What you need to know about DOGE and its effort to reduce government waste, spending

The newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is preparing to launch after the Trump administration is sworn in with the stated goal of reducing government waste and providing greater transparency when it comes to government spending.

DOGE is not a government-level department, but a blue-ribbon committee outside government that will be tasked with examining issues of government spending, waste, efficiency and operations.

Proponents of DOGE led by Tesla and the director of Space X Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have proposed that $2 trillion in government waste can be cut from the federal budget by cutting spending, eliminating government programs and reducing the federal workforce.

Although the Commission has no formal authority, it has pledged to work closely with the Office of Management and Budget to reform regulatory constraints, administrative reductions, and cost savings.

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In addition to working with certain government agencies, DOGE is likely to propose executive actions that President Trump could take.

Several committees of the House of Representatives and caucuses have already expressed their intention and willingness to cooperate with the DOGE until it ceases to operate on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of 1776. Independence Dayin order to achieve the goal of reducing state waste.

“Our national debt has surpassed a staggering $36 trillion, and it should be a wake-up call for all Americans,” explained Caucus Co-Chairman Aaron Bean (R-Fla.). “We must take steps to avoid diving headlong off the cliff of fiscal ruin. I am delighted with President-elect Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE, but dealing with Crazy Town will not be an easy task – they will need partners.

“Our DOGE Caucus will work closely with the Department of Government Efficiency to help curb reckless spending and stop the misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

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House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) next intends to create a new subcommittee, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), to oversee Delivering on Government Efficiency. The subcommittee will be tasked with coordinating with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through an investigation into wasteful spending, looking at how to reorganize federal agencies to improve efficiency and identify solutions to eliminate bureaucratic “red tape.”

“It’s time to cut red tape, hold the unvetted federal workforce accountable, ensure program effectiveness, and work with @DOGE to fight waste, fraud and abuse,” Comer published on X in December.

On the Senate side, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst will chair the Senate Extraordinary Government Efficiency Committee.

“‘Iowans elected me with a mandate to cut Washington’s pork!’ Ernst said of DOGE’s efforts. “From billion-dollar shenanigans to politicians’ welfare and trillion-dollar trusts, my decade-long investigations have exposed levels of abuse almost too crazy to believe.

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“The tide is finally turning, the knives are out, and the waste is on the chopping block. As President Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy prepare to take action, the Senate DOGE Caucus stands ready to provide critical oversight to Congress and use our legislative powers to fight back against entrenched bureaucracy, trim the fat and put Washington back to work for Americans.'”

Few historical examples exist in American history, with mixed results and less ambitious goals, of government efforts to cut unnecessary spending and personnel.

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Keep Commission, which attempted to “place the conduct of government on the most economical and efficient basis in the light of the best modern business practice” and was greeted as “the first of the orderly trials in [Federal] administrative problems.”

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Five years later, President William Howard Taft was embezzled $100,000 by Congress to “examine the methods of carrying on the public business of the government in the several executive departments and other agencies of the government, with a view to … changing the old methods … to achieve greater efficiency … and to recommend to Congress what changes in law may be necessary .”

President Bill Clinton’s administration was launched The National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), led by Vice President Al Gore, aims to make the federal government “work better, cost less, and get results Americans care about.”

Gore said: “We’re turning some of today’s agencies into smaller, sleeker organizations that won’t look like government at all. They’ll be like private companies, with a real CEO on contract to cut costs and a free hand when it comes to the rest of the government’s rules.”

President Obama signed the executive order in June 2011, the establishment of the Campaign to Reduce Government Waste created an 11-member Oversight and Accountability Committee with the stated mission of giving “taxpayers the same ability to track where their dollars are going and to have the same confidence that dollars are not lost to waste, fraud or abuses, not just for Recovery Act dollars, but more broadly.”

Steve Davis, president of Boring Co., Musk’s tunneling operation, and Michael Kratsios, America’s former chief technology officer, are among those leading interviews of potential candidates for DOGE employees, according to people familiar with the job.

DOGE is believed to have hired approximately 10 people so far and is looking for software engineers as well as people with artificial intelligence experience. Other famous names believed to be connected to the DOGE launch include Palantir co-founder and investor Joe Lonsdale, investor Marc Andreessen, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

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For now, DOGE operates out of glass-walled Washington office space leased by SpaceX, another Musk-owned company, about four blocks from the White House.

Some other key areas in which DOGE hopes to advance, Musk and Ramaswamy have previously outlinedthey include streamlining the US tax code, an overhaul of the Department of Defense, returning National Institutes of Health money to taxpayers and transparency on foreign aid.

“I expect DOGE to operate in ‘founder mode’ — lean, determined and driven by two great people in Vivek and Elon who obsess over every detail,” said James Fishback, a Ramaswamy confidant and co-founder of investment firm Azoria Partners.