What a Trump-Musk Government Efficiency Department should do in its first 100 days

After campaigning with Elon Musk to establish a Department of Government Efficiency, President-elect Donald Trump now has a national mandate to disrupt the federal bureaucracy, achieve substantial taxpayer savings, and make the government more accountable to the American people. After spending $950 billion on interest on the national debt this year, immediate action to achieve cost savings must be a top priority in 2025.

The following are actions that the next Trump administration’s efficiency program should prioritize in its first 100 days.

First, direct federal agencies to take immediate action to implement open watchdog recommendations to save up to $208 billion. Today, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reports more than 5,200 open recommendations for federal agencies to make the government work better. In July, GAO estimated taxpayers could save between $106 billion and $208 billion if all of these recommendations were implemented.

The Inspectors General have another 14,000 recommendations for government efficiency, which would yield additional savings if addressed. Directing federal agency heads to review and implement through executive action all efficiency-related open recommendations would likely yield hundreds of billions in savings.

Second, submit a legislative reform package to Congress to enact watchdog recommendations for the legislative branch. Not all of GAO’s recommendations can be implemented by the executive branch. Some require changes in law. Today, more than 200 of GAO’s recommendations made to Congress remain open. Many of these recommendations identify opportunities for potential taxpayers savings, such as a reform to Medicare payment rates that could save $141 billion over a decade. Altogether, enacting GAO’s recommendations for Congress could save nearly $200 billion. The Trump administration should submit to Congress a legislative package to enact all of these cost-savings reforms.

Third, start a government-wide initiative to achieve immediate regulatory relief, harmonization and streamlining. Trump will likely issue an executive order restoring his regulatory policy of “one in, two out” to curb the growth of federal red tape. This would be a good move, but the White House can do even more. It should pursue regulatory harmonization and clean-up initiatives and continue some of the Biden administration’s better policies on this front.

For example, the Biden administration has been leading a project to harmonize federal cybersecurity regulations to reduce the compliance cost of federal regulations and promote better security outcomes. This project, which enjoys support on Capitol Hill, could be a model for similar regulatory harmonization efforts in other areas, such as the energy sector.

It could promote economic growth and opportunity by maintaining the public benefits of regulations while reducing compliance costs. The Trump administration should also extend the Health and Human Services Department’s “Regulatory Clean Up Initiative,” which began in 2020 and involves using artificial intelligence to review federal code and policy guidance to identify areas for regulatory streamlining.

Fourth, issue an executive order requiring federal agencies to identify opportunities for the federal government to use AI to streamline the bureaucracy, including by reducing the federal workforce for positions that can be automated. AI could bring significant efficiencies into the workforce. A recent Accenture analysis found that the public sector is ripe for disruption, with “39 percent of working hours [having] a higher potential for automation or augmentation.”

The White House should direct federal agencies to begin planning for AI’s adoption in the workforce, including by identifying barriers to federal agencies’ use of AI. This review should include a forecast of reductions in the civil service that could be achieved by applying AI.

Fifth, initiate a comprehensive review of the federal budget to identify duplicative or outdated programs. The first four recommendations can be done immediately to set in motion substantial short- and long-term cost savings. Over a longer timeline, Trump’s efficiency program should undertake the hard work of reviewing all federal programs and activities to identify programs that are duplicative, outdated or unnecessary. For example, GAO has saved more than $660 billion in taxpayer dollars by spotlighting duplicative programs over the last 13 years.

The Congressional Budget Office recently found that Congress provided more than $500 billion in appropriations last year to programs that had expired under federal law. Conducting a comprehensive review to identify wasteful or outdated programs could yield savings or spur congressional action to update programs to make them work better for the American people.

President Trump and Musk will surely have a bold vision for what can be accomplished by a Department of Government Efficiency, including broad reforms, reorganizations and cuts to the federal budget. But these straightforward actions in the first 100 days could achieve hundreds of billions in savings in the short term and create valuable momentum for a four-year project to transform the federal government.

Dan Lips is head of policy at the Foundation for American Innovation and a co-author of the new report, “An Efficiency Agenda for the Executive Branch.”