Dear Elon and Vivek,
I know that many people want your ear right now. Your new commission, DOGE (very clever logo, BTW), has essentially carte blanche to propose reforms. Your teasers about major changes in the making are receiving a lot of attention.
Here’s the challenge: History is littered with the wreckage of such commissions. Failure and irrelevance are the norm. If you want to avoid having your opportunity to reform the federal government become a punchline in late-night talk shows, you need to be disciplined and systematic.
So, here’s some advice from a long-time federal bureaucrat that might help you succeed.
Schedule a briefing from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget … NOW. They would be delighted to share their expertise because we are in a fiscal crisis. The deficit in fiscal 2024 was $1.6 trillion and is projected to rise steadily. Unfortunately, the recent political campaigns focused on how to spend more, not on fiscal sustainability. As a nation, we have decided to spend now and send the bill to our children and grandchildren. Therefore, part of your job will be to create a sense of immediacy and convince Americans that it’s worth making sacrifices today to safeguard their children’s fiscal future.
You are throwing around huge numbers ($2 trillion in savings), which creates buzz but is red meat for fact-checkers. The brutal fact is that saving substantial amounts in the federal budget requires targeting entitlements. These, along with interest payments, comprise about 70 percent of the federal budget. If you want big savings, you need to follow the money, but entitlements are REALLY hard to change.
Which means you need to remember that …
It’s all about trade-offs. In government, there are rarely pure wins. Someone or some group loses while another gains. Reforms are possible, but constituencies will fiercely defend their benefits. As we say in Washington, one person’s waste is another person’s vital national program. So be ready for bitter opposition.
Fortunately, there are examples of successful reform efforts. For instance, Congress agreed to five rounds of DoD base closures and realignments that reshaped the Pentagon’s base structure for the post-Cold War era and now save about $12 billion annually. This hurt local communities in the short run. Most eventually recovered, but some never did. Not everyone benefits. In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform that succeeded in reducing welfare rolls by encouraging work, supporting those transitioning to the workforce, and discouraging dependency. Your team should study these bipartisan successes.
Don’t expect much savings from cutting “woke” programs. The president-elect and the Republicans in general campaigned against those programs. However, there’s not much money there. Costs in DoD (which has about half the federal workforce) run about $100 million per year, with similar numbers in other agencies. That may sound significant, but it is a rounding error in a $6 trillion budget. Such cuts may be emotionally satisfying for conservatives, but they are not substantial as a budget issue. “Woke” is a policy issue.
Focus on a few big things. You won’t have time to dig into every corner of the federal operation. So, after your initial research, focus on a few key areas that you want to change and pursue them with specifics and depth. Three to five is a good number for audiences to grasp without getting lost. Too many more than that and the effort loses focus. If you list “the top 30 actions the government should take,” people’s eyes will glaze over by the time you get to seven or eight.
Build a consensus and develop allies. I recognize that down at Mar-A-Lago, the talk is all about mandates and landslides. President-elect Trump’s victory was impressive and much greater than anticipated; He won all the battleground states, and Republicans will have control of Congress. But the popular vote was only 51 percent to 49 percent. The Republicans did extraordinarily well in Congress but hold very thin margins in both houses, three in the Senate and about three in the House (depending on appointments). To put that into perspective, Obama had an eight-seat margin in the Senate and a 69-seat margin in the House when he pushed through his health and stimulus packages. You will not be able to make reforms with brute political force.
You need allies in Congress because many of your proposals will require their authorization and they can stymie most of the rest if they choose. Make them your allies so you don’t end up with enemies. A strong congressional relations group in your organization will be critical, but members will want to talk to you directly. They appreciate being consulted, so take the time to build some relationships. You have already started that process — excellent. Getting close to them is not just about establishing a tight relationship. Socializing in a relaxed environment (juice for Vivek) can facilitate discussions about difficult issues.
Reach out to the broader community. Everyone in Washington LOVES to be consulted. It feeds our sense of self-importance. There’s also a wealth of experience out there that you could harness. So, host a series of lunches and dinners with former officials, academics, journalists, and think tank scholars. You will gather valuable insights and potentially avoid pitfalls that have hindered previous efforts. At the very least, you will have the opportunity to present your vision and perhaps co-opt some potential criticism. Remember — these individuals will be influential in shaping public opinion through their op-eds on your initiatives.
Stay close to the president and the White House. Right now, you have his enthusiastic support, which is critical for success. However, the political landscape can shift quickly. If you appear to propose ideas that the president opposes or that generate substantial political backlash, that support may diminish. You have already witnessed what presidential anger looks like.
Reduce the federal workforce by eliminating the work. Making arbitrary across-the-board cuts can be tempting because specifics get complex and controversial. However, such cuts will merely shift the workload to contractors. The government won’t truly become smaller or cheaper, just less visible. If you want to shift work to the private sector, reestablish the A-76 process, which sets up a formal mechanism for moving work from government to private industry. This process was widely and successfully used during the Clinton and Bush administrations until it was shut down by the Obama administration.
Reducing regulations and eliminating functions will also decrease both work and workers, but you must be specific. There’s no budget line for “waste.”
Attempting to achieve reductions through the “Schedule F” proposed in the first Trump administration is unlikely to result in a smaller or better workforce. Instead, the workforce may become more cautious and less innovative as employees hesitate to take action for fear of displeasing the political establishment — which is the opposite of your goal.
The federal government has formal rules for reducing the number of employees. Typically, this is done by attrition — not replacing employees when they leave, allowing headcount to drop gradually. If reductions happen too quickly for attrition, it will largely be done by seniority. This is what will occur if you succeed in implementing deep cuts. If you genuinely want to reform the civil service, consider a one-time 5 percent reduction based on merit alone. Perhaps make everyone reapply for their positions. Although this would be traumatic and break long-established expectations, around 5 percent of the federal workforce could be redirected to other roles.
Beware of the lethal embrace. Without specifics, the bureaucracy will respond by reshaping and then embracing any sufficiently vague reform. Many years ago, as a junior staff member, I attended a meeting on how DoD would respond to an efficiency commission. A seasoned bureaucrat led the meeting and stated, “The department’s position is that these are all great ideas, and, in fact, we are already doing them or planning to do so. Now go back to your organizations and draft responses for your section of the report.”
Hire people who thoroughly understand government. You have begun online hiring, which is positive and will jump-start the commission. Your inclination might be to hire enthusiastic outsiders who aim to apply ideas from the civilian economy to government. That’s fine for generating ideas. However, you need a cadre of insiders who know how to implement those ideas. This is essential to avoid the lethal embrace. An enthusiastic but inexperienced staff might produce a satisfactory report using AI tools, but it will be of little practical use.
Don’t create a permanent organization for reform. You won’t be able to cover everything in the federal government as you might like. This is an inevitable trade-off. Perhaps recommend having similar commissions periodically to “mow the lawn”—providing guidance for future reform efforts. However, the idea of establishing a permanent bureaucracy to reduce bureaucracy is absurd. Disband DOGE when its work is complete.
Get moving. You may think you have four years to implement initiatives, but you might only have two years to gain approval for proposals requiring congressional authorization. There will be congressional elections in 2026, and historically, the president’s party has lost ground—an average of 26 seats in the House and four in the Senate. If this trend continues in 2026, the Democrats may regain control of Congress.
Preparing for this possibility is not pessimism or disloyalty; it is realism. So, get moving.
Best regards,
Mark
