The newly elected Trump administration is moving fast on what is likely to be their premiere initiative, an assault on the federal bureaucracy that will allow them to staff the government with loyalists. This takes the form of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The Republicans have correctly perceived that the failure of the first Trump administration to achieve key goals was due to the lack of the right personnel, and they have used the four year interregnum to come up with plans to fix this problem. Indeed, getting staffing right is the precondition for Trump to achieve any of his goals, from economic policy to migration to culture change.
Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out a game plan of sorts in an op-ed published in the *Wall Street Journal*. Theirs is not the first ambitious effort to reform the government; most, like the Grace Commission in the 1980s, have failed in the face of enormous legal challenges. Whether DOGE can succeed today is an open question; it too needs to overcome a series of challenges.
First off, DOGE is not a department; departments can only be created by Congress. Nor is it an advisory committee; such bodies are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which imposes strict rules regarding transparency and open meetings. In recognition of this, Musk and Ramaswamy have suggested that they will simply make recommendations that can be used by allies like Russ Vought, the designated head of the Office of Management and Budget, for how to shrink government.
Nor do they have the authority to fire federal workers or close agencies as part of their announced intention to cut $2 trillion from the Federal Budget. To get around this, they have resorted to other tactics. While individual workers have legal job protections, agencies can engage in Reductions in Force (RIFs) that affect groups of workers, and DOGE has promised to pursue that route. They have suggested that all workers need to be in the office five days a week, and that some agencies can be moved out of Washington. More ominously, Musk has started to single out individual government officials and to rally online mobs against them. His intention is to create an atmosphere of fear, wherein many current workers will voluntarily leave government service.
The irony, of course, is that the best qualified are the likeliest to leave. All of this is done in anticipation of a revived executive order that will be issued shortly after January 20 of next year, creating a Schedule F category of at-will workers, into which a vast number of federal employees will be moved. Such an order will doubtless be contested in the courts, but as Don Kettl notes in an earlier *American Purpose* piece, the courts are unlikely to find such a move unconstitutional.
ProfessionalCreme119 on
>They have suggested that all workers need to be in the office five days a week, and that some agencies can be moved out of Washington.
Out of everything this will be the most damaging. Mark my words. …we are going to hear about certain government agencies being located in deeply red areas and only hiring likely Republican voters. This could be a problem for a long time until they shut those offices down and get them moved back to washington. Or another area that will staff it more evenly.
DC office workers are not going to move to Tulsa or Omaha to keep their job. Especially because it’s unlikely they will be compensated for travel or moving fees.
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The newly elected Trump administration is moving fast on what is likely to be their premiere initiative, an assault on the federal bureaucracy that will allow them to staff the government with loyalists. This takes the form of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The Republicans have correctly perceived that the failure of the first Trump administration to achieve key goals was due to the lack of the right personnel, and they have used the four year interregnum to come up with plans to fix this problem. Indeed, getting staffing right is the precondition for Trump to achieve any of his goals, from economic policy to migration to culture change.
Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out a game plan of sorts in an op-ed published in the *Wall Street Journal*. Theirs is not the first ambitious effort to reform the government; most, like the Grace Commission in the 1980s, have failed in the face of enormous legal challenges. Whether DOGE can succeed today is an open question; it too needs to overcome a series of challenges.
First off, DOGE is not a department; departments can only be created by Congress. Nor is it an advisory committee; such bodies are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which imposes strict rules regarding transparency and open meetings. In recognition of this, Musk and Ramaswamy have suggested that they will simply make recommendations that can be used by allies like Russ Vought, the designated head of the Office of Management and Budget, for how to shrink government.
Nor do they have the authority to fire federal workers or close agencies as part of their announced intention to cut $2 trillion from the Federal Budget. To get around this, they have resorted to other tactics. While individual workers have legal job protections, agencies can engage in Reductions in Force (RIFs) that affect groups of workers, and DOGE has promised to pursue that route. They have suggested that all workers need to be in the office five days a week, and that some agencies can be moved out of Washington. More ominously, Musk has started to single out individual government officials and to rally online mobs against them. His intention is to create an atmosphere of fear, wherein many current workers will voluntarily leave government service.
The irony, of course, is that the best qualified are the likeliest to leave. All of this is done in anticipation of a revived executive order that will be issued shortly after January 20 of next year, creating a Schedule F category of at-will workers, into which a vast number of federal employees will be moved. Such an order will doubtless be contested in the courts, but as Don Kettl notes in an earlier *American Purpose* piece, the courts are unlikely to find such a move unconstitutional.
>They have suggested that all workers need to be in the office five days a week, and that some agencies can be moved out of Washington.
Out of everything this will be the most damaging. Mark my words. …we are going to hear about certain government agencies being located in deeply red areas and only hiring likely Republican voters. This could be a problem for a long time until they shut those offices down and get them moved back to washington. Or another area that will staff it more evenly.
DC office workers are not going to move to Tulsa or Omaha to keep their job. Especially because it’s unlikely they will be compensated for travel or moving fees.
!ping ADMINISTRATIVE-STATE