VOA News | Tuesday, November 19, 2024 
‘Department of Government Efficiency’ faces daunting task

When President-elect Donald Trump takes office for the second time in January, two of his highest-profile supporters will be handed the keys to a new operation designed to slash government spending and improve its performance. The Department of Government Efficiency, which, despite its name, will likely be an advisory committee rather than an actual department, will be co-chaired by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and wealthy former Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy. The operation’s name, which can be reduced to the acronym DOGE, pronounced like “dohj,” appears to be a product of Musk’s sense of humor. The world’s richest man, Musk has long been a proponent of a fringe cryptocurrency known as Dogecoin. Musk and Ramaswamy have set July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — as the target date for completing their work, which is expected to reach into all corners of the sprawling U.S. government in search of spending to cut and bureaucracy to eliminate. – Big promises – In a statement announcing the creation of DOGE, Trump said it “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.” Musk has publicly speculated that it should be possible to identify some $2 trillion in potential cuts to the federal budget. That would represent nearly one-third of the $6.1 trillion the federal government spent in fiscal year 2023 and could not be accomplished without drastic reductions in government services and programs…Read more