More details emerge on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as US presidential transition continues
More details have emerged about how the high-profile Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being formed by incoming US president Donald Trump will run.
Earlier this month, Trump announced the creation of the agency, with the aim to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies”.
Trump called the initiative “the Manhattan Project of our time”, referring to the American programme to develop the first atomic bomb, and appointed entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the project.
DOGE will not be a formal government agency but will work “from outside government” to provide “advice and guidance” to the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before”. More details have now emerged on how DOGE will interact with other government structures.
James Comer, a member of the House of Representatives and the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has said that the work of DOGE would align with the work of his committee.
“We’re the good government committee that tries to root out waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the federal government, so everything Musk and Ramaswamy are talking about would fall under the House Oversight Committee,” he said.
Comer said that he plans to create a subcommittee, headed by fellow committee member Marjorie Taylor Greene, to work with Musk and Ramaswamy to help implement the recommendations from DOGE.
Comer said that his committee would be the “go-to committee” to help President Trump make government more efficient.
“We don’t care if someone’s feelings get hurt because we eliminate their fat cat bureaucratic jobs in Washington,” he said. “We want to work for taxpayers, not for the bureaucracy. We want to work with him to implement his policies and initiatives, and I think it is going to be a pretty good match.”
Read more: Japan looks to learn from Elon Musk’s US government efficiency programme
Legal challenges anticipated
However, Comer added that “there’s going to be a lot of lawsuits” around plans to cut government. “The personnel laws were written by the bureaucrats for the bureaucrats,” he said. “Once you get hired by the government, the way it is now, you’re guaranteed a job for the rest of your life, and a pension for the rest of your life, and it is not fair to the taxpayers.
“There are agencies in existence that don’t need to be in existence. Maybe they were relevant a decade ago, or two decades ago, but they are irrelevant now, they are obsolete, and the American people can’t afford it.”
Unions have said that any changes to federal employees’ terms and conditions must be negotiated through the normal collective bargaining process.
Taylor Greene, a long-standing supporter of Trump, said she was excited about the role, posting on X (formerly Twitter): “I won’t rest until we’ve rooted out every penny of waste and abuse. The American people deserve a government that works for them, not against them!”
“I ran for Congress to gut the federal government of waste, fraud and abuse, and get rid of the unelected bureaucrats and the horrible spending and ridiculous programmes that have brought us to $36 trillion in debt.” she said in remarks posted to her social media account on 21 November.
“This is a one-time opportunity through President Trump and his appointment for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead up this DOGE commission.”
In 2021, the US House of Representatives voted to remove Greene, a prominent Trump supporter, from all committee roles in response to her backing for conspiracy theories including denying that a plane crashed into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, and perpetuating the myth that the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida was faked, as well as posts seeming to support political violence. The vote was carried after 11 Republican House members voted with Democrats to pass it.
Taylor Greene subsequently said that she now believed “school shootings are absolutely real”, that they should be taken seriously, and that “9/11 absolutely happened”. Greene was reappointed to committee roles from January 2023.
Work by DOGE is expected to conclude by 4 July 2026, which will be the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence.
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About Richard Johnstone
Richard Johnstone is the executive editor of Global Government Forum, where he helps to produce editorial analysis and insight for the title’s audience of public servants around the world. Before joining GGF, he spent nearly five years at UK-based title Civil Service World, latterly as acting editor, and has worked in public policy journalism throughout his career.
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