little-known agency, the U.S. Digital Service.

Schumer should be familiar with this agency, which was created by President Barack Obama, not by Congress, back in 2014. Its original mission was to fix the healtcare.gov website, an integral part of the Affordable Care Act that had widely acknowledged deficiencies when it was first rolled out.

It worked. In fact, the U.S. Digital Service worked so well that President Trump kept it during his first term. Its mission was essentially to find other government services that could be improved with technology.

So Schumer is correct, technically, when he says the agency has no real authority. But then, neither did the U.S. Digital Service. Yet it was always able to get things done. During Trump 1.0, for example, it might call over to the Department of Veterans Affairs and offer to help fix some of the computer interfaces whereby vets sign up for benefits.

If the department were to refuse (which legally it could do) then U.S. Digital Service could simply go to those who do have the authority — to the director of the Office of Management and Budget or to the president himself. The Trump team was all pulling in the same direction on fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs, so we didn’t have to jump through those sorts of hoops. They just agreed to work with the U.S. Digital Service, and we decreased vets' waiting times for appointments from months under Obama to days under Trump.

But that’s not the point. The point is that the U.S. Digital Service did have authority, albeit indirect, and DOGE now has that same authority.

The difference now is in the agencies, not USDS/DOGE. Whereas Veterans Affairs welcomed the help, many agencies today are fiercely resisting DOGE and the transparency it brings with it. Just ask USAID.

Face it, DOGE is trying to do things no one has done before. Not that others haven’t tried. I remember asking career staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if there was anyone working there who is also working another job at the same time. I was assured that there was no way for us to find out. Not being as familiar with the Deep State as I am now, I accepted that answer.

DOGE is not as naive as I was, and it turns out that you can find out.

Another thing the left doesn’t like is that apparently Elon Musk and his team are “special government employees.” Various outlets ran stories this week ominously touting the very sinister-sounding title. What they aren’t telling anyone is that a “special government employee” is actually a normal thing defined by statute. In layman’s terms, it is just a part-time government employee. Special government employees are subject to some, but not all, of the rules for regular government employees regarding financial disclosures and conflicts of interest.

I know the left was upset when I was made a special government employee back in 2020, as the President’s Special Envoy to Northern Ireland. But I imagine that had more to do with my employer, not my job classification.

More importantly, I don’t remember progressives complaining much — and I certainly don’t remember ominous stories in the media — when John Kerry was a special government employee as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

I still think DOGE is going to struggle to save money meaningfully. Although Musk suggests he can save a trillion dollars by the end of the fiscal year, if he continues on the current trend it will actually take him until roughly 2065 to save that much. But that is more a function of how government, not DOGE, works.

Still, DOGE is now legitimate. If the left doesn’t like that, it probably has a lot more to do with what DOGE is doing, and not how it is doing it.

Again: A kicked dog hollers.

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.

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