I spend a fair amount of time these days discussing the impact on our county of a thing called DOGE. It’s not a department of government, and it’s not efficient, but somebody misnamed it the Department Of Government Efficiency.
I talk about it because reporters (even the Wall Street Journal this week) and bond rating agencies (all three presentations are this week) are asking about how DOGE-driven removal of positions from the federal government will impact our agencies, our revenues, our public safety, our health, our environment, our schools, our businesses, and our families.
But I don’t want to talk about the negative impacts of DOGE. I’d rather focus on the anti-DOGE, the movement by government leaders who reject efforts to dismantle government institutions and replace them with for-profit corporations run by people like Elon Musk.
I’m not talking about the politicians who simply attack Trump and Musk, and mock them for their greed and incompetence. I’m talking about the government leaders who recognize that the most effective resistance is to actually make government efficient without dismantling it. It’s a smart approach that is growing fast.
I’m partway through a book that just came out called, Why Nothing Works by Marc Dunkelman. It explores how both the left and the right in recent years have prevented government from doing hard things, like building infrastructure and housing to move economies forward. It’s a study of government inefficiency, but it offers hope around the corner.
I ordered a similar book that has been all over the talk shows this week called Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thomspson. It’s also about failure by government to do what’s needed, failure that opens the door to anti-government movements like MAGA.
I heard an interview over the weekend on Pod Save America with recently-announced California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter. Her campaign pitch is that she will make government efficient, functional, and able to meet the challenges of our time.
I watched a BBC Newscast about how the UK’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer is making reforms that are focused on government efficiency and effectiveness. He has to show that the Labour government can fix things.
Closer to home, Governor Moore reminded an audience this week that the concept of DOGE isn’t new in Maryland. He hired a Chief Performance Officer in 2023 whose former job in the White House was to accelerate implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He hired her because she had experience working with states to remove bureaucratic obstacles to completing projects. His communications team made sure that the story made the papers. They know that it’s good politics right now.
I have to say that I’m loving this anti-DOGE elevation of actual government efficiency and effectiveness as a pitch to voters. I don’t know if it’s what excites those voters, but it should, and it’s fantastic that people who campaign to lead governments are talking about their management skills, rather than just their ideas.
In our little microcosm of America by the Chesapeake Bay, a whole lot of what we’ve done in recent years has been about making the machine of government work better, and I write about it in this letter often. When Christine Anderson came on as our Chief Administrative Officer, I asked her to streamline and simplify the three most difficult Ps: permitting, procurement, and personnel processes. We created interagency work groups, implemented their recommendations, and passed legislation with our County Council in all three areas to benefit people on both the inside and outside of government.
We’re now in the midst of evaluating budget requests from each county department, and everything is viewed through the lens of efficiency. The budget analysts have already asked tough questions, challenged the answers, and made recommendations. We ask more questions, challenge those answers, and put requests in categories of merit.
It matters who’s at the table for these deliberations. They have to be people who know government functions. It can’t be people new to government, political hacks, or greedy contractors who want a piece of the action. Elon Musk and his twenty-something computer hackers are the last people I’d allow in the room.
It’s not sexy to make politics about governing effectively and efficiently, but that’s what it should be about. We all benefit when our government is managed well.
So maybe, just maybe, we are on the cusp of a new politics of government efficiency, one where the pros win because they are the ones who can deliver what all voters want: public health, good schools, infrastructure that improves our lives, clean air and water, an end to poverty, public safety, and yes, lower prices. It’s the stuff that is universally appreciated. It’s not the wedge issues.
Maybe in a few years time we’ll be thanking DOGE for waking us up and showing us just how much we had to lose, and just how dumb it is to put people with no government experience in charge of efficiency.
Until next week…