The Trump administration set up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with the stated goal of reducing government waste. The DOGE team, along with Elon Musk and the White House, have made a big deal about firing federal employees and cancelling federal grants.
However, a closer look at their efforts reveals that DOGE and the actions it has taken thus far are misguided and have little bearing on efficiency. Similarly, a recent congressional hearing at which I testified was supposed to be about wasteful spending and improper payments.
But it turned out to be more of a show of performative partisan theatre, with committee members engaging in fiery monologues and sniping back and forth at each other rather than engaging substantively with the witnesses.
If DOGE, the administration, and Congress are serious about eliminating waste, they should support the inspector general system, reform the system for tracking federal spending, and focus on the rampant waste in the Pentagon budget.
As I recently stated in my testimony before Congress, inspectors general and the critical watchdog role they play in rooting out waste and corruption in government are critical to any effort to clean up the government.
Inspectors general are responsible for monitoring corruption in federal agencies, and they save the public far more money than they cost to run.
However, President Donald Trump recently fired more than a dozen inspectors general, a move that contradicted his administration’s purported goals of reducing government waste, fraud, and abuse and combating corruption.
If DOGE wants inspectors general to do their jobs well, they should lobby Trump to reinstate the fired inspectors general and support the independence of the watchdog system. We need watchdogs, not lapdogs.
DOGE and Congress should also look into the federal government’s systems for tracking spending. The government’s system for tracking how taxes are spent is broken.
If Congress reforms this system and improves tracking of federal funds, DOGE and others will be able to more accurately assess waste. As things stand, it’s difficult to determine how well federal funds are spent and where the most egregious waste is.
It would be irresponsible to write about government waste without mentioning the Department of Defense’s annual budget of nearly $1 trillion. The Pentagon wastes taxpayer dollars on weapons systems that underperform and exceed budget.
Programs such as the troubled F-35 fighter jet have served to enrich defence contractors while failing to produce the well-functioning aircraft that our military and national security require.
DOGE and the administration are reportedly targeting the Defence Department for cuts, including layoffs and requests for proposed cuts.
However, reform is required to ensure that the Pentagon makes responsible spending decisions in the future, as well as to end practices that allow Pentagon contractors to defraud taxpayers.
If Trump, Musk, and the DOGE team truly want to address government waste, they should consider these reforms.
Instead, the DOGE team has adopted a slash-and-burn strategy. This has already led to serious legal issues. Following a public outcry over DOGE’s decision to fire workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the administration reversed the decision.
Those tactics are misguided, and I sincerely hope the administration reverses course soon.
There’s no question that our federal government has a huge problem with waste. But when tackling this complex problem, we need surgical solutions that will ensure tax dollars are spent responsibly while keeping Americans safe.
