Cut the government with a scalpel, not an axe

The Trump administration should be congratulated for making government efficiency a high priority. Absolutely no one, liberal or conservative, wants to see their tax dollars wasted. But cutting government is a tricky business for two reasons. The first, outlined in a companion piece here by John Dilulio, is that the vast majority of the government’s work is not conducted by civil servants paid by the federal government—it is conducted by contractors who spend tax dollars. Any honest look at efficiency would have to take a look at contractors as well as the federal workers. The second is that if the Trump administration were to be successful in actually cutting as deeply as they are suggesting, the disruption would be intolerable to nearly every American regardless of party.

People like to say they want less government spending but hate it when their favorite program is cut. Conservatives want defense spending to be maintained or even increased. Senior citizens don’t want anyone to touch Social Security or Medicare. Most want law enforcement and health programs to promote their well-being. Nearly everyone wants clean water, reliable power grids, and strong border security.

“Disruption” is a favorite word in the business community, where it sometimes results in innovation, ingenious products, and great profits. But no one has to buy a particular car or frequent a special e-commerce site. The problem is that in contrast to the private sector, many of the things government does are not optional. They are required to serve the public and maintain vital services already approved by federal officials. Thus “disruption” in government can mean that Congress won’t approve the reductions and the “government disruptor” will be thrown out at the next election by voters upset at the proposed reductions.

So, let’s see how government cuts might work in the Trump administration. Trump has chosen Vivek Ramaswamy along with Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. So far, they’ve said they want to cut $2 trillion from the federal government, dissolve agencies, and reduce the workforce by draconian amounts.

The biggest portion of federal spending is mandatory spending—money that goes directly back to the citizen; this includes Social Security, (the largest), Medicare and Medicaid, veteran benefits, and unemployment insurance. Who gets these benefits and how much they get them is set in law. The DOGE team could chalk up a lot of savings by cutting Social Security benefits, but they would have to go to Congress to change the law first. No executive can unilaterally  impose spending reductions on programs already approved by Congress. Indeed, Trump himself, who made one of the wisest political decisions ever when he promised not to touch people’s Social Security or Medicare, would probably be the first politician in line to throw the DOGE team out if they want to cut Social Security.

Assuming that you can’t cut mandatory spending (which is 66% of the 2022 budget), the DOGE team will have to look for savings in what’s known as discretionary spending. After paying interest on the debt, that amounts to about 26% of overall federal spending. In 2023, this category was $1.7 trillion, much of which is traditional defense spending. There is not enough money in the discretionary pot to meet Ramaswamy’s goal in one year; over two years, the cuts would be almost impossible.

Here are some examples of what’s in the discretionary part of the budget and how deep cuts would affect it. Let’s suppose that to meet these goals, the DOGE team planned to cut 80% of the workforce. Here’s what would happen:

There are about 14,000 air traffic controllers right now. These are highly skilled workers who keep planes from crashing into one another on the runway or in the air. Cutting air traffic controllers by 80% would mean we’d be left with 2,800 people to manage American air space. Perhaps artificial intelligence could someday replace these people but right now that seems as unsafe as self-driving cars.

There are about 19,357 border patrol agents working to protect American borders right now. An 80% cut would leave just under 4,000 agents protecting our borders. It’s hard enough to hire border patrol agents as it is, so a cut that big will truly open the borders and make a complete mockery of Trump’s pledge to be tough on illegal border crossings.

Over at the Social Security Administration, 60,000 people are responsible for approving checks totaling over $1.5 trillion per year. They approve benefits for people who are newly retiring, take people off the rolls as they die, correct mistakes, search for fraud, and do many other jobs to keep the money flowing to those who earned it. An 80% cut would leave 12,000 people to administer a program that represents 30% of income for people over age 65 and considerably more for poorer people.

Other “bloated bureaucracies” that come under the discretionary portion of the budget are the people at the Centers for Disease Control that track down foodborne illnesses each year. The FBI has come under extreme criticism ever since they took documents from Mar-a-Lago. But if it was abolished, who would track down and prosecute the drug cartels that bring fentanyl and other drugs that are destroying America into the country? And who would supply weather forecasts, including hurricane and tornado warnings if the employees at the National Oceanic and Space Administration were cut?

So how do you cut government? With a scalpel, not an axe. I know because between 1993 and 2000, the Clinton administration ran a program called the National Performance Review, which I directed under Vice President Al Gore. Nicknamed REGO for “reinventing government,” the program became the longest-running reform effort in American history—resulting in 426,000 cuts to the federal workforce. We conducted a thorough review agency by agency, something the DOGE program would be wise to repeat. That resulted in hundreds of recommendations, two-thirds of which were enacted with $136 billion in savings. We enacted customer service standards and performance metrics (under the Government Performance and Results Act passed in 1993). We closed superfluous offices, cut 16,000 pages of regulations, passed a major procurement reform bill, and fixed longstanding challenges in agencies from FEMA to the FAA.

But that was thirty years ago. It’s time to do it again. Things that were just pipe dreams back then, like filing taxes electronically, are now standard operating procedures. When we started the National Performance Review, the internet was just becoming available to Americans; by moving government information and then transactions online, we saved a lot of money. No doubt today’s technology can save even more.

But so far, the unrealistic approach DOGE has taken has in it the seeds of its own failure, both from a policy and political standpoint. Americans won’t like it if the border becomes more open or if airplane safety is dramatically imperiled. And don’t mess with Social Security checks. A screwup there will create such a blowback that it will have Trump running his efficiency experts out of the White House faster than you can say “Department of Government Efficiency.”