While I have my doubts about the incoming administration’s true intents and their ability to effectively implement policies, I believe every incoming President and legislative majority deserves the chance to show what they can do.

I have always been an advocate for an organized effort to make our government more efficient.  I once moved from Delaware back to my home state of Missouri. When I moved to Delaware, I exchanged my valid Missouri driver’s license for a Delaware license, nothing else required. When I moved back, I had to take the written and driving tests to reacquire a Missouri license.

I sent a letter to the state asking why, since we weren’t stopping Delaware drivers at the border for some unimagined reason.  The response I received was a letter saying “It’s the law,” along with 50 pages of statute copies.  The point the state avoided was that it is grossly inefficient to get a Missouri license even though you have a valid license from another state.

I’m rooting for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.  This new bureaucracy is to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.  The proof will be in what they achieve and how they achieve it.

While DOGE will not be in effect until the inauguration, Musk’s initial action was to obstruct a bipartisan agreement to keep our government funded. It is hard for me to see how creating legislative chaos is a step toward efficiency.

Both Musk and Ramaswamy have sounded off about the necessity of admitting more immigrants that have technical skills.  This has stirred it up with many MAGA Republicans who vilified all immigrants as a campaign platform.  Our pending DOGE leaders are businessmen and know you need skilled people in business, including healthcare. As ridiculously rich men who have no idea how our day-to-day service industry works, however, neither have offered a peep in support of the lesser-skilled immigrants already working in our economy.

This is not a good start, and we haven’t even officially started.

I spent 40 years working in industry, constantly trying to improve work processes and achieve both efficiency and higher quality work outcomes. It takes a disciplined approach and a lot of hard work. You need to map out how a department currently functions, then look to see what can be improved or eliminated – such as not re-testing people who move into your state with a valid driver’s license.  

I’ll offer the U.S. Postal Service as an example.  Today, it primarily handles “snail” mail – mail that has no urgency to be delivered.  If it has to be there the next day, you email it, electronically send it or call FedEx.  So why don’t we deliver mail every other day, cutting in half the resources we need to deliver mail?

One of the arguments for universal healthcare is that it would greatly simplify administrative work. Right now, every healthcare provider has to know how to submit claims to Medicare, Medicaid and a diverse array of private insurers. It’s a paperwork nightmare.

Our government spends more money on defense than any other budget line.  I believe we need a strong and modern defense. I also believe the stories that our government pays 10 times more for a screwdriver than we do at our local hardware store. 

What specifications are overkill and drive unnecessary cost? With our defense suppliers, what can we do differently to improve productivity for our money, produce our armament more quickly and achieve a higher level of quality?

I haven’t heard Musk or Ramaswamy raise any of these efficiency questions. Instead, I have heard speculation that all federal employees will no longer be able to do any work at home. Why? I haven’t seen any data that suggests worker productivity suffered when people worked at home. 

I suspect the ugly truth is they know a significant number of federal workers will quit, and they won’t replace them. That isn’t efficiency. That’s destroying the functionality of government with service obligations as defined by law – in effect “defunding” the government.

Almost everything our government spends is authorized by legislative bills.  That’s why Trump didn’t get a wall built in his previous administration, because he couldn’t get a bill passed to fund it. That’s why he didn’t kill Obamacare because he couldn’t get a bill passed, even with a Republican majority.

Real efficiency isn’t stopping something you’re supposed to do. It will take a bill to change the mission of the U.S. Postal Service to every-other-day delivery. It will take a bill to close unnecessary military facilities, to simplify procurement processes and to cancel orders for unnecessary arms. It will take a bill to simplify healthcare administration.

The incoming Trump Administration has the benefit of four years of prior executive experience. It once again has a Republican majority in Congress.  It has invited some very smart business people to focus on efficiency. 

I truly hope they achieve real and lasting efficiency. But I fear they will just shut down any functioning of government they don’t feel like funding. And a lot of people will suffer for that.

We’ll find out… probably sooner than later.