The meme-inspired name of the commission led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is a bit misleading: DOGE stands for “Department of Government Efficiency,” but the commission won’t actually be a federal department (they have to be). formed by Congress). Instead, it will be an advisory body that does not have the practical authority or assertiveness to implement the lofty goals it has set so far.

DOGE leaders have promised to slash government spending by $2 trillion through budget cuts and reductions in government jobs. The details of how they would do this are unclear: the most expensive areas of government spending — Social Security, Medicare and military spending — are effectively off limits. President-elect Donald Trump has recently promised that he will not cut the first two, and the third cut is politically difficult, especially for a Republican. But even if the two achieve just a fraction of the ambitious cuts they propose, they could manage to transform government agencies and services that impact Americans’ lives.

Musk and Ramaswamy appeared on Capitol Hill yesterday to speak to lawmakers. The visit didn’t shed much light on their plans: their conversations, like The New York Times to put it, were “remarkably efficient”. Each gave a minute-long remark that contained much criticism of the government but few solutions. The observation by two Republican allies that the government is spending a lot of money and is deeply in debt is not groundbreaking. Musk has promised that DOGE will cause “shockwaves” and Trump said it could be the “Manhattan Project” of our time. But despite the flashy launch of DOGE and the bombast of its messengers, the message is not that different from those delivered in previous administrations.

Previous presidents have convened panels of business leaders to try to streamline governance, but they have failed to radically reshape the bureaucracy, in part because they have run into the same block that DOGE will ultimately run into: the need for a congressional election Approval of cuts. Presidents can submit budget requests to Congress, but Congress generally makes decisions about allocating federal funds. DOGE’s specific proposals so far include calling federal employees back to face-to-face work (apparently in the hope that many would stop) and plans to abolish daylight saving time. In one Wall Street Journal In their editorial, Musk and Ramaswamy identified targets, including public broadcasting and international aid, from which relatively small amounts of funding could be cut off. They also indicated that they are seeking to make massive regulatory changes using Trump’s executive authority (which could well create conflicts of interest for Musk, whose businesses rely on federal contracts), although they did not specify what these will look like.

A sad reality of this situation, as my colleague Annie Lowrey noted this week, is that a commission that actually helps the government better respond to the needs of the American people would be a good thing and would likely be supported by Americans on both sides of the aisle . Many parts of the government actually operate inefficiently. But the Republicans’ current plan confuses useful reforms with dramatic cuts.

With DOGE unable to implement policy itself, the leaders’ plan relies heavily on the president-elect who invited them to office. Trump’s team has suggested a way to give him broader control over the federal budget: Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has argued that Trump has the power of sequestration, that is, the power to stop spending to deny funds appropriated by Congress. In 1974, Congress’s Impoundment Control Act banned the practice. But Vought has argued that the law is unconstitutional and should be repealed, and he is taking up that mantle again. In fact, getting a court to rule in accordance with Vought could be a long process, but it would represent a significant expansion of authority away from Congress and toward the executive branch if it works as it does VoxDylan Matthews explained.

DOGE has started hiring employees on It’s hard to imagine how Musk and Ramaswamy could find a path to trillions or even billions of dollars in cuts without touching the Trump no-nos on Social Security and Medicare. If Musk and Ramaswamy somehow got into the Social Security pot, the lives of millions of seniors would be fundamentally changed. If they cut Medicare, same thing. However, the more likely outcome is that they remain on the sidelines while posting frequently and publishing podcasts. It is very likely that the viral self-promotion will conflict with the plain facts about how the government works.

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