Editorial

DOGE finds plenty

In the weeks since President Donald J. Trump came into office, nothing has captured the public’s imagination – or the ire of the political class – than the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. A major component of Trump’s presidential campaign, this group of young techies, under the President and Space X entrepreneur Elon Musk, is charged with looking into the federal budget, agencies, and departments, culling out waste, mostly in the form of spending.

Needless to say, the political class, which includes both sides of the aisle in Congress, labor unions and the traditional media are aghast – not at the wasteful spending found thus far, but at the people finding the waste. In classic Washington style, the messenger, not the message, is being skewered by all the usual suspects.

Closer to home, two of the loudest voices are our own Senate contingent, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, and Christopher Murphy. The Democratic Party legislators have become regulars on the liberal cable channels, and the talking point du jour is we are in a “constitutional crisis” because a department of the Executive Branch is looking into the spend of…the Executive Branch. Blumenthal lied about his service in Vietnam and cannot be trusted at his word, and Murphy is a wide-eyed hack, who cares not for his constituency, but the power that comes with bloated budgets and hidden sinecures.

And the work cannot come fast enough. According to the news site NewsNation and other online sites, the work of the DOGE is needed just to keep the political class observant. This gem was a revelation:

“The Congressional Budget Office recently found that Congress provided $516 billion in appropriations this fiscal year to programs that had expired under federal law.

“The funds were associated with nearly 500 expired authorizations, according to the CBO’s July report.

“Nearly two-thirds ($320 billion) of that $516 billion was provided for activities whose authorizations expired more than a decade ago,” the report said.

“According to CBO’s estimates, about half of the authorized appropriations in the report expired at least 10 years ago, and the oldest expired in 1980.

“In 2023, the amount of funding for expired authorizations was $519 billion.”

The head of the OMB is Russell Vought, whom Democrats vilified as much as Musk leading up to his confirmation two weeks ago. Vought knows where the waste is, and that is what scares the political elites. He, along with the DOGE, will dismantle the fourth branch of government that has become the bureaucracy.

What we have found in these first weeks are slush funds used to fund programs under the radar – programs such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, which the public has made clear it does not support. But besides this boondoggle, other hidden expenses have been uncovered. Bureaucrats have sent money to the nation’s enemies, including ISIS and Hezbollah in the form of “humanitarian aid,” which, as expected, never got to the people, but was used to fatten the leadership.

The question remains, “Why would anyone be against the uncovering of waste in spending?” The answer is simple: as with the unauthorized programs listed by OMB, politicians, especially those who favor big government, never want to give back allocated funds, and will find any means by which those funds can be disbursed.

And in the case of the bureaucracy, which has become more left-wing, left to their own devices most of the time with little oversight, they will find ways to put money into their favorite causes.

Musk said before the inauguration he would be able to find $2 trillion in waste. We had our doubts.

No longer.