The Trump Federal Efficiency Plan: From Swamp Gas to Slimline
Can a new department succeed where others failed?
By Greg Maresca
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on reducing the federal bureaucracy. Trump realizes that any change can only be accomplished by appointing outsiders with the courage of their convictions. Wasting no time, Trump tasked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Trump Federal efficiency plan is to root out federal mismanagement across the board.
Ironically, this cutting crusade begins with the establishment of yet another Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is supposed to ensure your tax dollars are spent cost-effectively.
Does DOGE eliminate the GAO and, for that matter, The Office of Management and Budget?
Trump could certainly make changes through executive orders, but those changes will likely be temporary. The next president could rehire all bureaucrats and even add to their numbers allowing the new chief executive to boast about being an extraordinary “job creator.”
Ending decades of entrenched bureaucracy will be like trying to get an aircraft carrier to U-turn in a parking lot. Conversely, trimming two trillion from the federal budget would go a long way in sustaining prosperity by unburdening the American taxpayer. Who knew that the federal budget poses more of a threat than the once formidable but now extinct Warsaw Pact?
Does the Trump Federal efficiency plan have any realistic chance of success? During Trump’s first term, the federal budget and deficit increased. Does anyone really think that a Republican Congress is going to shrink government and cut the bloat of regulatory agencies seriously and effectively in less than two years?
Call me incredulous, but history weaves a different tale.
President Ronald Reagan couldn’t banish the Department of Education to the ash heap of history created less than two years before he was inaugurated in January 1981. Republicans usually slow government overreach, but I have yet to witness any profound reduction of wasteful government spending – ever.
We have all heard about the $1,000 toilet seats and screwdrivers and how the Post Office annually loses billions, making it the most profitable government agency. The amount of duplicity and overlay within the alphabet soup of the 441 federal agencies is overwhelming.
Most could be eliminated, and no one would notice.
Rather than be about outcomes that benefit “we the people,” government agencies focus on their own agendas while being poor stewards of tax dollars.
Government is a problem masquerading as its own solution.
Bureaucracy not only abhors a vacuum, but it is filled with highly toxic and deadly swamp gas, and that is why the District of Columbia voted 92% Democrat.
Expectations will far outstrip reality.
It remains a herculean task, but progress is not impossible.
A change in executive leadership is the first step but not the entire solution.
President Ronald Reagan memorably said, “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Education Department are prime examples. HUD was created in 1965 to increase home ownership, which stood at 64%, but 59 years and three trillion dollars later, home ownership remains at 64%.
Where in the Constitution is there any authority to govern housing and urban development?
First up on the DOGE agenda: rescind all federal employees from collective bargaining. If that is all that is accomplished, the Trump Federal efficiency plan would still be a rousing success. That should be followed by eliminating the IRS and establishing a flat tax.
Enormous resistance awaits Musk and Ramaswamy as the Leftist swamp creatures will fight and dodge DOGE at every turn. Anchored within the depths of the swamp, DOGE will spend plenty of time and resources battling legal challenges, while any successes reflecting poorly on Democrats will go unreported.
There are 535 government employees in the Capitol that continually surrender their lawmaking authority to the administrative state. The deep state must be stripped of its unelected career bureaucrats and the enormous power they unlawfully wield over the American people.
If those 535 in Congress were doing their job, none of this is necessary.
What better national birthday gift on our 250th anniversary – July 4, 2026 – to rein in spending through full transparency that would return the power of the purse back to Congress and, ultimately, the taxpayer?
Business-as-usual must end with DOGE ceasing to exist, provided it proves effective.
There is no other way.
 | A guest post by
|
“If those 535 were doing their job NONE of this is necessary”
If to be taken literally, this could be one of the silliest, most frivolous, juvenile statements made in a supposedly serious commentaries on modern government