A few weeks ago, the owner of that social media platform, Elon Musk, tweeted on “It seems like people want to get rid of the annoying time changes!” he wrote. Vivek Ramaswamy quickly responded: “It is inefficient and easy to change.”
These weren't just two billionaires musing about a source of annoyance to many Americans, but two billionaires who think they have the power to do something about it. This is thanks to the bureaucracy-saving efforts that President-elect Donald Trump has asked them to undertake, the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency'.
But let's think about the words “easy to change.” Real? Any change will have to go through Congress. And while Republicans will control both houses, this won't be a partisan issue. Instead, the divisions will be regional. Do we move to permanent daylight saving time, as coastal lawmakers would prefer? Or establish a permanent standard time, as politicians in the center of the country note that under the alternative, winter sunrise might not come until 9 a.m. in some cities. You see how quickly this gets complicated.
That's a small example of what awaits as Musk and Ramaswamy pursue their agenda, long sought by politicians of both parties (remember Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government in the 1990s?), which is to cut spending and streamline the federal government. The two laid out their thoughts in a Wall Street Journal commentary in November, and while it covered a lot of ground, the gist is that they plan to pursue “massive workforce reductions in the federal bureaucracy,” with federal requiring employees to continue working in the office five days a week (which “would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome”), rolling back – or at least pausing – thousands of regulations, abolishing entire agencies or parts of them, and an end create 'waste, fraud, and abuse.” In subsequent interviews, Ramaswamy has also talked about cutting “billions” from social security.
It's an ambitious agenda, and I suspect many people are interested to see what the pair can accomplish: I don't know anyone in either party who believes the federal government is a lean, highly efficient organization. Still, for all their confidence and certainty, I wonder whether Musk and Ramaswamy understand what they are doing.
Let's take a look at those 'mass workforce reductions'. Americans have no love for “faceless bureaucrats” – but they do depend on them. The VA health care system – which falls under the umbrella of “unauthorized” government spending – serves approximately 6.2 million veterans. As administrative law attorney Mark Maher recently wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the Musk-Ramaswamy effort: “These people are behaving as if our administrative state is staffed by con artists who make your life more expensive. The reality is that agencies keep our air breathable, our water drinkable and our food edible. They protect our rights to work in a safe workplace… They protect our Medicare and Social Security.”
Or as one Republican committee chairman put it, proposing to cut appropriations that have not been officially approved by Congress, as Musk and Ramaswamy have done, is “an amateurish comment.” All this is to say that if Musk and Ramaswamy plan to take a carving knife to government in the name of downsizing – rather than pursuing strategic streamlining – chances are Americans will question the results, especially as their benefits getting smaller and smaller. , knowledgeable and experienced officials heading for the exit will probably want to say something before that happens.
That raises an interesting question: In their Journal piece, the two said they want to “reverse the executive branch's decades-long power grab.” “The president owes deference to Congress in his legislative work, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies,” they wrote. But civil servants don't write laws – they write regulations, usually at the direction of Congress.
So it's a good bet that the Department of Government Efficiency will at some point find itself at odds with Congress, either over rulemaking or budget cuts that Congress rightly views as being within its prerogatives—and not establish the domain of unelected officials deep within a made-up “department” that does not even have the force of law. My bet? Watching the conflicts play out is becoming a new pastime inside the Beltway.
Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University Center on Representative Government and a Distinguished Scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: The Struggle Ahead over Government Efficiency | Opinion
