JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
Looking At The Department of Government Efficiency
So Elon Musk and Vivek Rama Swami, of course, they're heading up Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. And they're looking to cut federal regulations, cut the spending, cut personnel, any way that they can de-bloat the government in their eyes. Well, now they are interviewing a team. It's not certainly going to just be the two of them. And they're dipping into a familiar area, at least with Elon Musk in Silicon Valley, looking towards a lot of tech leaders, a lot of hedge fund managers, a lot of people that deal with big time amounts of money to help put together this team to lead Doge in their efforts to cut government. The spending, funding, the bloat, the bureaucracy, a lot of it. Let's check in with Jacob Bogage. He's the Congressional Economic Policy Reporter with Washington Post. Jacob, it's good to have you. What do you make of them going to Silicon Valley to try to find people to help lead this effort? I would say Silicon Valley is probably not the most efficient place in the world. That's a fair assessment, I'd say. But look, Elon Musk and Vivek Rama-Slami work with people you know. These are entrepreneurs with tech companies and who do they know, who do they like, who do they trust. It's folks who are in the same industry as them. It's Mark Andreessen who has a serial investor, Travis Kalenick, who ran Uber. It's Antonio Grazias, Steve Davis, I mean, these people, Bill Ackman, who's been in the news fighting DEI. I mean, these are people who, you know, they are drawing from the pool of people. It's almost a perfect collision of them drawing from people in a pool who they know and kind of the Trumpian. I saw this person on TV and they look good. Do you know what sticks out to me? Let me throw this out to you because what really sticks out to me is, you know, I think a lot of people and I want to take it a little bit back to the election because there was this notion that, you know, Kamala Harris has Silicon Valley in the pocket and she's got all of these leaders of big companies that are siding with her. I mean, these are not small, insignificant companies. These are not small, insignificant people. These are people that are leading some of the biggest companies in the world. Does that surprise you that they're coming out of the woodwork in support of this effort? It doesn't necessarily. I mean, I think the pattern we've seen on Silicon Valley is the big founders tend to skew Republican and a lot of the folks who do the work tend to skew Democrat. You know, that's a political problem for Democrats, too, because I think Donald Trump and Republicans successfully painted Democrats as the party of professional workers as the party of the white collar. You know, not the people who clock in and clock out, not the people who get paid by the hour. And you're Trump successfully won working class voters by significant, significant margins. And, you know, who working class voters aspire to, and, and, you know, who who makes the products and the systems that makes that make their world and the economy go around. And I think that if we were to just look at, you know, this kind of blanket statement, well, go after government efficiency. It seems like such a tall hill to climb. And, and, and even if you're somebody like me that knows that the government has redundant things. There is money going to things that we just don't need it to. The realities are, if you stretch that across the entire federal government. And, and I know that they've got like an 18 month deadline, whatever it is, but the reality is, this is a really big job. Does this signal that they're willing to go into the, the, the tech space and utilize different formats to try to identify some of these, these areas that they're going after? Absolutely it does. I think, you know, they've talked about using AI to audit the Pentagon, which is consistently failed on it. But seven in a row. I think I believe seven in a row. Yeah. And they've talked about developing an app so you can file your taxes on your phone, which is something the Biden administration was actually in the midst of developing. So, you know, some of these ideas that are getting floated. I don't want to say they're, they're Republican or Democratic ideas. I think the major theme from that list of folks is they're disruptors. Some of them are more successful than others. Some of them have better reputation than others, but they are certainly disruptors in the space. You know, you mentioned one thing about kind of the redundancies in government. I think this is a big hurdle that Musk and Ramaswami run into. Is there's a reason for redundancies in government when something breaks, but you need it to work, you have a backup system. And so a lot of what they're going to be struggling with, I think, from an outsider's perspective, learning about how government functions, learning about how government spending functions is figuring out what redundancies do you need because you do need them. And what constituencies are you harming the political constituencies and voters. Are you harming when you strip those programs away. Jacob O'Gage, the Congressional Economic Policy Reporter with Washington Post, Washington Post joins me. What are you hearing on the Hill because the realities are, I think, if we're being honest, this is probably going to face a lot of pushback, particularly by Democrats and potentially even in the courts. What's the, what's the path here for does, do you think? Well, the most realistic, like achievable path for does is make your recommendations for genuine efficiencies for reducing redundancies that can get done in government agencies and have, you know, your doge operatives, your doge true believers walk alongside those cabinet secretaries, those leaders to implement those things. And then send the rest to Congress with an open mind. I think the open mind is going to be really important here because, you know, some of the, like, why do we give corn subsidies, right, we give corn subsidies because. Sure, I guess, in the broad scheme of the economy, there's a reason it's worth it, but there's also, like, we lose a lot of money on those. We lose lots of money on those, but we keep them because there is a political constituency that needs them to support their way of life. Why do we do rural broadband? It's not because it's so profitable for the government and it's so efficient. It's because people in rural areas deserve broadband and there's a political constituency for it. So, you know, there is, you can't just go out and slash and burn. Because it's going to disrupt people's lives in really harmful ways. And B, because there's going to be folks on the hill going, no, no, no, you can't take that from my district. I can't vote for that. And there's going to be a lot of Republicans who will have a rude political awakening. If Donald Trump, Elon Musk, in effect, Rama Swami, you know, slap something down on the hill and say, vote for this, and they've got to split from their own district. You know, that will die a very quick and violent death if they do. Yeah, we, yeah. I mean, because at the heart of it, I mean, these people want to keep their jobs. They're lucrative jobs. They're their high profile jobs. And if there's something that will do some sort of, at least from an optics perspective, harm to their district, they're not going to be as readily to accept it. When is the deadline? When are they trying to have this team in place so that they can hit the ground running when Donald Trump has sworn in? By January 20th is the first deadline. I mean, it's have people in place right away. And there are things that we expect the Trump administration to do and the Republicans in Congress to do very rapidly. Immigration is one of them. I imagine goes will play a role in that. And that's something that I'm actually trying to report out today. You know, there's a tax bill that needs to get renewed or there are massive tax increases that will come for nearly every income bracket at the end of 2025. Republicans have signaled they want to move very quickly on that. Those will play a role in it because you have to pay for tax debt somehow. You know, there are, there's the debt limit deal. The debt limit expires January 1st, but it can probably be extended until maybe May or June. There will be legislation around that and to pay for our nation's borrowing. I imagine those will get involved there. So there are going to be these tension points where does, you know, based on their original plan will be submitted. These recommendations pretty consistently throughout the first 18 months of President Trump's term. But also these inflection points where, you know, if this thing really wields the kind of clout it appears to in the early days, they'll have a lot to say about how the President responds on power response. Jacob O'Gage with Washington Post. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate you letting us pick your brain. Appreciate your time. Good to be with you. Happy Thanksgiving. You do you as well. 800-859-0957-800-859-0WJR. It's all about fine tuning now because Donald Trump has officially set his cabinet. They are all set for confirmation. And, and, and I think kind of the crown jewel in what Donald Trump wanted to do is with Doge. And now Elon Musk and Vivek Rama Swami assembling a team will get to your calls, your thoughts, 800-859-0957 and JR afternoon.
November 25, 2024 ~ Chris speaks with Washington Post Congressional Economic Policy Reporter, Jacob Bogage about the Department of Government Efficiency. What are Musk and Ramasway putting together and what will the Department be in charge of?