Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have presented an ambitious plan to restructure the federal government, with a focus on significant labor reductions and regulation cutbacks. The biotech founder and the billionaire businessman discussed their ideas for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new agency led by President-elect Donald Trump, in a joint opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal. The two characterized their strategy as a daring attempt to lessen the influence of unelected bureaucrats and restore authority to elected politicians.
“The fundamental tenet of our country’s founding is that the government is run by the people we elect. That isn’t how America works today,” they stated, adding that “the majority of legal decrees are ‘rules and regulations’ issued by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of millions of them each year.”
Protected by civil-service protections, Musk and Ramaswamy contended that this system has developed into a “antidemocratic” machine that imposes needless expenses on taxpayers. Through DOGE, which they characterized as a “lean team of small-government crusaders” collaborating closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget, they promised to carry out comprehensive changes. Federal employees have a five-day workweek.
Along with drastic employment reductions, Musk and Ramaswamy suggested mandating that government employees work in person five days a week, which they say will lead to voluntary resignations. “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they stated.
Another key area of concern was cost-cutting; the two estimated that possible cuts to unauthorized spending may total more than $500 billion. As instances of dubious expenditure that would be reduced, they cited initiatives like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s $535 million yearly subsidy and Planned Parenthood’s almost $300 million allocation.
Musk and Ramaswamy said the group will use previous Supreme Court decisions, like Loper Bright v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, to fight policies that don’t have explicit congressional authority. Using the US Constitution as their “North Star,” they declared, “We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.”
Finding rules that Trump may swiftly revoke through administrative action is one of their initial efforts. They contended that they would liberate companies and people. These will boost the economy and release people and companies from the shackles of “illicit regulations,” they claimed. It will be argued that the president has overreached himself when he repeals thousands of these rules. The presidential overreach of thousands of regulations issued by administrative fiat will actually be corrected, they said.
Musk and Ramaswamy acknowledged that they were confident in their mandate, despite the possibility of legal and political resistance. “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,” they stated.
In order to complete their reforms, the authors established the lofty goal of July 4, 2026. They framed their goal as a revolutionary attempt to return governance to its constitutional foundations.
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