Musk and Ramaswamy Announce First Set of DOGE Targets

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed as the heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The new office is responsible for trimming waste from government spending to help offset the deficit.

After having met with government officials, Ramaswamy and Musk have apparently put together a potential list for cuts.

Necessary Cuts

The United States federal government has more than 400 federal agencies and it is the largest employer in the country.

Our government seems to get bigger with every passing administration, not exactly what our founding fathers envisioned.

Musk believes he can slash as much as $2 trillion in federal spending with these cuts, and several agencies appear to be targeted for outright elimination.

DOGE already has an official X account, and it is dropping hints about where these cuts are going to land.

For instance, DOGE recently posted, "In 1955, there were less than 1.5 million words in the U.S. Tax Code. Today, there are more than 16 million words.

“Because of this complexity, Americans collectively spend 6.5 billion hours preparing and filing their taxes each year. This must be simplified."

DOGE has also been very critical of the Department of Defense budget, posting about more than $200 billion in fraud, another $200 billion in improper payments, and failing to track the $ 1 billion or so in aid sent to Ukraine.

DOGE also noted that there had been a whopping $516 billion to programs, nearly $320 billion of which was reviving money that had been earmarked for other programs, never used, and had expired.

Ramaswamy had posted that the government has nearly 8,000 empty buildings due to federal workers now being permitted to work from home, which is costing taxpayers about $15 billion a year.

To that last point, Musk also noted that when eliminating security and maintenance workers, less than 1% of federal workers actually show up at the office for a 40-hour work week.

One thing I am really excited to see change was also mentioned, and that is our antiquated computers and systems, which the government currently spends about $100 billion a year in its IT budget to maintain.

From what I can see, we are about to get a major upgrade, and it should be one that finally enables the Pentagon to track its inventory (I am just baffled that this has been going on for decades and nobody has bothered to fix it).

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am truly looking forward to what DOGE comes up with in terms of cuts and the reaction by Democrats when it happens.