A lot of jokes about Elon Musk are making the rounds, in light of his new role in identifying government waste, fraud and abuse. One says after he puts a car into orbit, outer space will be full of germs and diseases, no longer auto-immune. Another asks what he has in common with Thomas Edison. Answer: they both got rich off Tesla.
The mission of the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) that he will co-chair with Vivek Ramaswamy, is not a joke, though. In fact, the idea of reducing wasteful spending has already achieved some level of bipartisan support in Congress. Leaders on both sides are saying no one should oppose efficiency, which is easy to say before anyone has had to vote on any specific program cut.
Every government program has a constituency and even scaling back any program will be a major political challenge for Musk and Ramaswamy, especially since DOGE is, at least so far, an advisory group without legal authority. We have seen such proposals before, many times in my own memory, and government is bigger now than ever, and is $36 trillion in debt, not counting the $75 trillion in unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. If there was ever a time for DOGE, it is now.
Thousands of Americans are taking the challenge seriously and sending innumerable suggestions about government programs they think should be cut. No one has asked for my opinion, nor is anyone likely to, but just in case…
Start with the Bureau of Reclamation, not because it is an especially large program by government standards, but because it is a perfect example of obsolescence. Congress created it in 1902 to build water projects and “make the deserts bloom.” It was successful in that for decades, but Congress quit funding major water projects 50 years ago. Yet the Bureau not only still exists but has an annual budget over $1 billion, 5,296 employees, 1,774 buildings, 304 bridges, 2,601 miles of roads, 338 reservoirs, 487 dams, 8,116 miles of canals, and 7.8 million acres of land. Managing dams and power stations is not a uniquely federal business, nor is the Bureau the largest of either. There is no good reason for its continued existence. Similarly, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought power to the Appalachians during the Depression, and today has assets worth perhaps $20 billion. Does it still need taxpayer subsidies?
Privatizing government “businesses” is at the top of many recommendation lists under consideration at DOGE. That includes Amtrak, public broadcasting, the postal service, air traffic control, power marketing administrations, and lots of real estate. Federal assets are conservatively estimated to be worth well over $100 trillion, including over $20 trillion worth of land, mostly across the West. It also owns 2.4 billion square feet of buildings, including 460 million square feet of office space, and the 24 largest agencies that occupy most of it reported that they use an average of only 25 percent of that space.
The Cato Institute proposes to abolish the Bureau of Land Management and transfer its lands to the states, as advocated by the American Lands Council, and thinks many national parks and monuments – those with relatively low visitor rates – could easily be offloaded to states and nonprofits like the National Historical Society.
The most impactful ideas being considered, though, would be significant reductions in the regulatory burden imposed by many agencies, especially the EPA. A simple requirement that Congress approve any new regulations would put an end to most overreach, and the same kind of sunset requirement that Colorado and many other states impose would make many rules disappear after a certain number of years. That’s just sound government.
Finally, if DOGE really wants to reduce spending significantly, it must put a stop to most government grants, subsidies, and loans – for just about every industry. There is no more reason to subsidize wind farms than oil rigs, no good reason to give billions every year to college professors to publish research papers, often on obscure subjects that only lead to ridicule. Should rural Colorado taxpayers subsidize the New York subway, Princeton’s research lab, solar arrays in California, or cotton growers in Texas?
I know Elon Musk, one of the world’s greatest thinkers whose dedication we should all be grateful for, is considering all these ideas and many more, and I am nowhere near as smart as he. Although I must say, he paid $44 billion for Twitter, and I downloaded it for free.
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