President-elect Donald Trump isn’t the first commander-in-chief to rely on the private sector to shake, slash and shrink the federal government of inefficiency, waste and deficit.
Trump, in fact, during his first term in office failed in the monumental task when Carl Icahn, the billionaire pal he appointed to oversee the otherwise elusive reforms, resigned amid concerns of personal financial gain.
I just joined the White House press corps when the Ronald Reagan empaneled Grace Commission —“150 outstanding experts from the private sector”— proposed 2,500 recommendations for rebooting the U.S. government.
The commission’s catchy mission statement, “Drain the swamp,” is arguably its most lasting legacy.
There were other occupants of the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats alike, who similarly tried but failed to overhaul the bloated executive branch.
Now, with plenty of panoply, the president-in-waiting is vowing all over again “to cut the federal government down to size.” This time, though, he thinks he has a good shot at succeeding.
With much fanfare, Trump tasked Elon Musk, the planet’s richest man, to spearhead extraordinary federal spending cuts, to the astounding (I argue unviable) tune of “at least” $2 trillion per year — a whopping 30 percent of this fiscal year’s $6.8 trillion federal budget.
Musk insists such drastic measures are not only doable, he foresees whittling 400-plus federal agencies to 99 or fewer. Trump, for his part, has given him until July 4, 2026 to succeed.
Outspoken pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, meanwhile, is co-leader of this rose-colored endeavor. But like Icahn before him, the experimental-drugs developer will need to tread carefully around the chopping block; given his distaste for a Food and Drug Administration that he’s previously dubbed the “Failed Drug Administration.”
That said, in the process of building their impressive business portfolios, each of the billionaires has mastered the skill of slicing and dicing, Musk in particular when streamlining SpaceX, Twitter-turned-X and Tesla.
As we speak, the pair is busy hiring “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80-plus hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting,” while also amassing a volunteer army of like-minded billionaires to weigh-in as needed.
And as quickly as Trump is administered the oath of office the aforementioned will move swiftly to clean Uncle Sam’s crowded house, this time under the authority of the newly christened “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE.
By the way, don’t think for one minute that DOGE’s sharp teeth won’t penetrate Montana, whether it’s cuts in federal jobs or programs, or both. For that matter, barely 15 percent of the 2.3-million-member federal civilian work force toils in the nation’s capital, with the remaining 85 percent filling U.S. government jobs in this state and beyond.
Needless to say, DOGE will pack a far greater punch than REGO — Bill Clinton’s acronym for “Reinventing Government” — which included a major overhaul of the nation’s regulatory system.
The president ordered his Cabinet secretaries and other agency heads to conduct immediate comprehensive reviews to identify costly, obsolete, or burdensome regulations (red tape) and either rewrite, cut, or terminate them.
Oh well, if nothing else the ambitious undertaking provided plentiful fodder for my syndicated political column. Countless bureaucrats took to forwarding me one onerous regulation after another, some they were entrusted to enforce, not to mention several hilarious observations from official corridors of power.
Take Glenn and Pete, who while riding a padded elevator at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) saw that the cleaning lady’s cart contained stacks of “low-cost” toilet paper for the agency’s restrooms.
“I also noticed a separate container with ‘Charmin Big Squeeze’ tissue, the ultimate in softness,” Glenn informed me. “I asked what the Charmin was for. The lady answered that was for the chairman’s private bathroom.”
“This is clearly an improper use of power,” Pete pointed out.
The two bureaucrats fired off a memo to their superiors demanding “soft” sheets for everyone, not just the lady chairman. Sure enough, in the spirit of reinventing government, nuclear administrators promised “all NRC employees at headquarters should be noting the results soon.”
Another federal worker sent me a General Services Administration invoice for a walnut desk and blue chair, costing taxpayers $4,096.16. After the furniture was delivered, he said, the GSA spent 29 cents in postage to tell the supplier they’d overcharged the government by 21 cents. Oh well, the intentions were good.
A few of the more burdensome regulations required that a company alert the U.S. Coast Guard in Washington if they spilled just one pint of antifreeze; while any person standing atop a six-foot scaffold must be tethered to a “fall-protection device” also measuring six feet.
Clinton one day also sent a memorandum to his executive department heads, requesting they use “plain language” when communicating. The first official to make more sense, he added, would win a prize.
“We are determined to make the government more … understandable,” the president wrote, setting a tight deadline to “use plain language on all new documents.”
When it came time to announce the winner, Clinton chose a Food and Drug Administration official who rewrote the agency’s safe recipe for turkey:
BEFORE: “Turkey Basics: Stuffing. Thermometer Essential when Stuffing a Turkey. Cooking a home stuffed turkey can be somewhat riskier than cooking one not stuffed. Bacteria can survive in stuffing which has not reached the safe temperature of 165 degrees F, possibly resulting in foodborne illness. Even if the turkey itself has reached the proper internal temperature in all parts of the stuffing sufficient to destroy food-borne bacteria … during the added cooking necessary to bring the stuffing up to a safe temperature the meat may become overcooked. For optimal safety and uniform doneness cook stuffing separately.”
AFTER: “Make sure you cook both your turkey and your stuffing completely. If you don’t bacteria that can make you sick may still be alive.”
My overall favorite example of a government in need of reinvention, though, came from a former state census director who called attention to a census form for businesses:
“I’ll never forget we got this one response from a little mom-and-pop operation up in Iuka, Mississippi. And as they went down the questionnaire they came to the question, ‘Number of employees broken down by sex.’
“And they answered that question, ‘None broken down by sex, but we do have two with a drinking problem!’”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.