One of the most closely watched efforts introduced by Donald Trump upon his return to the White House is undoubtedly DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The new body will be led by two of Trump’s closest allies – billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman-turned-politician and former presidential candidate.
DOGE is an advisory group and not a federal department. Musk and Ramaswamy are working pro bono as outside experts from the private sector. It aims to reduce all “unnecessary costs and regulations”, leading to a more organized and efficient administration.
They pledged to restructure or even liquidate some leading federal agencies entirely.
Ramaswamy vows to shut down the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, and the US Department of Education.
Musk is trying to dismantle all the bureaucracy and promises total cuts of about $2 trillion, about a third of the federal government’s annual budget.
In a first glimpse of what will happen when DOGE is up and running, last month, the power duo stalled a bipartisan spending bill in Congress by turning to social media, urging taxpayers to help “stop the steal,” and threatening lawmakers with primary challenges. If they vote for it.
But legally, there may be some hurdles on the horizon. “Despite its formal name, the Government Efficiency Department will be purely advisory in nature,” notes Caleb Burns, a lawyer at Wiley Reign. “Whether they can act in private, and the extent to which the President can implement DOGE recommendations, is not a completely clear legal question and may have to be settled by the courts. “The President cannot simply erase regulations from the record, but must comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which It requires agencies to take certain deliberative actions that are often grounds for legal challenge.”
There are conflicting expectations about whether and how DOGE can overcome government inefficiency. However, given how successful these two giants have been so far, they might be able to pull it off.
