On Wednesday, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Cost Efficiency Initiative.” It’s a real decisive answer; it’s lengthy, covers a lot of ground, and best of all, makes the DOGE official. Oh, there will still be challenges, and the left will still try to throw anything they can to gum up the works and keep the federal gravy train rolling, but this is still, as someone once said, a “big effin’ deal.”
Here are a few of the more interesting bits of this rather major EO:
Non-Essential Travel Justification. Each Agency Head shall, with assistance from the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, build a technological system within each agency that centrally records approval for federally funded travel for conferences and other non-essential purposes. Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system.
Question: The nation is seeing trillion-dollar budget deficits, and has $36 trillion in debt. Why is any non-essential travel at the taxpayers’ expense being conducted, at all? Slam the door. Let them attend conferences using Zoom. Meetings dealing with classified material we can concede are essential, but many of these things aren’t essential and don’t need to be attended in person. Cut them off.
Credit Card Freeze. To the maximum extent permitted by law, all credit cards held by agency employees shall be treated as frozen for 30 days from the date of this order, except for any credit cards held by employees engaged in, or charges related to employees utilizing such credit cards for, disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services as determined by the Agency Head, and subject to such additional individualized or categorical exceptions as the Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, deems appropriate.
This is sure to shake up a few people. But a scrupulous analysis of just how these cards are being used seems mighty low-hanging fruit for the DOGE; so low, in fact, that it’s basically laying on the ground. Abuse of government credit cards happens often enough that it’s the subject of jokes; this is something that the Trump administration really needs to get its arms around. It’s a good bet that three-quarters of these cards, at least, could and should be canceled.
Real Property Report. Within 7 days of the date of this order, each Agency Head shall confirm to the Administrator of General Services or his designee that the Agency Head has submitted updates to the Federal Real Property Profile Management System to ensure the system reflects a complete and accurate inventory of real property subject to the agency’s administration.
This goes on into:
Real Property Leases. Within 30 days of the date of this order, each Agency Head shall promptly identify all termination rights the Agency Head may have under existing leases of Government-owned real property and, in consultation with agency’s DOGE Team Lead and the Administrator of General Services or his designee, determine whether to exercise such rights.
And:
Real Property Disposition. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Administrator of General Services shall submit a plan to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the disposition of Government-owned real property which has been deemed by the agency as no longer needed.
That’s got to be a big, complex issue. The federal government owns a metric buttload of property (that’s 1.14 Imperial buttloads), and it’s a puzzler if any one person knows where all of that property is or what it consists of. Now, at least, assuming full compliance with the order, at least the DOGE will know. And what’s more, they’ll know what can be disposed of. It would be preferable to see the proceeds of any real property disposition applied to the national debt, but that remains to be seen. The EO is mute on that score.
The country is facing a fiscal disaster. As mentioned, we’re dealing with trillion-dollar budget deficits and $36 trillion in national debt. That debt number is creeping towards $37 trillion, as a matter of fact, and yes, that’s still “trillion” as in a “t” followed by a “rillion.” That’s a catastrophe in the making, and the DOGE is the first serious attempt I’ve seen in my lifetime of watching politics – a habit that goes back to the Carter administration – to do anything about it.
See Related: Identified: The DOGE Interim Director Has Been Named
Left Flips Out Over Elon Attending Cabinet Meeting — the Internet Has Perfect Response
You can read the EO in its entirety on the White House website here. You should read the EO in its entirety. It may well represent a last-ditch effort to save us from fiscal ruin.
