Summary
Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney dismissed the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a “PR campaign,” noting it lacks statutory authority and cannot implement changes independently.
While praising Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s goals to cut bureaucracy and waste, Mulvaney emphasized DOGE must rely on Congress or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to enact reforms.
He highlighted Russ Vought, the incoming OMB Director, as important to the initiative’s success, despite Musk and Ramaswamy’s higher profiles.
Yeah, real “efficiency” would come from standardizing tools and procedures, getting rid of “shadow IT”, making annual budget requests more flexible (ie if we don’t use it this year we won’t get it next year), and empowering the workers to make more decisions and initiatives without involving committees, managers, etc.
They are not doing that. It’s not about efficiency, it’s a libertarian crusade to strip out anything valuable from the public sector and leave what’s left to rot.