DoGE has had its day

DoGE has been DoGE’d. The once fearsome government efficiency office has been shut down eight months before its contract officially ends in July 2026. What was supposed to be an organization that exploded traditional ways of running the federal government has turned into a damp squib. 

It was established by President Trump on the first day of his second term in office. Headed by Tesla chief Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (who resigned early on to run for Ohio governor), it struck the kind of fear into government bureaucrats that a visit from the Red Guards might instill during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Musk’s minions rampaged through government offices, whether it was the US Institute of Peace or the Wilson Center. The idea was that the bastions of the liberal establishment would not simply be purged but permanently abolished. 

Now, as Reuters reports, the efficiency office has been disbanded. “That doesn’t exist” as a “centralized entity” Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor said. Hasta la vista, in other words. After Musk torched, or appeared to torch, his relationship with Trump in May, DoGE began to sputter. The Trump administration is trying to put the best face possible on its dissolution. On social media Kupor declared, “”DoGE may not have centralized leadership under @USDS,” Kupor said, referring to the United States Digital Service, which was reorganized into DoGE. “But, the principles of DoGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse; re-shaping the federal workforce; making efficiency a first-class citizen; etc.”  

Yeah, right. The truth is that a government-wide freeze on hiring is over and the federal deficit has reached a record $38 trillion in the past month. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will add over $3 trillion to the deficit and that the deficit for fiscal year 2025 will run $1.8 trillion. The only mitigating factor has been a de facto tax hike by Trump who has imposed punitive tariffs. 

If the debt remains, so does the insalubrious legacy of DoGE. One is the agencies that it either denuded or shuttered during its brief but chaotic existence. Take the Kennan Institute, which was formerly housed in the Wilson Center on the Washington Mall. I recently visited its new headquarters on K Street – a one-room office. The institute will make a comeback, but demolishing the Wilson Center was symbolic of DoGE’s march of folly through Washington. 

Another inadvertent legacy of DoGE is actually diametrically opposed to its mandate – the expansion of big government in the form of National Guard troops stationed in a variety of American cities. When DoGE staffer Edward “Big Balls” Corisine was attacked by ten juveniles near DC’s Dupont Circle in early August, Trump responded by stationing the National Guard in Washington and other cities. But this initiative, too, appears to be ebbing as Trump refrains from sending in troops to New York City and a federal judge blocks his deployment of the National Guard in Washington. 

As he focuses on becoming the world’s first trillionaire, Musk, who attended the White House dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, appears to have put the entire episode in the rearview mirror. Once upon a time he called himself the president’s “first buddy.” Then came the feud with Trump. Now the reconciliation?