Let's GOOOO!

Get the federal government out of my life.

FULL op ed here: https://t.co/wNFdEri7CW

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 20, 2024

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have released their plan to dismantle the bureaucratic state, slash the federal workforce and end the waste.

The Department of Government Efficiency plans to:
- Enact strict in-person office attendance to encourage resignations
- Use swift executive action and rely on Supreme Court rulings
- Slash regulations and other burdensome policies within the administrative state
- Severely reduce the federal workforce
- Target misused federal spending (money being spent on stuff it was NOT supposed to be spent on)
- Use Trump's authority to edit civil service rules, lessen protections for workers from being fired
- And finally, RESTORE THE FOUNDERS' VISION.

"Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn't how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren't laws enacted by Congress but 'rules and regulations' promulgated by unelected bureaucratstens of thousands of them each year."

"This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders' vision."

"There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud."

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Also...

BREAKING: Vivek just announced that he will be pausing his own weekly podcast to launch a new show with Elon called "DOGEcast," which they will use to give the nation regular updates on their cost-cutting

I am going to be watching every single minute of their new show. Imagine… pic.twitter.com/NvkuGNyoIp

— George (@BehizyTweets) November 20, 2024

will25u said:

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Quote:

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have released their plan to dismantle the bureaucratic state, slash the federal workforce and end the waste.

The Department of Government Efficiency plans to:
- Enact strict in-person office attendance to encourage resignations
- Use swift executive action and rely on Supreme Court rulings
- Slash regulations and other burdensome policies within the administrative state
- Severely reduce the federal workforce
- Target misused federal spending (money being spent on stuff it was NOT supposed to be spent on)
- Use Trump's authority to edit civil service rules, lessen protections for workers from being fired
- And finally, RESTORE THE FOUNDERS' VISION.

"Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn't how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren't laws enacted by Congress but 'rules and regulations' promulgated by unelected bureaucratstens of thousands of them each year."

"This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders' vision."

"There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud."

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Be still my heart. Beautiful.

The humane thing is to teach the laid off employees marketable skills: plumbing, HVAC, appliance repair, electrical, construction. All in a community college setting with a generous severance package of two weeks salary plus accrued vacation/comp time. Like my retirement package.

Slash it…slash it…slash it!

inject it into my veins

AFUERA!

It has nothing to do with whether they're equally effective. It's a tool to prompt people with options to go elsewhere. Bam. Step one in your plan to reduce federal bureaucracy.

will25u said:

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Also...

BREAKING: Vivek just announced that he will be pausing his own weekly podcast to launch a new show with Elon called "DOGEcast," which they will use to give the nation regular updates on their cost-cutting

I am going to be watching every single minute of their new show. Imagine… pic.twitter.com/NvkuGNyoIp

— George (@BehizyTweets) November 20, 2024

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This is the way!

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Enact strict in-person office attendance to encourage resignations

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That's going to trigger some posters.

Bring back the Civil Service Exam. I'm not kidding. It was discontinued in 1981 because it was racist, with predictable results.

Throw in a mandatory piss test on Day One. That will help you cull people without paying severance.

The in office requirements are solely to self deport people from government.

I struggle to understand how this is unilaterally considered a good thing. I'll put myself out there. I was hired as a remote government employee. Our team is intentionally remote to prevent us from all being congregated in D.C. and instead geographically diverse so we can better serve the public that we work with. By being remote, my salary is lower because I live in a lower cost of living area and other than a laptop, the government has zero equipment and physical space costs for me.

Requiring a return to office would cost more in salary, equipment, and office space and limit our spatial distribution making us one of those groups of bureaucrats in DC that everyone hates.

I totally get that there are underperformers and cuts that need to be a made, but I do not see how an across the board return to work mandate is actually going to save any money.

OregonAg03 said:

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I struggle to understand how this is unilaterally considered a good thing. I'll put myself out there. I was hired as a remote government employee. Our team is intentionally remote to prevent us from all being congregated in D.C. and instead geographically diverse so we can better serve the public that we work with. By being remote, my salary is lower because I live in a lower cost of living area and other than a laptop, the government has zero equipment and physical space costs for me.

Requiring a return to office would cost more in salary, equipment, and office space and limit our spatial distribution making us one of those groups of bureaucrats in DC that everyone hates.

I totally get that there are underperformers and cuts that need to be a made, but I do not see how an across the board return to work mandate is actually going to save any money.

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As part of this action - move your agency out of DC (and many others) to somewhere far more economical to live.

OregonAg03 said:

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I struggle to understand how this is unilaterally considered a good thing. I'll put myself out there. I was hired as a remote government employee. Our team is intentionally remote to prevent us from all being congregated in D.C. and instead geographically diverse so we can better serve the public that we work with. By being remote, my salary is lower because I live in a lower cost of living area and other than a laptop, the government has zero equipment and physical space costs for me.

Requiring a return to office would cost more in salary, equipment, and office space and limit our spatial distribution making us one of those groups of bureaucrats in DC that everyone hates.

I totally get that there are underperformers and cuts that need to be a made, but I do not see how an across the board return to work mandate is actually going to save any money.

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Sounds like you have a legitimate case. Hope it works out. Unfortunately the system is so fooked up, some collateral damage may occur.

For those of you that don't have a WSJ account, here is the Op-Ed in its entirety

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Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn't how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren't laws enacted by Congress but "rules and regulations" promulgated by unelected bureaucratstens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren't made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.



This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders' vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.
President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That's why we're doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won't just write reports or cut ribbons. We'll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden's tenure.
In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can't impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies' interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.
When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court's recent mandates. And after those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn't simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE's goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the statute allows for "reductions in force" that don't target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to "prescribe rules governing the competitive service." That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has heldin Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren't constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of "rules governing the competitive service" that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government's procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can't meaningfully close the federal deficit without taking aim at entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to endand that DOGE aims to address by identifying pinpoint executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.
With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

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Preview of Elon and Vivek working at DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency): pic.twitter.com/IPUuqDOilg

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2024

Slashing regulations and fixing a broken procurement system is, in my opinion, far more important than the personnel changes. Decentralizing and downsizing the federal work force is a good thing. I firmly believe most federal agencies should be moved out of DC. But I don't have a problem with a remote workforce for positions that it makes sense for and productive employees.