Why DOGE Mattered

There is a popular theory that suggests modern politics is determined by “the vibes.”

That is, politics is an irrational business, and the best way to make sense of it is to lean into how it feels. The “vibes” are the vague emotional atmosphere and swelling moods of the electorate. Like a tide that’s coming in or going out, the vibes are nearly impossible to define except in relation to where they’ve been or where they are going. We’re seemingly always on the cusp of one “vibe shift” or analyzing the passing wake of another.

Policymaking, however, remains rooted in a less ethereal plane. Perhaps that’s why today’s politicians seem to be so bad at it. The vibes of “Hope” and “Change” or “Make America Great Again” inevitably run aground against the tangible, practical reality of running the government. Change what? How to make greatness happen?

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the latest high-profile victim of that dynamic.

It is somewhat unclear whether DOGE is dead or alive at the moment—Reuters says it “doesn’t exist” anymore, but the Trump administration calls that report “fake news.” Regardless, it is undeniable that the effort failed to achieve its lofty budget-cutting goals. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who pioneered the idea for DOGE, promised $2 trillion in budget cuts. Instead, it delivered a paltry $9 billion in official cuts (which Congress confirmed via a rescission bill passed in July), and it probably deserves partial credit for the departure of an estimated 211,000 employees from the federal government since Trump returned to power. Many of the things DOGE claimed to be cutting turned out to be embellished or were blocked by courts (and sometimes by other parts of the Trump administration).

The reasons for this failure are not worth rehashing here—read my take from May or Christian Britschgi’s assessment of what DOGE accomplished in the newly available January issue of Reason.

But even in its failure, DOGE can be useful. Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind when you see those four letters is likely not the federal balance sheet or a stack of Congressional Budget Office reports. No, you’re picturing the silly dog meme or Musk welding a chainsaw on stage at CPAC. It may not have amounted to much in the long run, but for a little while there, DOGE was a successful branding exercise. It got people excited. It made cutting spending look fun—if a little chaotic.

DOGE was a vibe.

Yes, cutting trillions in federal spending, balancing the budget, or solving the looming entitlement crisis won’t be accomplished by vibes alone. However, the lesson that DOGE can offer future politicians is that they need not be afraid to propose radical ideas. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Pull out the chainsaw, promise to do the crazy thing, and you’ll get people cheering for you—and the people who get angry, well, they were going to be opposed to your ideas anyway.

The DOGE’s most lasting impact might actually be away from the federal government, as it inspired knockoff efforts in several Republican-run states. In Texas, for example, Gov. Greg Abbott’s new Regulatory Efficiency Office is promising to cut red tape and limit time-consuming regulatory reviews. Importantly, the reforms in Texas were codified by the state legislature, granting them a legitimacy and staying power that the federal DOGE never quite achieved.

This year, more than half the states and Puerto Rico considered legislation to promote state government efficiency, and 13 state legislatures created committees with missions modeled on the federal DOGE project, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks such things. Some of those follow the tech-minded approach that Musk briefly brought to the federal government. North Carolina and Hawaii have considered bills that would allow lawmakers to use AI to analyze state budgets and regulations to find inefficiencies and duplications.

That’s how you translate political vibes into something more lasting and worthwhile.

Of course, it does require policymakers to actually follow through once the cheers have subsided. That’s where DOGE failed, in part because Trump refused to give it the authority to target the parts of the budget that are actually driving the deficit—spending on Social Security and Medicare—and in part because Musk seemingly assumed he knew more about the federal budget than people who had spent their entire careers advocating for cutting spending.

“It was never going to amount to much more than a marketing gimmick without a president actually serious about cutting spending,” former congressman Justin Amash posted on X earlier this week, in response to the (now disputed) news that DOGE was no more.

He’s right. Having a president with an actual appetite for cutting spending and a real plan to accomplish it is the most important thing.

But when—or if—that person arrives on the scene in Washington, he or she will need to sell those ideas to the American public. DOGE wasn’t a perfect model for how to do that, but it certainly succeeded by changing the conversation—or, dare I say it, shifting the vibes—around wasteful and foolish government spending.