Will DOGE put spending on the chopping block?

It is not unusual to hear political “statesmen” say we should treat government like a business: Eliminate unnecessary spending and get back to basics. Enter politics and elected politicians and that simple formula becomes more complicated. What spending is necessary and what is unnecessary? And, what are the basic purposes of government?

To help cut this Gordian knot, a businessman, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped two other businessmen, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to head-up a non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE to recommend what government programs should be left on the cutting room floor as we approach the fiscal 2026 budget cycle.

Some wags have facetiously questioned why the president needs two people to determine what is efficient when one could easily bring more clarity and less disagreement to the task. But I suspect most Americans will vest more confidence in the two business innovators who have had highly successful careers.

On the business model some propound for government, it should be noted that, according to 2024 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.4 percent of businesses fail in their first year of operation, while 49.4 percent fail in their first 5 years, and 65.3 percent in their first ten. Unlike independent businesses, the government has a fallback for its failures: mounting deficits and an ever-growing public debt limit. Balanced budgets and zero-debt have gone the way of the dodo.

Ramaswamy has not been shy about the intentions of this duo. One is to slash the federal workforce by 75 percent, or roughly 1.65 million workers. Secondly, it is not to use a “chisel” but a “chainsaw” in cutting government spending. Musk has talked about cutting $2 trillion from the $6.75 trillion budget.

And third, the effort will involve a massive reorganization (and elimination) of government departments and agencies. Trump has christened the undertaking “the Manhattan Project of our time ... to liberate our economy and make the U.S. government accountable to ‘We the People.’” He set the DOGE's deadline as July 4, 2026 — a perfect gift for the nation's 250th birthday.

So how does this dynamic duo of non-official efficiency engineers propose to pull off their grand plans? Ramaswamy has mentioned a two-prong approach. First, defund all the government programs and entities that are operating without an authorization from Congress. As the Washington Post pointed out earlier this week, these range from veterans’ health care, drug development and opioid addiction treatment, the State Department and housing assistance, to the Justice Department, education spending, NASA, health care and student loans, international development and security assistance, and Head Start.

As congressional experts point out, the lack of a formal statutory authorization does not leave these entities naked; the appropriations bills that fund them have the dual purpose of also automatically continuing their statutory authority. Ramaswamy asserts that the president could achieve most of the goals unilaterally, ignoring the strictures of the Impoundment Control Act which gives Congress a veto over any spending cuts. Trump may attempt to repeal that act, but Ramaswamy argues that is unnecessary because it is already unconstitutional.

The Impoundment Control Act was enacted in 1974 as part of the Congressional Budget Act in response to President Richard M. Nixon’s practice of refusing to release funds for programs he opposed. The Impoundment Act requires Congress to approve presidential impoundments of funds in order for them to be rescinded (canceled). Because the Comptroller General, who is a creature of Congress, exercises certain executive authorities in administering the act, some say that renders the law unconstitutional.

There have been several presidents in recent times who have made dramatic attempts through specially appointed entities to bring government spending under control. A recent Washington Post headline summed these up: “The disappointing history of government efficiency commissions like DOGE.” These range from President Harry Truman’s Hoover Commission and Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission, to Bill Clinton’s “Reinventing Government” initiative and Barack Obama’s Simpson-Bowles commission. In the latter case, only 11 of the 18 commissioners supported its final recommendations, which was insufficient to advance it to the Congress for a vote.

One thing is certain as the new administration plunges into the morass of government workers’ rights and agencies’ legal viability: the courts will be swamped with all manner of cases challenging the propriety of what may come to be known as “the hatchet acts.” And, with a growing number Trump-appointed judges at all levels of the federal judiciary, all the way up to the Supreme Court, the new president may fare better than he did eight years ago.

Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran culminating as chief-of-staff of the House Rules Committee in 1997. He is author of, “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000), and, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays” (2018).