Is DOGE an impossible dream? Or "desperately needed?"

When President Reagan delivered his final address from the Oval Office on January 11, 1989, he said "I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "The engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to stay that way for years to come." Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "right." What they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed."

It didn't take long for those 'experts' to eat some humble pie. "Two years later, another economic summit with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one of them broke the silence. 'Tell us about the American miracle,' he said."

Right now, lots of progressive economists have hinted that DOGE is unsophisticated. They've hinted that DOGE won't be effective, that it's too simplistic. Personally, I think it's this era's "desperately needed." Here's what Dan Henninger's latest columnsays on the subject:

It is easy to mock or minimize DOGE. Its name, the Department of Government Efficiency, reads like a Muskian stab at humor. It may be an impossible dream. Critics argue that the intention of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to cut federal spending by $2 trillion is unachievable because so much of the total is big-three entitlement spending—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—that’s set in political stone, with Donald Trump’s assent.

Much of the spending that will be cut will come from collapsing expensive regulations that cost billions of dollars and that've been ruled unconstitutional. Tons of regulations were ruled unconstitutional with the West Virginia v. EPA ruling from the Supreme Court. Any major regulation that Congress didn't authorize in the originating text of the law is unconstitutional under the Surpreme Court's "Major Case Doctrine" precedent. All that's needed to get rid of them is President Trump signing an executive order.

DOGE is even getting support from unlikely people:

Amen. We shouldn't be afraid of innovation. For decades, the U.S.'s middle name was innovation. Donald Trump hasn't been inaugurated a second time but Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are already thinking of which programs are duplicative and, by definition, aren't efficient. What's more is that they're using AI to identify which programs are duplicative rather than using lots of manpower to pour through government report after government report.

Let's remember, too, that this isn't some wet-behind-the-ears college freshman leading the project. It's Elon Musk, the smartest man in the world, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Talk about brainpower on steroids.This might be a bit too pessimistic but it gets the message across:

I don’t doubt that what Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy are attempting with DOGE is difficult, maybe too difficult. But if the choice has become choosing between one side’s eternal dole and the other’s DOGE, I’ll bet the future on the latter.

It's time to shoot for the stars again.