Published: May 1, 2025
[Source filename for funsies: 20250424-doge-much-efficiency-very-middle-school-humor.md]
Much digital ink has been spilled in 2025 over Elon Musk's “Department of Government Efficiency” — which (in case you've been living under the proverbial rock) is a thinly-veiled effort to rid the United States government of those pesky career officials who not only leave political allegiances at the door when performing their duties, they also tend to slow Musk and his tech-bro billionaire buddies down in their respective quests to amass more wealth for themselves by any means necessary[1].
On top of that, the entire idea is based on an internet meme from the literal year 2010. (I am not joking, as much as I wish I was.) Apparently, the immature class clown vibe is en vogue these days.
While I don't think anyone disagrees that the government should be a good steward of our tax dollars, the actions of this group and its obvious use of “efficiency” as the corporate euphemism[2] instead of a normal person's definition really just makes it look like an edgelord billionaire's temper tantrum. Once all this is over (and it will be over at some point), perhaps DOGE can stay, but with a better mission and a new word beginning with the letters EFF.
I would be quite happy if future President Andy Beshear[3] would campaign for a transformation of the Department of Government Efficiency, which cuts for the sake of cutting, into the Department of Government Effectiveness, which would not only help government agencies seek out and advocate for cost-effective solutions to problems, but also maximize the benefits of these solutions for the most people. I envision it to be like the government's independent multidisciplinary research, development, and innovation department that works with legislators, government agencies, and private-sector partners to get the most for the money while avoiding cutting corners to do it. It would be like the government's own version of Bell Labs.
Independence would be necessary in a DOGE 2.0, because the staff of subject matter experts will need the freedom to referee negotations between the government and its contractors. Sometimes the contractors inflate costs or government agencies make unreasonable requests, which need to be called out. We don't need an army of rubber stamps, we need thoughtful, intentional, and strategic leaders who can act without political or industrial pressure.
I'm partly inspired here by the 2015 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign of Drew Curtis. I've had the pleasure of meeting Drew a couple of times, once at a small campaign event in Shelbyville where I lived at the time, and again completely by chance at a charity bike ride (he was participating, I was volunteering). He campaigned heavily on data-driven decision making, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Many people make decisions based on emotion[4], which doesn't serve anyone's needs very well. That's not to say that emotion isn't an important driving factor in the process, because emotion typically is the force that helps us identify needs, but once that happens, emotion needs to take a back seat to data.
I'll give an example that Drew explained to me the first time we met: conservatives have historically really wanted to subject people on public assistance programs to drug testing. That's driven by emotion; a belief that people who fall on hard times are just lazy and want a handout to buy drugs. That's valid... you can feel and believe that, but that doesn't make it objectively true. Administering drug screening on such a scale is incredibly expensive, so if you're already distributing financial assistance to thousands of people, you're now also paying to test them for drugs at a set interval. This fact didn't stop at least one jurisdiction from trying it, and the results just don't show a pervasive issue. Most firms in the private sector don't even require their employees to undergo regular or random drug testing due to the costs involved, which is a pet rationale for people who advocate for testing welfare recipients.
That seems like government waste that a Department of Government Effectiveness would put a stop to.