The newly announced U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short (also known as Musk’s most recent mega venture) is drawing both praise and ire before taking any concrete action. So far, we only have a vague understanding of how this new department plans to reach its stated goal – to streamline the administrative function of government agencies and departments.
That goal in and of itself may be laudable or derisible, depending on who you ask. Political partisanship aside, can DOGE potentially do any good? Maybe it can, depending on how it operates and what programs, policies, and other government departments wind up in DOGE’s crosshairs, so the devil is in the details.
But if I were helping to run DOGE (Elon or Vivek, my cell phone is on, I wait with bated breath), my first target would not be people or programs, but the reems of red tape that inundate large government departments and hobble erstwhile public servants. Red tape is all the onerous rules, forms, protocols, and procedures that employees must use or follow, but don’t add any discernible value or really help the organization to function. And there’s ample evidence documenting the negative impacts of red tape on employee motivation and job satisfaction, operational efficiency, institutional trust and transparency, and organizational commitment. So, cutting red tape would be good for public servants and taxpayers alike – and there are no key stakeholders and special interests lined up to defend red tape, so the pushback should be minimal (compared to cutting programs and policies with vested stakeholders).
On the other hand, what shouldn’t DOGE do? In short, it should avoid gutting the administrative capacity of the US federal government to discharge with its core responsibilities; if you’re reading this Elon and Vivek, do not eliminate public service jobs writ large. Just like evidence shows that too much red tape is deleterious to the overall functioning of public sector organizations – at both the individual and group levels – there’s also a trove of research documenting the many negative impacts of using a slash-and-burn approach when trying to improve government and realize efficiencies. That approach can undermine employee morale, operational effectiveness, transparency, trust, and even perhaps even democratic ethos (which, some people are thinking about a lot these days).
There is good reason to do away with pointless and cumbersome processes, rules, and procedures, and to streamline and smarten how the U.S. federal government operates. And so partisan controversies aside, a wise mandate for DOGE is to start peeling back the layers of red tape that have piled up over many years, and then turn attention towards redundant programs, regulations, and agencies. The mandate should not include slashing public service jobs on mass, or eliminating important valued-added programs that easily pass a cost-benefit analysis.
The U.S. federal government isn’t a car manufacturer, a satellite network, or a social media platform – so the way in which operating efficiencies are achieved should look different than what observers witnessed the last time Mr. Musk took over a big, famous organization. Rather than axing as many public servants as possible, government agencies can and should be streamlined, processes should be made transparent, and waste curtailed. But lower-and-mid level public servants are not the cause of government mismanagement and waste, and should not be sacrificed on the altar of slash-and-burn style efficiency maximization.
Instead, cleaning up all the red tape that’s piled up year after year would be low-hanging fruit for DOGE – it’s a win-win for U.S. taxpayers and the federal public service. That would be a worthwhile reform no matter who implements it – even if they happen to own SpaceX and X.
Further readings:
- Rainey and Bozeman (2000). “Comparing Public and Private Organizations: Empirical Research and the Power of the A Priori”.
- Bozeman (2000). “A Theory of Government Red Tape”.
