This week, Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Greg Landsman of Ohio turned the first two Democrats to affix a caucus that can ostensibly work with the Division of Authorities Effectivity, a deliberate advisory fee for Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
The toothless fee, whose DOGE acronym relies on a cryptocurrency-adjacent meme, might be led by two individuals with zero expertise contained in the very federal authorities they’re threatening to explode: mega-billionaire Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. To this point, Ramaswamy has pledged that a number of federal companies might be “deleted outright.” However since DOGE has no authorized standing, public funding, nor actual energy, it probably wants mates in Congress to assist implement its plans.
Enter Moskowitz and Landsman—together with a bevy of Republicans, together with Reps. Pete Classes of Texas and Aaron Bean of Florida and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.
“I think most Americans want to pay the least amount of taxes possible, but still get the most amount of services out of that,” Moskowitz instructed NPR on Thursday. “So if they’re right on something, we should support it.”
That appears like a good suggestion in concept, proper? Who wouldn’t need a extra environment friendly authorities?
However DOGE isn’t an actual authorities company, which means it might probably’t do way more than make options. And the fact is that it’s going to probably be nothing greater than a playground for extremist rhetoric and concepts, peddling the half-baked insurance policies of a far-right authoritarian president whose guarantees for his second time period within the White Home are downright scary.
If DOGE’s purpose is to chop federal spending, it’s unlikely many congressional Democrats will come to an settlement with their Republican colleagues on what funds to slash—until it’s in protection.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the unbiased progressive from Vermont, gave Musk plaudits for his thought to chop protection spending. It’s simple to see why Sanders would help such an thought: In November, the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row, which means it was unable to account for its large $824 billion price range.
In an announcement, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California additionally mentioned that Democrats may work with DOGE on slicing the nation’s protection price range.
Musk welcomed the thought of bipartisanship—for now. But it surely’s unclear what occurs to DOGE and its budding (and seemingly bipartisan) caucus when the deliberate fee inevitably desires to do one thing much more controversial, like slashing Social Safety.
With at this time’s excessive stage of political polarization, it is arduous to search out many issues {that a} majority of People agree on, however defending Social Safety is one in every of them. A powerful majority of People (79%) oppose slicing Social Safety advantages, in line with a March 2023 ballot from The Related Press/NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis.
After all, that hasn’t stopped Musk from amplifying the thought. Final week, he reposted an X thread from Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who referred to as Social Safety a “Ponzi scheme that’s running out of new investors” and “government dependency at its worst.”
Throughout an October rally for Donald Trump in New York, Musk mentioned he needed to chop “at least $2 trillion” from the federal price range. Since Social Safety is the largest single program within the federal price range, that implies it will likely be a goal. Doing this, although, gained’t achieve both Republicans or Democrats within the caucus any favors with voters.
For the Democrats becoming a member of the DOGE caucus, the thought is perhaps to angle for bipartisanship in an period when partisanship dominates politics. Or possibly they wish to stave off a tough reelection battle in 2026. In any case, Moskowitz and Landsman each gained reelection by lower than 55% this yr.
Both means, no proof suggests this caucus committee might be efficient or that DOGE might be standard amongst voters, so Democrats’ pledges to work with the deliberate, far-right, MAGA fee would possibly show short-sighted.
