By Aliya Couillard, Staff Writer
During the election cycle, President Donald Trump and billionaire CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, announced there would be a new government agency called the Department of Government Efficiency. While not a cabinet level department of government, the agency commonly referred to as DOGE has been tasked with cutting up to $2 trillion of wasteful government spending. They have started by cutting budgets and eliminating entire departments.
The agency was originally to be run by Musk and previous republican presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. However, Ramaswamy left the agency last month, leaving Musk in charge.
According to a gallup poll from October, 70 percent of voters believed the federal budget and deficit was an important issue in the November election.
“They spend too much money for sure,” Senior finance major Jake Shaw said about the federal government. “When you look at the debt the United States is in, cutting spending is definitely a good idea, you just need to prioritize where you’re cutting it from. Obviously if you’re cutting massive amounts of spending from services that people really need, that’s not going to be helpful for anybody.”
Some of the biggest targets of DOGE’s cost cutting recommendations have been the US Agency for International Development known as USAID, the Department of Education, and various government grants and programs involving diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Musk has also expressed a desire to significantly cut the budget of the Pentagon.
DOGE has most notably gone after USAID recently.
According to a list posted on whitehouse.gov, some of the wasteful spending from USAID includes “$1.5 million to advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities, $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt, and Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria.”
However, USAID has been defended for the humanitarian work they perform in many developing countries including disaster relief and food and vaccine distribution.
Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin said “This has nothing to do with evaluation. This is about termination and obliteration of the major foreign aid programs of the United States of America, all of which together total less than $40 billion.”
Senior business administration major Saul Leon feels that the budget cuts are being done in a reckless way.
“Cutting wasteful spending is good but there isn’t any debate on what’s wasteful,” Leon said. “They’re just cutting funding from different organizations really fast and there hasn’t really been any back and forth about why anything should have been cut.”
While there is much bipartisan support for cutting wasteful government spending, Musk and DOGE have drawn criticism over the amount of power the agency has.
14 states have sued Musk’s agency.
The lawsuit states “President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress.”
The Agency has also drawn criticism over its employees’ lack of government experience. DOGE has employees as young as 19 in charge of major aspects of operation.
However, despite the criticism of DOGE, according to a poll from The Economist, public opinion on the agency is split. 42 percent of poll respondents have a favorable view of DOGE, while 38 percent have an unfavorable view. 20 percent were unsure.
“I think it’s too early to tell whether DOGE will be a good thing or a bad thing.” Shaw said. “Whether they can really cut the wasteful spending of the government efficiently and effectively is yet to be seen. Elon Musk also has to be totally unbiased because he obviously could benefit from getting rid of certain government agencies, so, we’ll see what he does.”
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is continuing its investigations of federal spending and making budget recommendations.
It is likely that, in the coming months or years, tens of thousands of government employees will be fired and the budgets of numerous government agencies will be cut.
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