This is the department that is going to be run by both Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, and it is designed to cut government spending that is being wastefully used, as well as help out any departments that deserve incentives. Musk has said that it will be transparent for everything they do and the changes they make, and he has already set up an X account for this department, so that all of America can follow along as the government spending is being evaluated and cut where necessary. This is not a permanent position, and President Trump says it should all be done by July, 2026, which happens to be our 250th anniversary of American Independence. I believe that we will see quite a few changes, and since not everyone here will be following it on social media, I thought a thread where we can discuss the new developments would be good.
I think DOGE is a department outside the government similar to the Federal Reserve except it may be totally volunteer. After all, neither Musk nor Ramaswamy need a salary. It will be totally open and all their recommendations will be posted online. Secretarial staff and such may be paid by someone.
It's gonna be interesting. I know a few places in DC I could set up cameras and show workers arriving at 10AM in their jammies and leaving at 3PM as a matter of routine. DOGE needs to set up closed circuit cameras in every Federal office so they can tune in at random and see the [lack of] activity level (it's not so much a motivation issue as it is a bloated staffing issue.) Ability to monitor computers (as private businesses do) would be a plus. Even the threat of oversight would go a long way.
I remember working for the Feds and they would sometimes send all "non-essential employees" home due to weather or whatever. I often said that if I were in charge, I would sit outside and everyone who considered themselves to be non-essential and fire everyone who cam out. Someone must have heard me ( or someone else with the same opinion) because they changed the designation to "nonemergency" personnel from "non-essential". Musk et al. could do something similar to separate those who considered themselves and their jobs to be non-essential.
One challenge with this stuff is it's gonna be like base closings. The entire DC region is built on the Fed. I don't know where the 2nd tier Fed footprint might be. Maybe I can buy my old place back cheap. The suburbs used to be summer retreats for the DC elite. Someone raised an interesting point the other day: are those 80,000 new IRS jobs gonna be on the chopping block?
I just heard an interview with Ramaswamy on Hannity. He sounded like many of their proposals are somewhat secret until Trump is in office to keep them from being thwarted beforehand by the Dems and the bureaucracy, but two things he stated were 1) Federal employees are going to have to go to work. Apparently many employees don't bother to show up for work for days or weeks at a time believing they cannot be fired, and 2) eliminating areas whose funding authorization has expired. Accord to Vivek, the are hundreds of departments whose authorization by Congress to exist has expired, but they continue to get money and continue to operate even though they have no legal function. Those of you on X should follow the DOGE X account and see what is happening. Apparently it is already in operation on X even though it is mostly to collect ideas from the public.
Just as a weird aside, yesterday I read that there has been a DOGE meme that originated in 2010, and people think that Trump is "trolling" using that name. I had never heard of it. Here is an explanation from Business Insider: Doge originated in 2010 when Japanese teacher Atsuko Sato posted a photo of Kabosu, a Shiba Inu dog to her blog. The picture showed the Shiba Inu on a couch with a tilted head and a puzzled expression. The first use of the image as a meme isn't clear, but Reddit helped popularize it and it quickly became an internet sensation, with remakes of the photo shared with humorous Comic Sans text floating around the dog's head. The meme later inspired the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which began in 2013 as a mere joke by two software engineers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. Dogecoin was built from the open-source software project Litecoin. The cryptocurrency, which carries the slogan "the people's cryptocurrency," became popular on Reddit and quickly grew to a market value of $8 million following its inception. Dogecoin's price peaked in May 2021 at $0.72 amid the meme stock trading frenzy and Musk's endorsement of the cryptocurrency. Musk once attributed his interest in the Doge meme to the fact that it has dogs and "the best humor."
I have read all that meme stuff; not sure what the significance is beyond "Department of Government Efficiency." I was telling my husband earlier that I'm already tired of hearing talking heads calling it 'doge' instead of the sensible (and not as annoying) DGE.
It was actually Elon who came up with the name for his Dept. of Govt. Efficiency, and not Trump. Elon had the idea for the position, and because of his involvement with the bitcoin DOGE, he used the acronym to name his new department. He offered to do the job, Trump accepted the offer, and Elon named it, and Trump just told everyone what it was named. I am still not sure what the actual pronunciation of the word should be. I hear someone call it “dooge”, but I just always mentally said “doggy” when I read it.
I am just reading that Elon and Ron Paul have been talking and Ron Paul will now be joining in with Elon and Vivek to help with the DOGE efforts to reduce big government. I think that this is a great addition and Ron Paul is well-liked by a lot of people .
It seems that Trump is forming a "coalition government", something that I don't think has ever been done in the U.S., at least not for over a century.