It’s clear that Elon Musk and President Trump’s efforts with DOGE to upend established government agencies and processes are creating chaos and uncertainty. It’s time to take a step back and consider what they are trying to do, what they are actually doing, and most importantly how this shows the failure of our two-party system.
As someone who has been intensely interested in reinventing government for decades, let me repeat the best line I have read on the topic: “You can’t cut fat from a line-item budget.” That comes from the David Osborne book called, you guessed it, “Reinventing Government”.
Put simply, if you just cut people or programs without a clear understanding of what the mission is, you are going to miss what should be the point of the exercise---to deliver better services at a lower cost to citizens. There is absolutely inefficiency and waste in our government and people who just want to blow the system up in frustration. I understand the sentiment, but creating chaos doesn’t improve outcomes, it just creates new and different kinds of inefficiency and waste.
I know that we can accomplish the goal of a more efficient government with proper incentives and clear, accountable goals. We can reward programs that work, and cut or reduce programs that don’t.
How do we do that? Here’s a simple plan to downsize, rightsize, and make government decisions that are data-driven so programs can prove they solve problems:
- Be transparent about why we want to make a change - state the problem.
- Define the mission of a specific program then to fix it.
- Prioritize what government does well to serve the mission with resources available.
- Decide how to clearly measure success.
- Get buy-in from a majority of stakeholders.
- Then make changes in a thoughtful, consensus-based way while communicating with all levels of government to eliminate the source of most waste in the system: duplicative services at the city, county, state and federal levels from a lack of coordination.
- And finally, establish consequences that are transparent to all parties if goals are not met.
Let’s use reducing poverty as an example. The U.S. has spent billions, probably trillions of dollars trying to reduce poverty with food stamps, HUD housing, child tax credits, Medicaid, and many more in-kind benefits. Have we moved the needle on poverty? The earned income tax credit seems to have helped pull 5 million people and 3 million kids out of poverty, but with poverty increasing several percentage points in the last year, it seems the other programs are not doing enough. In fact, there is evidence that many federal programs may have perpetuated a cycle of poverty by attaching the stigma of “welfare recipient” to those it’s trying to help.
Did anyone ever ask which programs were moving the needle on poverty? Did they shut down programs because they did not work? How do they know? Did they set performance goals so that federal employees knew what they were doing and how to get there? Were agencies told the continued funding of their positions depended on meeting those goals?
Back to the idea that you can’t cut fat from a line-item budget: to cut fat you have to have a public discussion about what is essential, and what is not. You have to set priorities for what you want to accomplish, and eliminate duplicative services between the Feds, state, county and city. It has to be coordinated, discussed, then acted upon.
Does this sound like government? Yes, because it is. But we don’t have a good government because we have a duopoly. We have leaders that answer to the extremes of both parties (largely due to partisan, low turnout, often closed primaries) and secret mega donors buying influence that usurp the needs, and will of the voters.
DOGE is taking a chainsaw to some programs that work -- with effective employees -- and just whacking them all. There is no discussion or collaboration with experts who know which programs are meeting goals and no consensus on what the goals are.
As someone who served in the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer, I saw the good, the bad and the ugly with both USAID and State. Is there waste, fraud and abuse in USAID? Yes, there is. That’s true in all large organizations, both public and private. Does USAID do some good things? Yes they do. They fund wastewater treatment, dig new water wells, and other public health initiatives in poor countries. The Department of State is our diplomatic corp and should be the lead agency for keeping us and our allies out of war.
Has any of this been discussed in a thoughtful way? No. Have we heard the administration ever talk about what their priorities are or how the Departments of State, Defense and the intelligence agencies should be working together or what their priorities are? No, just a lot of anger.
While the Republican administration has chosen a burn-it-to the-ground approach the Democrats have had years to solve government bloat, but have become the defenders of the status quo: protector of large institutions and labor unions who protect federal workers regardless of efficacy. Neither party is solving problems for the American people: how to deliver cost-effective services that are good value for taxpayers. Why do we have more choices for breakfast cereal than we do political candidates?
Bob Perls, Chairman, Forward Party of New Mexico
Former NM State Representative
Disclaimer: this opinion is that of the author, not of the Forward Party of New Mexico. The Forward Party is dedicated to educating the public about many public policy options to reform our system of governing and deliver better services at a lower price. We do not have a fixed platform, but our leaders and candidates have much in common and that is a desire to work together, listen well and solve wicked complex problems that neither major party is effectively addressing.
