DOGE – Department of Government Efficiency

With the Presidential election only seven days away, and the potential for significant leadership changes, if Trump wins, Elon Musk will be taking up the role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, with the expectation of US$2 trillion in government spending waste removed – barely enough to cover the current ballooning deficit of US$1.83 trillion per year. Is it time the taxpayer started questioning what their taxes are being spent on, and if they are benefiting them? In Corporate America, during the 1980s shareholder value for money brought new economic prosperity to its shareholders, is the government finally catching up?

Jack Welsh and the Bottom 15%

Jack Welsh headed up General Electric between 1991 -2001 increasing its market share from US$12 billion to US$410 billion. In 2004 GE was the largest company by Market Cap in the world. The reason we are looking at Jack Welch is he popularised the ‘rank and yank’. To keep the company lean and competitive he would fire the bottom 10% of managers and reward the top 20% with bonuses and stock options. It was in the middle manager's interest to succeed and excel otherwise they potentially faced the chopping block.

As Jack Welch innovated the bureaucratic structure of GE he slashed employees from 411,000 employees at the end of 1980 to 299,000 by 1985. He also dismantled the 9-layer management hierarchy opting for flat corporate management structures. His speech in 1981 in New York called ‘Growing fast in a slow-growth economy’ has been acknowledged as the dawn of the shareholder value movement.

Since the 1980s company bureaucracy has been known to hinder shareholder value, companies have innovated, flattened bureaucracy, and grown shareholder value, it seems to be another story in the public sector and perhaps their accountability to their ‘shareholders’ is what has been sadly lacking.

Department of Government Efficiency

With Elon’s many achievements in space and transport, it seems appropriate that he be given the helm of a government department to clean up the spending and increase accountability to taxpayers. Trump recently announced the establishment of the Government Efficiency Commission, led by Musk.

Trump stated, “I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”

In response to his proposed appointment, Musk began to look at the government's accountability and their need to efficiently spend for the benefit of taxpayers.

"I think in general the amount of waste that happens with the federal government is really staggering. It's a staggering amount of waste of taxpayer money and if we're for any given expenditure we have to say well what does this do for the citizens of America?"

Any excess in expenditure that is not beneficial should be seen as a misuse of funds.

"Politicians seem to forget that the money being spent is your money and if it's not spending being spent in a way that is beneficial to the American people it's a misuse of the funds,"

Rand Paul and the Festivus Report

Trump and Musk are not the only ones screaming about taxpayer waste. Republican Senator Rand Paul has criticised huge deficits and uncontrolled spending for years. One of his examples was the US$100,000 spent in 1975 on whether a sunfish that drank tequila was more aggressive than a sunfish that drank gin.

A ridiculous waste of taxpayer money, especially when everyone already knows the answer is gin.

Every Christmas, Senator Rand Paul has a tradition of releasing a list of grievances known as the Festivus Report, identifying how the Federal Government wastes U.S. taxpayer money, in 2022 he found US$482 billion in waste, including US$1.7 billion in maintaining empty government buildings and US$140 million for a luxury spa in Florida. The total identified waste equated to US$3,300 per taxpayer (Federal only!)

In 2023, reports found US$900 billion in waste including the Department of Defense ruining US$169 million in equipment by leaving it outside and the Small Business Administration giving struggling artists like Post Malone and Chris Brown over US$200 million.

With the recent resignation of Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader of the United States Senate – if Rand Paul takes over will his agenda waste finally become front and centre in the U.S. Capital of Washington?

With only 7 days till November 5th, will government expenditure finally be front and centre under the change of government or will the U.S. continue slipping into a bigger and bigger debt hole?