Is DOGE a dodge?

Following President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the confirmation season for department secretaries and administration appointees is in full swing. One appointee who will not be up for consideration is Elon Musk, asked by President Trump to lead a new effort to reduce government spending. Popularly known as DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency is a presidential advisory commission. Such committees, commissions, and task forces have historically had a wide range of responsibilities and oversight. Most recently, for instance, President Joe Biden formed a commission focused on reforming the Supreme Court, which led to proposals including expansion of the court, term limits, and more.

In this case, DOGE is envisioned as a way to operationalize President Trump’s campaign promises to rein in government spending. There has been much speculation about what such a commission might mean, fueled especially by online commentary by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who until last week was set to co-lead the effort but stepped aside. DOGE’s account on X, for instance, has focused on some of the more ridiculous uses of government funds, including hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars on things like using “kittens in a study to analyze motion sickness” and studies “to determine if lonely rats sought cocaine at a greater frequency than happy rats.” And as silly as some of these things sound, and no doubt in many cases actually are, if DOGE is merely going to focus on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in government, then it risks becoming more of a distraction than a solid contribution to fiscal reform.

In fiscal year 2024, federal spending on Medicare, Social Security, national defense, and interest on the federal debt combined to account for more than $5.5 trillion. But that is only just under 60% of all federal outlays from that period. It is also more than the federal government has ever taken in as revenue in a fiscal year. The federal government is estimated to have taken in just over $4.8 trillion in FY24, which means if the government only spent money in those four areas, it would still run a $700 billion deficit.

If DOGE were to suggest and by some miracle of bureaucratic and political maneuvering actually be able to eliminate all federal spending except the military, entitlement programs, and servicing the debt, we would still run massive annual deficits. If the Trump administration could eliminate the departments of Education and Commerce and do everything that Musk might dream up without touching entitlements, all such work would merely amount to bailing out water a bit faster on a sinking ship. Certainly, waste, fraud, and abuse need to be addressed. But if this is all the Trump administration’s efforts to reform government spending amount to, then we will simply continue to see politicians whose actions shirk their moral and political responsibility.

Entitlement reform is absolutely necessary. If President Trump really has received the kind of mandate that he proclaims to radically reform the way the federal government works, then making programs like Social Security and Medicare solvent over a longer term, to say nothing of sustainable, must be a priority.

But cutting government spending and making its outlays more efficient are only one element of the calculus. The federal debt crisis is so dire that we must effectively grow our way out of such straits. Here, DOGE will have something substantive to potentially contribute, as the possibility of reducing government drag on enterprise and innovation can help spur economic growth.

For better or worse, over the course of decades, America has implemented an increasingly generous suite of welfare and entitlement programs at the federal level. To argue for the reform, efficiency, and sustainability of these programs is not to say that they are all intrinsically illegitimate. As C.S. Lewis once observed, this is the fateful bargain that modern liberal democracies have all struck in some form or another. Lewis wondered, “Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State’s honey and avoiding the sting?”

It would seem not. And while DOGE is no doubt well-intended, it has a Herculean task indeed if it is to do anything other than serve as a palliative for the fatal poison of ever-increasing government expansion and overreach. Radical reform is needed, and it remains to be seen if President Trump is willing—and able—to deliver.