Elon Musk’s budget campaign could cause constitutional controversy during Trump’s second term

WASHINGTON – When Elon Musk first proposed a new attempt to reduce the size of government, Donald Trump didn’t seem to take it seriously. His final name for the idea also sounded like a joke. It will be called the “Department of Government Effectiveness,” or DOGE, a reference to an online meme of a surprised-looking dog from Japan.

But now that Trump has won the electionsfantasy mask becomes realitypotentially sparking a constitutional showdown over the balance of power in Washington.

Trump installed Musk, the richest man in the world, and Vivek Ramaswamyentrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate in charge of the new department, which is actually an outside advisory committee that will work with people inside government to cut costs and regulations.

This week, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would encourage Trump to make cuts by refusing to spend money allocated by Congress. This process is known as forfeiture. The proposal flies in the face of a 1974 law designed to prevent future presidents from following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, who withheld funding he didn’t like.

“We are prepared to be attacked by entrenched interests in Washington,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote. in an article published in The Wall Street Journal. “We expect to win. Now is the moment for decisive action.”

Trump has already proposed taking such a big step, saying last year that he would “use the president’s long-recognized detention powers to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for huge savings.”

This would be a dramatic attempt to expand his powers when he already has a favorable opinion Republican-controlled Congress and conservative majority US Supreme Courtand it could quickly become one of the most closely watched legal disputes of his second administration.

“He can get away with this,” said William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “Congressional power over the purse will become an advisory opinion.”

Musk and Ramaswami began to outline their plans

At present, the Department’s plans for government efficiency are still in focus. The nascent organization issued a call for “small government revolutionaries with ultra-high IQs willing to work 80+ hours a week for unattractive cost cutting.” Applicants are encouraged to submit their resumes through X, a social network owned by Musk.

In the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy provided the most detailed look yet at how they will operate and where they could cut costs. Some are longtime Republican goals, such as $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Other plans are more ambitious and could change the federal government. They wrote that they would “determine the minimum number of employees necessary for the agency to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutory functions,” leading to “a massive reduction in the size of the federal bureaucracy.”

They argue that government employee protections would not apply because they would not target specific people for political purposes.

Some employees may choose “voluntary severance packages to facilitate dignified exit.” But others will be asked to leave, requiring them to report to the office five days a week, ending pandemic-era flexibility over remote work. This requirement “will lead to a wave of voluntary layoffs, which we welcome.”

Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said such cuts would harm services for Americans who rely on the federal government and suggested Musk and Ramaswamy were at a loss.

“I don’t think they are even remotely qualified to perform these duties,” he said. “That’s my main concern.”

Kelly said his union, which represents 750,000 employees in the federal government and the city of Washington, D.C., is prepared to fight efforts to cut the workforce.

“We’ve been here and heard this kind of rhetoric before,” he said. “And we are ready.”

Federal rules will aim to repeal

The Wall Street Journal made no mention of Musk’s previously stated goal of cutting the budget by $2 trillion, nearly a third of total annual spending. They also didn’t write about “Schedule F,” a potential plan to reclassify federal workers to make them easier to fire. Ramaswamy once described the idea as “the mass deportation of federal bureaucrats from Washington, D.C.”

But Musk and Ramaswamy have said they will cut regulations they call excessive. They wrote that their department “will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, using cutting-edge technology” to review regulations that conflict with two recent Supreme Court decisions that sought to limit federal rulemaking authority.

Musk and Ramaswamy said Trump could “immediately suspend enforcement of these rules and begin the process of review and repeal.”

Chris Edwards, a budget expert at the Cato Institute, said many Republicans over the years have promised to reduce the size and role of government, often to little effect. Sometimes it seems that behind every budget item and tax provision, no matter how unclear, there are people dedicated to preserving them, turning attempted cuts into political battles of attrition.

“Presidents always seem to have higher priorities,” he said. “A lot of them fall by the wayside.”

While DOGE plans to complete its work by July 4, 2026, Edwards said Musk and Ramaswamy must move faster to capitalize on the momentum generated by Trump’s election victory.

“Will it just sit on the shelf collecting dust or will it be put into action?,” Edwards said. “It all depends on Trump and where he is at the moment.”

Ramaswamy said in an online video that they are planning regular “Dogecasts” to keep the public informed of their work, which he called a “once-in-a-generation project” to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”

“As bad as you think it is, it’s probably worse,” he said.

Musk and Ramaswami will have allies in Congress

House Republicans are expected to put Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally from Georgia, in charge of a subcommittee on DOGE, according to two people familiar with the plans but not authorized to discuss them publicly. Greene and Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, have already met with Ramaswamy, the two people said.

Musk came up with the DOGE idea during a call with Trump on Channel X during the election campaign.

“I think we need a state efficiency commission that would say, ‘Hey, where are we spending smart money?’ Where is it unreasonable?,” Musk said.

Musk returned to the topic twice, volunteering his services, saying, “I’d be happy to help with that kind of commission.”

“I would love that,” Trump responded, calling Musk “the greatest cutter.”

Musk has his own incentives promote this initiative. His companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, have billions of dollars in government contracts and are subject to oversight by government regulators.

After expenses approximately 200 million dollars To support Trump’s candidacy, he is poised to exert broad influence on the next administration. Earlier this week, Trump even visited Texas to Watch SpaceX test its biggest rocket yet.

DOGE will have an ally in Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has opposed federal spending for years. He recently told Fox News that he sent Musk and Ramaswamy “2,000 pages of trash that could be cut.”

“I’m fully prepared and will do whatever I can to help them,” Paul said.