Swamp, meet DOGE.
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head up a new Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump’s move makes good on a campaign pledge to give Musk sweeping oversight of government spending.
Trump said in a statement on social media that the department will help "dismantle Government Bureaucracy" and slash excess regulations.
DOGE will exist "outside of Government," Trump wrote. The department will give advice to those in the White House about overhauling federal agencies.
“The arrangement would also be likely to allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval,” NBC News reported.
Trump said he wants DOGE to help deliver "drastic change," and he compared its ambitions to those of the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.
"It will become, potentially, the Manhattan Project' of our time," Trump said. "Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of 'DOGE' for a very long time."
Musk has said his goal is to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion.
"This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!" Musk said in a statement released by the Trump transition team.
Ramaswamy said on X this week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “If you simply mandated federal employees to work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., like most Americans, you’d see a mass exodus — probably a 25% thinning of the bureaucracy right there.”
Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primaries on eliminating federal agencies. His initial targets included the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.
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The Government Accountability Office indicated it would provide any necessary information to Trump's new entity.
“GAO has cooperated and shared information in the past when presidential or congressional commissions have been established to address the federal government’s programs and operations, as well as fiscal and other challenges. We will take that same approach with any new commissions formed and stand by ready to assist the new Congress and the Executive branch," Gene. L. Dodaro, United States Comptroller General and head of the GAO, said in a statement.
"As the investigative arm of Congress, GAO continues to examine how federal dollars are spent and provide lawmakers and agency heads with objective, non-partisan, professional, fact-based recommendations to help the government save money and work more efficiently,” Dodaro added.
During an interview with NBC News last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is expected to play a key role overseeing public health issues in the new Trump administration, said he intends to disband numerous health departments in the executive branch.
Kennedy singled out “the nutrition departments” at the Food and Drug Administration, saying they “have to go.”
Trump gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for DOGE to conclude its work.
The name of the agency, DOGE for short, is a reference to a meme and a cryptocurrency associated with Musk.
Threat to democracy?
Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
🚨STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Let’s go, @elonmusk @VivekGRamaswamy! pic.twitter.com/YKT1V1UBVR — Karoline Leavitt (@kleavittnh) November 13, 2024
