D.O.G.E. Food

Washington is hyperventilating about the Department of Government Efficiency. Here's my $0.02 for helping the D.O.G.E. cut $2 trillion and drain the swamp.

Their hands trembled. Each breath came fast and shallow—in a desperate, ragged rhythm. The muscles along their necks and jaws clenched. Uncoordinated spasms spread down their arms in a palsy. Their chests heaved in rapid bursts, oxygen flooding and then evacuating their lungs in a panic cycle. Lips turned pale, and skins went ashen. They gripped whatever was near—a chair or table’s edge—to anchor themselves. Their eyes darted wide with uncomprehension as they struggled to stand.

This is happening everywhere in Washington. The Swamp, its subsidiaries, and its supplicants comprise 7-plus million people, including contractors. The federal government spent about $6.2 trillion last year, though it only took in about two-thirds of that sum in revenues. Debt service payments are now larger than the entire military budget, which is enormously wasteful. Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have promised to cut the federal budget by a third, which seems fantastical. Yet this would only take federal spending to pre-COVID levels (2019).

Still, many newly minted useless functionaries—not to mention entrenched interests—benefit from this expanding trough. As I have written in these pages many times, the federal government must roll back the spending, or we will face calamity.

All roads lead to hyperinflation.

Brainstorm for the D.O.G.E

The following is a list. I want to get down as many ideas as possible, hoping that some will trickle into the consciousness of those at the D.O.G.E. Please understand that this list is far from ideal. Indeed, it goes beyond what most would consider the Overton Window, and there will be aggressive countervailing forces. Let us be under no illusions: Entrenched Washington is an enormously powerful bloc. The Glob rules the world.

Our corrupt Congress will not likely reform anything.

So, this exercise is rather like yelling into the maelstrom. I’ll let more learned folks sort out the constitutional limits and necessary political machinations but try to approximate what is legally possible using Executive authority.

1. General

   1. Department incentives for cost-cutting:

      • If a department can reduce its budget expenditure below a pre-set target, a portion (e.g., 10%) of the savings could be redistributed among the employees of that department. This distribution could be based on salary rank or other performance metrics to encourage staff participation in finding waste and assessing who can be furloughed.

      • Savings could be calculated against a baseline budget, adjusted for inflation, and any new legislative mandates requiring new spending.

   2. Create a 2-4-year temporary furlough program similar to that pioneered by Accenture. The idea would be that an employee could opt to leave their service for a prescribed period and take 20 percent of their salary but be guaranteed to return for at least two years if they opt to take the offer.

   3. For mandatory expenditures, create commission- or incentives-based predator agencies charged with ferreting out internal waste through audits and investigations.

   4. OMB knows where the bodies are buried. Recruit them into your war against waste.

   5. Eliminate any subsidies not required by law.

   6. Expand whistleblower protections and auditing.

   7. Introduce difficult-to-game incentive systems to change the bureaucracy.

   8. Clean out departments and regulatory clutter based on all the past Chevron overreach. That means paring down the federal register.

   9. Pressure Congress to reform pensions across the board to create a single, defined-contribution plan for military and civilian workers.

   10. Pressure Congress to means-test all entitlements.

   11. Pressure Congress to… (a recurring theme).

       1. Do the right things.

       2. Do not do the wrong things.

2. Military Budgets

   1. Scrap procurement and R&D incentives such that the military-industrial complex is more competitive. The current cost-plus contracts open the door to waste, fraud, and abuse—not to mention a careerist revolving door.

   2. Introduce more X-prize-style contests for R&D grants.

   3. Ensure all civilian use cases are open source and available for private-sector adoption, perhaps replacing what would have been the first 3-5 years of patent protection with a licensure agreement.

   4. Eliminate no-bid contracting and accelerate competitive bidding.

   5. Create more rigorous transparency requirements for all expenditures, including punishments for resources not accounted for.

   6. Scale back the number of military bases worldwide based on strategic priority; Scale down the number of active due personnel on a given base.

   7. Help dubious administrative personnel such as DEI trainers and contractors find the door.

   8. Create consequences with real teeth for audit failures, such as the last (checks notes) seven audits.

   9. Provide more efficient options for veteran pensions and retirement plans, resulting in long-term cost savings.

   10. Ignore “that’s just a drop in the bucket” talk. Prioritize, of course, but realize big dynamics can result from very small changes. (Walking is improved when you remove a thumbtack from your heel.)

3. Education

   1. Since its inception in 1980, aggregated US education outcomes have seen no appreciable improvement despite increased spending.

      

      The most current DoE budget is estimated to have been $80 billion.

   2. 12th-grade reading and math scores through time:

      

      As Elon Musk would say, “Delete it.”

4. Healthcare

   Many of my best ideas would require Congressional approval, including repeal of the ACA and an entirely different patient-centric healthcare system. Still, here are cost-cutting measures that could be constitutional.

   1. Offer incentives to states and direct payments to individuals eligible for Medicaid to incentivize transitions away from traditional Medicaid to voucherized Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and catastrophic insurance. (Use existing waiver authorities under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act to modify Medicaid programs with Executive action.)

   2. Offer incentives to states to jettison Certificates of Need (CON) laws.

   3. While Congress controls patents, the FDA grants additional market exclusivity periods for certain drugs and devices independent of patent protection. For example:

      • Orphan Drug Exclusivity: 7 years.

      • New Chemical Entities: 5 years.

      The President could direct the FDA to revise how it interprets or grants these exclusivities, where flexibility exists within the law.

   4. Trim the fat across all departments, including the functionaries.

   5. Delete the National Institutes of Health (NIH); replace it with modest block grants to states based on non-partisan formulae.

   6. Reform the FDA so that it focuses on safety, leaving proof of efficacy to drug labeling mandates and competing private certification providers.

   7. Overhaul Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the manner of 1. Pressure Congress to means test and privatize part or all benefits, which comprise the bulk of the federal budget.

   8. Create healthy behavior incentives for those receiving benefits and make SNAP and other food voucher programs focus resources on healthy foods.

5. Transportation

   1. Privatize the FAA in the manner of Europe but preserve some regulatory oversight, including assistance with developing standards and best practices.

   2. Push all other matters to the states, including maintenance and construction of interstate highways.

   3. Pressure Congress to privatize Amtrak.

6. Energy

   1. Most divisions within the Department of Energy can be eliminated.

   2. Keep divisions that oversee nuclear waste disposal and regulation, nuclear security (while pushing Congress to lift the moratorium), and maintain the network of national laboratories that are clearly in the public interest.

7. Research

   1. Push scientific research funding to the states by dismantling the NSF or having it be a small block-grant disbursement agency (to states), which grants according to a fair formula.

   2. Introduce more X-prize-style contests for any remaining federal R&D grants.

   3. Create a 1-1 dollar-matching crowdfund for R&D projects that use dominant assurance contracts for awards. An agency approves the initial listing, but the people decide the rest. (Same with art projects.)

8. Taxation

   1. Pressure Congress to pass a bill making corporate tax just $1, bypassing a Constitutional Amendment; Replace corporate taxation revenues with a national sales tax of 5%. (Corporate tax is just a hidden consumption tax.)

   2. Pressure Congress to pass a bill making income tax just $1, bypassing a Constitutional Amendment. Replace income tax revenues with a blend of:

      1. Targeted and/or reciprocal tariffs.

      2. Carbon and pollution taxes.

      3. Transaction taxes for trades on stocks, bonds, and derivatives, including high-frequency trades.

      4. A 25 percent estate tax for anyone with a net worth over $1 million, which would either sunset or be suspended given a balanced budget.

   3. Pressure Congress to eliminate all tax on capital gains, as with Singapore.

9. Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy

   1. Aggressively remove Fed governors and chairpersons due to cause.

   2. Liberalize SEC regulations such that there are escape routes from dollar hegemony, including improved criteria for what constitutes a security and changes to thresholds for “Accredited Investors.” (Deregulate tokens.)

   3. If there must be a dollar monopoly, return to a commodity standard that prevents money printing (e. g. quantitative easing)

   4. Pressure Congress to audit, reform, or entirely dismantle the Federal Reserve over time—and legalize 100 percent reserves banking.

   5. Create a bitcoin and precious metals reserve.

10. Multilateral Governance Organizations and Foreign Aid

    1. Ideally, the government should withdraw from all multilateral governance organizations such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, and NATO, but, at minimum, each member should be required to pay a share proportional to its expected benefit. Short of what is possible without Congressional approval, scale back everything possible.

    2. Restrict development aid only to those nations willing to liberalize their institutions and remain peaceful with the United States, including controlling internal actors such as terror groups.

11. Schedule for Deletion or Restructuring

    1. Push as far as possible within the sphere of the Executive power without violating the Constitution, and pressure Congress for the rest.

    2. Delete the FBI, dismissing partisan, corrupt, or mafioso agents and directors. Reassign the remaining agents among mission-specific, independent agencies that can compete and coordinate. For example: Financial, Cyber, Violent, Drugs, Internal Affairs, etc., should focus on these areas, and cross-collaboration should occur for complex crimes. Create new reporting and transparency rules for Congressional oversight.

    3. Delete the Department of Homeland Security, except for restructured Immigration and Border Protection agencies. Re-privatize airport security. Make the Coast Guard a quasi-independent division of Customs and Border Protection.

    4. Post Office.

       1. Congress is charged with establishing “Post Offices and Post Roads," so there will be legal barriers to Executive reform. Still, it might be possible to maintain the “post roads” status quo and then transform post offices into distribution centers that could outsource to private parcel carrier firms engaged in competitive bidding.

       2. The nation’s army of postal carriers would be made redundant but eligible to work in contracted firms, such as DHS, UPS, and FedEx.

    5. Delete the ATF.

    6. Restructure or eliminate the DEA with a particular focus on deadly drugs like methamphetamine and Fentanyl, away from cannabis and psychedelics.

    7. Delete EPA and push its functions down to the individual states.

    8. Pressure Congress to auction off federal land and push most BLM responsibilities to the states. Pressure Congress to make all Indian reservations independent nations and delete the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

    9. Restructure the CIA by cutting out the rot, scaling back covert operations with covert budgets, and focusing instead on intelligence gathering based on an anti-imperial prioritization schedule.

    10. Delete the IRS and keep the remaining necessary functions under the Treasury Department.

I could go on. I’m certain I’ve missed a lot simply because the bureaucracy is so vast and sprawling. Congress has the power of the purse.

But that’s rather the point.

It’s true that the US government produces too little and consumes too much. However, the pathologies of the federal government don’t just center on the danger-zone debt and record unfunded liabilities. The opportunity costs, moral hazards, and imperial overreach are just as threatening. At this point, it might be too late. Elon, Vivek, and Co might fire the deck hands on the Titanic. But something must be done. The DOGE might be undertaking an impossible task. The US economy will collapse sooner or later.

Tomorrow is the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the US, so I’ll be off gaining weight. But I want to invite readers to use the comments liberally with other ideas. Remember: we’re considering actions the DOGE and the Executive can legally take. I admit to putting in more than a few “Pressure Congress” ideas. If you have ideas, please be sure the President can legally execute them over the next four years and fire away!