DOGE wasn’t at all kind to Montana, terminating millions of dollars in federal grants, closing multiple government offices, and firing hundreds of otherwise essential employees.
Now it would appear the “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” the White House unleashed on this state and country weren’t so brilliant or efficient after all.
So inept that the Department of Government Efficiency—established by the executive order of Donald Trump on Jan. 25, 2025—unobtrusively dissolved in November with eight months remaining in its mission.
Call it a blessing in disguise.
For anybody needing reminding, the president and his onetime close ally, DOGE short-timer Elon Musk, vowed to slash from the federal budget in only one year’s time “at least” $2 trillion (a whopping 30 percent of the government’s annual allocations) while reducing the number of government agencies from 428 to 99.
“It was an absolute farce in terms of its fundamental purpose, which was to make our government work better, when in fact it was an exercise in absolute destruction,” Max Stier, president of the civil service-minded Partnership for Public Service, was quoted last month.
And if you’ve not heard, the billionaire Musk has now told conservative influencer Katie Miller (DOGE’s former spokeswoman) in an interview that DOGE’s efforts were marginal at best, to the extent he wouldn’t do it over again.
“We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful,” said Musk, wishing “instead of doing DOGE, I would have …worked on my companies.”
As it turned out, DOGE, and in most haphazard and gleeful fashion, abruptly fired 300,000 or so federal workers, as Stier put it “chasing away some of the very best talent we had in government to serve the America people.”
And, he added, the problems created by DOGE “are going to be with us for a very long time.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve applauded each and every president who’s tried to reduce the growing national debt. Trump’s problem is he bit off way more than he could chew.
At the close of November, around the same time DOGE was quietly disbanded, it reported saving U.S. taxpayers a total of $214 billion, obviously well short of its much-hyped target. And even that unverified figure is questionable, with ongoing independent analyses discovering everything from dubious accounting errors to continuing costs offsetting savings.
Speaking of the latter, keep your fingers crossed that private donors continue footing the bill to replace the recently demolished historic East Wing of the White House with Trump’s massive party room, its estimated costs jumping in no time from $200 million, to $350 million, to $400 million, and counting.
Here’s my cost-cutting recommendation to the sitting president: instead of showing more competent federal workers the door—not the least being the capable men and women DOGE booted this past summer from the Flathead to Hamilton and beyond—focus your attention on Capitol Hill and members of the U.S. Congress.
Capitol Hill, for the most part, is where this crap show began and can end.
“The fiscal status of the United States is disgraceful,” Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz said not long ago.
“The country is in the middle of a massive and collective failure to take the steps necessary to get spending, the deficit, and the debt under control. Inflation is still causing American families and businesses to struggle, and Congress continues to squander the taxpayers’ money.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.