DOGE is A 104-Year-Old Idea

Those squawking about efforts to root out government waste, fraud and abuse act as if it's a dangerous, new concept.  They obviously haven't been paying attention.  The Budget & Accounting Act of 1921 birthed the Government Accounting Office, which was DOGE before Elon Musk rode into Washington. 

The GAO is a non-partisan congressional watchdog overseeing how the federal government operates and spends taxpayers money.  The 104-year-old agency, renamed the Government Accountability Office in 2004, has recommended thousands of ways to save billions of dollars during its long history.

This little known agency has examined every nook and cranny of the federal government from Social Security, to the Department of Defense weapons systems, to Medicaid, foreign aid, cybersecurity, Internal Revenue Service, to Health and Human Services and federal disaster programs. 

The agency's reports are circulated to Congress, often detailing waste, potential fraud and efficiency improvements. On occasion, their findings are used by lawmakers to highlight the government's shortcomings in Congressional hearings.  Sometimes the agency work receives muted news coverage.

But there's one problem.  Federal agencies cited in the GAO's reports more often than not equivocate in adopting changes to address glaring weaknesses.  Unlike Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, the GAO does not have authority to force federal agencies to cut waste or implement findings.

An examination of selective reports by this writer found an alarming number of instances where agencies made little progress, despite calls to implement cost savings, modernize outdated systems, manage fraud risks, address human resource violations and harden cybersecurity protection.

To underscore the recalcitrance, the GAO in February catalogued 4,387 recommendations it had made since 2010, but noted that 764 had not been fully implemented five years later. Of the 1,881suggestions involving so-called, "high-risk" areas, 463 have not been completed as of this year.  

Translation: the government bureaucracy resists warnings and suggestions for improvement.   

In some cases, the GAO's reports have served as a road map for DOGE to inspect deficiencies.  For instance, agency reports in 2023 and 2024 pointed out that "fraud poses a significant risk" at the USAID (United States Agency for International Development.). 

In its letter to the agency, GAO used unsparing language: "Our first priority recommendation calls for agency guidance to require regular fraud risk assessments for USAID programs and documentation of program-specific fraud risk profiles.." 

Sure enough, DOGE ferreted out USAID funds that ended up funding Al Qaeda affiliated fighters in Syria and supporting poppy production in Afghanistan, benefiting the Taliban.  Two Hamas linked groups were on the receiving end of USAID funding funneled through a third party.

After the hurricane and fire damage devastated many cities, it came as no surprise to the GAO that residents were unsatisfied with the federal government response. The GAO offered this blistering assessment of the federal approach in its 2025 report:

"...disaster recovery is fragmented across 30 federal entities.  So many entities involved with multiple programs and authorities, differing requirements and timeframes, and limited data sharing across entities could make it harder for survivors and communities to navigate federal programs."

Translation: There should be a consolidation of agencies and responsibilities to improve efforts to get aid faster to Americans who need it. 

When Musk called for the return of government workers to their offices, it was greeted with cries of outrage from politicians and unions.  But not one media organization pointed out that the GAO had identified the cost to American taxpayers of maintaining empty buildings.

In a report, the GAO underscored annual maintenance and operating costs for the 277,000 government buildings was $10.3 billion in 2023. The agency calculated that with the wholesale adoption of telework, deferred maintenance and underutilization costs totaled $370 billion in 2024.

That's chump change for your federal government. Since 2002, the GAO wrote that federal agencies have reported about $2.8 TRILLION in estimated improper payments, including over $150 billion government-wide in each of the last seven years.

Now you know why there was so much push back when Musk wanted to review federal payment data.

DOGE and its champion Musk will eventually fade into history.  If government worked the way our Constitutional framers intended, lawmakers would grab the reins and hold federal agencies accountable. Unfortunately, they often have been doing just the opposite: feeding the unaccountable beast.

The GAO, with a workforce of 3,100, has demonstrated its chops for uncovering waste and inefficiency. But it lacks teeth to force change. Congress should consider legislating authority for the GAO to compel departments to comply in a timely manner with its recommendations or risk budget and force cuts. 

Without drastic changes, 100 years from now another Elon Musk will be needed to take a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy. 

The Resistance To Cutting The Federal Budget

Howls of protest erupted after President Trump temporarily paused federal spending to ferret out waste. A hyper-partisan cacophony in Washington claimed it was practically unAmerican to fiddle with funds that Congress had already approved as part of the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget. 

Trump's move is a precursor to the upcoming budget battle, the defining issue of his first term.  Expect a fear mongering campaign orchestrated by the media and Democrats to cast spending reductions as a threat to the poor, veterans, seniors, the unemployed and low income Americans. 

However, ignoring the federal spending binge is no longer an option. The budget ballooned to $6.75 trillion for fiscal year 2024, resulting in a deficit of $1.933 trillion.  For perspective, spending increased 45% in just a single year from 2019 to 2020, nearly 20 times the average of the previous four decades.

Deficit spending has hiked the nation's debt to more than $36.2 trillion. America's indebtedness is increasing $5.93 billion every day.  The current budget contains $952 billion allotted to servicing the debt. Interest payments on debt amount to 13% of the federal budget, eclipsing defense spending.

No amount of Congressional caterwaul should deter the Trump Administration from surgically removing pork and waste from the federal budget.  The president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is already serving up ideas to trim the fat, a lightning rod for Democrat resistance.

In its first move, the DOGE budget cleaver severed more than 104 diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related contracts at 25 federal agencies, saving taxpayers more than $1 billion. A total of 21 Treasury Department contracts were ended, saving $25 million in a single agency.

Democrat naysayers who huffed that shaving the federal budget was next to impossible were left red-faced. The irony is that the party of big government once championed slashing federal spending when Democrat Bill Clinton occupied the White House. 

Clinton launched a National Performance Review, nicknamed REGO, beginning in 1993. During his first term, the effort yielded a 180,000 reduction in federal government employees through buyouts and staff eliminations.  The push saved $136 billion and shrunk government to its smallest size in 30 years.

This Democrat led effort, supported by Republicans, closed superfluous government offices, cut 16,0000 pages of regulations, passed a major procurement reform bill and introduced the electronic filing of taxes, saving millions of dollars. The endeavor helped balance the federal budget. 

Trump's effort will fail unless there is the same bipartisan offensive. However, little progress will be made if lawmakers refuse to touch so-called mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment compensation and other safety-net programs.

These programs comprise about 66% percent of the federal budget and run on automatic pilot.  Each fiscal year the costs escalate as more people are added to the rolls of these programs.  Elected officials fear reprisal from voters if they even hint at addressing these programs.

There can be no significant reduction in spending without snipping at these entitlement programs. 

As just one example, the welfare roles have not shrunk one iota despite the jobless rate falling from 6.3% at the start of the Biden presidency to 4.1%.  Some 84.6 million individuals are enrolled in Medicaid, about the same as 2020. Another 42.6 million Americans receive food stamps, same as 2021.

More Americans are working yet social programs haven't seen a decline. The explanation is that the Biden Administration allowed Democratic states, such as California, to ease eligibility requirements for Medicaid funds to pay for other social spending, such as homeless housing.  

Biden bureaucrats also boosted food stamp allotments and waived work requirements for able-bodied adults.  The Wall Street Journal calculated that by simply returning to pre-pandemic Medicaid spending levels (adjusted for inflation) it would generate more than $1.4 trillion in savings over a decade.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a range of options in December for carving addressing the federal budget, including changing cost-sharing rules for Medicare, reducing Medicare's coverage of bad debt and instituting new work rules for Social Security disability applicants.

There are a plethora of ways to place the federal budget on a diet, if Congress will act with courage.  For example, ending corporate welfare would save hundreds of billions of dollars that lawmakers regularly use to curry favor with big donors, lobbyists and industry special interest groups.

A 2022 bill known as the CHIPS and Science Act earmarked $53 billion for the country's semiconductor manufacturing industry.  One of the chief beneficiaries was Intel, which raked in $7.865 billion in taxpayer funds.  The money was supposed to create tens of thousands of jobs.

How well did that work out?  Intel announced recently it would layoff 15,000 employees, about 15% of its workforce.  A series of manufacturing missteps, the AI boom and a weak sales outlook was blamed for the layoffs.  Government has a checkered track record of funding private sector ventures. 

The so-called green energy bill, ballyhooed by the Biden Administration, shelled out $391 billion to invest in a variety of private businesses engaged in the manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbine components. Like most corporate largess, there is no accountability for results.

Another windfall for the green energy industry is tax subsidies.  The original price tag for this corporate welfare was $271 billion over 10 years.  The Biden Administration's last estimate projected a 170% jump in costs for the industry gift which was included in the laughably named Inflation Reduction Act. 

Unless Congress reins in spending, the United States is hurtling towards the debt cliff.  Mushrooming deficits and debt are unsustainable, approaching levels of third-world countries. Taxpayers should hold their elected representatives accountable for stopping the budget madness.