Technology and space exploration mogul Elon Musk and entrepreneur-turned-2024 Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have unveiled their vision for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which they will spearhead under President-elect Donald J. Trump. The two laid out their plans in an editorial for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, emphasizing that the government should be run by the elected and not the permanent, unelected bureaucracy.

“Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections,” Musk and Ramaswamy contend.

CUT REGULATIONS.

To address the problem, they say they will work with legal experts in each agency to identify regulatory guidance and rulemaking that is outside the bounds of  West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Loper Bright v. Raimondo—two recent Supreme Court decisions that have significantly curbed the regulatory reach of federal agencies. These rules and regulations will be compiled into lists to be presented to President Trump, “who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission.”

SHRINK THE WORKFORCE.

The next stage, Musk and Ramaswamy write, will then be a mass reduction in the size of the federal workforce. They contend that a reduction in the scale of regulatory requirements and paperwork will pave the way for shrinking the bureaucracy that enacts and oversees said regulations. Musk and Ramaswamy note that while the President cannot—arguably—target individual positions for elimination, federal law allows for “‘reductions in force’ that don’t target specific employees.”

Finally, they propose an aggressive legal challenge to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. If overturned, President Trump could, in theory, withhold congressional appropriations from various agencies, generating taxpayer savings.

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