Trump and Government Reorganization: Meaner and Harsher Appear to be the Guiding Lights with Debatable Emphasis on Improving Efficiency or Effectiveness
American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the third year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.
December 1, 2024
Words like “reorganization,” “reform,” “efficiency,” and terms like “cost-cutting to make government more effective” all seem to not apply to this joint Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's soon-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency. It has the backing of Donald Trump, and one of its co-heads is the wealthiest guy on the planet, so it gives the feeling that it can move mountains. The goals of this department, which is less like a department and more like a Presidential commission, will, as Trump stated, “provide advice and guidance, [and] drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” This undertaking sounds monumental but raises the issue of what power and authority it will possess and how it will work with Congress to accomplish a part of or all of what it will recommend to Trump.
How any savings that seem to be the hallmark of this department/commission/advisory body will be calculated is completely unclear. Ramaswamy stated, “Nearly $1 trillion of budget they can't even tell you where it goes, so I think that part of this is exposing the extent of the rot and waste for the public." Just because he said it does not make it accurate. I wonder, however, if the more than $19 billion that Musk received from the federal government in contracts for Space X is part of Ramaswamy’s calculations. The federal budget for the fiscal year 2024, which ended on September 30th, was $4.49 trillion: $1 trillion is roughly 22 percent of the federal budget. Based on Ramaswamy, apparently speaking off the top of his head, the federal government wastes about one-fifth of the money it spends. Senator Joni Ernst (R, IA) has referred to trillions, going beyond Ramaswamy and his mere trillion, posting she will provide Musk and Ramaswamy “with a blueprint to eliminate trillions in waste.” Whatever the senator is addressing is unclear. This sounds more like talk for the sake of saying something Trump supporters want to hear than anything with substance behind it. How all this government spending will be cut without touching Social Security or Medicare is a mystery. No doubt enthusiastic Trump supporters will not mind having a freeze on their cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to Social Security or increasing their share of what they pay to be on Medicare. There are two or three military bases in Iowa (depending on how you count them); I suppose those are part of Ernst’s blueprint: Start with cuts in your own state.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues reports addressing how to focus on waste in government spending and what to do about it. One report referred to an inspector general in one department, who identified $11.5 million in wasteful spending because of a lack of oversight regarding safety contract requirements.
The GAO has annually issued a report addressing ways to save money. The fourteenth annual report was released in May. As this report stated:
Each year, GAO reports on federal programs with fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative goals or actions, and we have suggested hundreds of ways to address those problems, reduce costs, or boost revenue. In our 14th annual report, we identified 112 new matters for congressional consideration and recommendations to agencies to help address these findings.
Congressional and agency action in these areas has yielded about $667 billion in cost savings and revenue increases. Addressing remaining matters and recommendations could save tens of billions more dollars and improve government services.
Notice that one GAO report addressed an inspector general in a specific government department and pointed to millions that can be saved. In contrast, an annual GAO report pointed to billions that can be saved. However, Ramaswamy points to a trillion and Ernst points to trillions: Millions, Billions, Trillions—there are 1,000 billion in a trillion. Reading what Ramaswamy or Musk says about government waste and spending, it sounds like both are on sugar highs and not connected to reality.
Many Americans dismiss government programs as useless or ineffective but still rely upon them. Unfortunately, listening to voter grips about government, most have little to no clear understanding of what federal Departments, agencies, or bureaus do. A recent survey found that 56 percent of Americans believe the economy is in a recession, which is wrong. Republicans (67 percent), more so than Democrats (49 percent), think we are in a recession, even though the last time the country was in a recession was in 2020. Almost half of the country believes unemployment is at a 50-year high, but it is under 4 percent. Surveys show that 20 percent of Americans have a positive impression of the federal government’s role. Still, as one study noted, “most Americans like the way the federal government handles many…issues, though they are broadly critical of its handling of others.” So many Americans are missing essential information or confused about how to look at their government; when Ramaswamy says a trillion dollars is being wasted, many people can easily believe what he says.
The housing bubble of 2008 is an excellent example of how to look at one aspect of government spending. Under the wrong circumstances, businesses did their best to cause severe harm to the American economy, and the government came to the rescue of the economy. One estimate determined that the unemployment rate could have reached 16 percent without government intervention. Some actions undertaken by businesses can harm Americans, and, unfortunately, government intervention and lots of dollars may sometimes be required to fix the problem. How does this spending relate to Ramaswamy’s thinking? Would Ramaswamy consider this wasted spending? The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, in a 2011 report, stated:
Much attention over the past two years has been focused on the decisions by the federal government to provide massive financial assistance to stabilize the financial system and rescue large financial institutions that were deemed too systemically important to fail. Those decisions—and the deep emotions surrounding them—will be debated long into the future. But our mission was to ask and answer this central question: how did it come to pass that in our nation was forced to choose between two stark and painful alternatives—either risk the total collapse of our financial system and economy or inject trillions of taxpayer dollars into the financial system and an array of companies, as millions of Americans still lost their jobs, their savings, and their homes?
The role of inspector generals is one aspect of addressing government waste that can easily be dismissed. Trump stated that he wanted to focus on government waste, but he fired several inspector generals in his first term who concentrated on addressing waste and inefficiency. The Musk-Ramaswamy undertaking sounds like a “once and forget it” effort. Inspector generals are there for the long run to monitor government programs. Various government departments or agencies are loosely thrown around as on the proverbial chopping block for this “department,” which, according to Ramaswamy, will finish its work by July 4, 2026 (the 250th anniversary of the country): The Department of Education is regularly targeted for elimination. In addition, Ramaswamy has loosely referred to shutting down the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In addition, both men have picked up Trump’s vision to remove thousands, if not up to a hundred thousand, federal workers from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and relocate their employment to various places around the country. This vision of change sounds enormous in scope. It is questionable as to how much will ever be achieved. That July 4, 2026, date, I suspect, is when any proposals from this Musk-Ramaswamy Department will be submitted to Trump. Then, the hard work begins by seeing what will be implemented or thrown to the side.
The inspector general is essential for addressing waste and inefficiency, but Trump already showed what he thought of them in his first term. The Inspector General Act of 1978 discussed the role of inspector generals and stated that their responsibility is to evaluate different programs and as stated:
prevent and detect waste, fraud, and abuse relating to their agency’s programs and operations, and to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the agency’s operations and programs.
Glenn Fine was an inspector general. He held that title in the Department of Justice through the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama Presidencies. Then, he served as acting inspector general in the Defense Department from 2016 to 2020, and Trump fired him in his first term as president. He explained the role of the inspector general:
[T]here is an inspector general, federal inspector general, in every cabinet agency - in fact, in every federal agency. Their role is to detect and deter waste, fraud and abuse, promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the agency. What makes them distinctive is that they are independent. They report both to the agency head and to Congress, and they expose problems and make recommendations to improve our government. They can't be told how to act, what to investigate, what to audit and what to evaluate, and that's what makes their role so important. They've been called some of the most important public servants you've never heard of.
Rethinking what government departments, agencies, and bureaus do and whether they can do them better should always be a regular part of any organizational structure. In 2011, the then-governor of Washington State addressed a meeting focused on the success of the state’s Government Management Accountability and Performance (GMAP) system. Quarterly meetings were held over several years leading up to the governor’s 2011 address, where the heads of 30 state agencies regularly convened to address how to make their operations more effective. Child Protective Services was highlighted as having significantly improved in addressing and responding to child abuse. In 2005, this agency had a 69 percent response rate. That meant that within 24 hours of the agency being contacted, 31 percent of calls to this agency were not addressed. Changes were made so that two years later, the response rate was 90 percent. This is a way to see government reform, where the focus is on specific issues. This type of reform does not seem to be the type of reform or reorganization that Trump and this Musk-Ramaswamy department have in mind. The impression being created is some total transformation of the federal government, where slash-and-burn appears to be the order of the day. Exactly how the federal government will be better in the aftermath of any Trump administration effort is unclear.
The undertaking in Washington state was part of a broader effort called Reinventing Government that began when Bill Clinton was President. A book with that title, co-authored by a city manager and journalist, was published in 1992 when Clinton was elected president. Interestingly, while Trump uses the word “entrepreneurial” to highlight what he wants in the ways the government functions, this book emphasized the importance of that word to what they saw as a way to improve government not only at the federal level but also at the state and local levels. Performance Measurement became the buzz term used to determine if American governments at different levels were progressing toward becoming more effective or efficient (words not easy to define clearly). Musk and Ramaswamy seem to have no clear markers of how to measure whether the federal government will be better after they are done with it: Conservative ideology is the guiding force, which is not the same as developing neutral measurements. Congress will pick up some of this sentiment, and there, the ideological bent of conservative members will be the driving force for change. Representative Eric Burlison (R, MO) wants to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), which he sees as “violating the…Second Amendment.” He also wants to eliminate the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In March 1993, during the Clinton Presidency, Clinton created the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), headed by Vice President Al Gore. The NPR's theme was, as stated, “[to make government] work better and cost less.” Trump is certainly not the first president to focus on addressing cost-cutting. The GAO issued a report that looked at how the recommendations of the NPR were implemented and concluded:
Of the 72 NPR recommendations covered in our review, the 10 selected agencies considered almost 90 percent of them to be either fully or partially implemented. The agencies characterized 33 of the 72 recommendations as fully implemented, such as the recommendation to authorize federal tax payment by credit card. The agencies also considered another 30 recommendations as partially implemented because the recommended actions could not be done all at once and required time (several years in some cases) to complete them. For example, the agencies interpreted some of the NPR recommendations as calling for continuous improvement, such as the NPR recommendation to the Department of Energy (DOE) to improve contractor performance. In fact, in several instances the agencies indicated that they would continue their efforts related to the recommendations, even when they considered the recommendation to be fully implemented. The remaining nine recommendations included eight where agencies had taken some action and one where no action had been taken
This is not exactly light reading, but it gives a sense that government reform with the idea that there will be cost savings and an improvement in effectiveness is a systematic and organized process. Again, the Musk-Ramaswamy undertaking carries the impression that the way Musk approached Twitter after he took it over and changed the name to X and cut 80 percent of the staff, saying, “[It was] not fun at all,” and that it was “painful,” is the way he is looking at his version of reforming the federal government.
Trump may like creating the impression that addressing government waste is a top priority. Still, it is instructive to recall that the acting inspector general leading his administration’s COVID response with $2 trillion was among the inspector generals he fired during his first term (Glenn Fine). Trump did not like reports by Fine or other inspector generals that were critical of his administration’s inability to address waste and fraud. As one report on the money wasted by this COVID program noted:
How could so much be stolen? Investigators and outside experts say the government, in seeking to quickly spend trillions in relief aid, conducted too little oversight during the pandemic’s early stages and instituted too few restrictions on applicants. In short, they say, the grift was just way too easy.
“Here was this sort of endless pot of money that anyone could access,” said Dan Frucher, chief of the fraud and white-collar crime unit at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Washington. “Folks kind of fooled themselves into thinking that it was a socially acceptable thing to do, even though it wasn’t legal.”
Another report quoted another U.S. attorney saying, “Nothing like this has ever happened before. It is the biggest fraud in a generation.” Trump’s firing of the inspector general assigned to oversee the funds was a significant cause of this waste and fraud. It took several years after Trump left office to fully understand the extent of the waste and fraud. Will inspector generals be part of this Trump administration?
I suspect that whatever theatricals accompany Trump and the Musk-Ramaswamy undertaking will, unfortunately, allow many Americans to believe something serious was done to address government cost-cutting and improve effectiveness and efficiency. Musk’s use of “hardship” to explain what might be coming is probably accurate, but whether a more effective and efficient government is part of it is debatable.
Notes
Lauren Aratani, “Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession-and most blame Biden,” The Guardian (May 22, 2024): https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-biden#:~:text=The%20poll%20highlighted%20many%20misconceptions,GDP)%2C%20has%20been%20growing.
“Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government,” Pew Research Center (November 23, 2015): https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/beyond-distrust-how-americans-view-their-government/
Billy Binion, “Unable to Handle Criticism of Coronavirus Stimulus Waste, Trump Fires Another Watchdog,” Reason (April 7, 2020): https://reason.com/2020/04/07/unable-to-handle-criticism-of-coronavirus-stimulus-waste-trump-fires-another-watchdog-glenn-fine/
Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, “The Financial Crisis: Lessons for the Next One,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (October 15, 2015): https://www.cbpp.org/research/the-financial-crisis-lessons-for-the-next-one
John Buntin, “25 Years Later, What Happened to ‘Reinventing Government’?” Governing (August 29, 2016): https:// www.governing.com/archive/gov-reinventing-government-book.html
Joseph Cernik, “Do voters understand budget realities?” The St. Louis American (November 1, 2012): https://www.stlamerican.com/business/personal-finance/do-voters-understand-budget-realities/
Dave Davies, “A former inspector general shares stories of government waste, fraud and abuse,” NPR (October 17, 2024): https:// www.npr.org/2024/10/17/g-s1-28713/a-former-inspector-general-shares-stories-of-government-waste-fraud-and-abuse
Randy, DeSoto, “GOP Senator Gives Musk and Ramaswamy a ‘Head Start’ on Cutting Trillions in Government Spending,” The Western Journal (November 26, 2024): https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/gop-senator-gives-musk-and-ramaswamy-a-head-start-on-cutting-trillions-in-government-spending/ar-AA1uO6Hy?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=980168f7f2e84ad48e8fa46b9e516d5f&ei=13
Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler, “‘Biggest fraud in a generation’: The looting of the Covid relief plan known as PPP,” NBC News (March 28, 2022): https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664
Tom Fitzgerald and Jillian Smith, “Musk, Ramaswamy expected to slash federal jobs, welcome ‘mass resignations’ to cut spending,” FOX5 Washington DC (November 21, 2024): https:// www.fox5dc.com/news/musk-ramaswamy-expected-slash-federal-jobs-welcome-mass-resignations.amp
Inspector General, Oversight.Gov (Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency): https:// www.oversight.gov/about/inspectors-general#:~:text=Under%20the%20Inspector%20General%20Act%20of%201978%2C%20as,and%20effectiveness%20in%20the%20agency’s%20operations%20and%20programs.
Naomi LaChance, “Musk says Trump win would result in ‘Hardship’ for some Americans,” RollingStone (October 27, 2024): https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/musk-trump-win-hardship-americans-super-pac-2024-election-1235144449/
Richard Lardner, Jennifer McDermott and Aaron Kessler, “The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted,” AP (June 12, 2023): https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-fraud-waste-billions-small-business-labor-fb1d9a9eb24857efbe4611344311ae78
Laura Mannweller, “What to Know About Elon Musk’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’,” U.S. News & World Report (November 13, 2024): https:// www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-13/what-is-doge-elon-musk-and-vivek-ramaswamys-new-trump-agency
Alex Nitzberg, “Abolish the ATF? Rep. Burlison want to eliminate ‘disaster agency’ he says has been violating 2nd Amendment,” Fox News (November 22, 2024): https://www.foxnews.com/politics/abolish-atf-rep-burlison-wants-eliminate-disaster-agency-he-says-has-been-violating-2nd-amendment?msockid=01e3558be8e767be2788462ce9e666b8
David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (New York, Penguin Publishing Group, 1993)
Reinventing Government: Status of NPR Recommendations at 10 Federal Agencies, GAO (September 2000): https://www.gao.gov/assets/ggd-00-145.pdf
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States (January 2011): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf
Understanding Waste in Federal Programs, GAOverview (May 2024): https:// www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-107198.pdf
