DOGE Makes Bureaucrats Think Twice Before Wasting Your Money

There are many reasons why DOGE (the Trump’s administration Department of Government Efficiency) is both loathed and celebrated across the political spectrum, but there is one monumental outcome of DOGE that could change the world: The radical transparency will likely lead to self-censorship of bureaucrats everywhere. We ought to celebrate that.

Yes, there were efforts going back to Reagan’s Grace Commission in 1982, Clinton’s National Performance Review from 1993, or Obama’s Executive Order 13576 that specifically aimed to “hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars.” The government has several agencies tasked specifically with organizational efficiency or anti-fraud activities. These efforts generally never amounted to much because even when they found waste, there were no serious repercussions. In any private company, misplacing or de facto losing money in the magnitude of hundreds and thousands would be grounds for immediate dismissal, and people would go to jail if the misplacement was in the hundreds of thousands.

Yet we knew for years that the federal government misplaced millions and billions, and not only did no one get sacked, but the leadership acted as if we should have just moved along as if there was nothing to see, folks. (For reference, here’s Jon Stewart interviewing Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks after the Pentagon failed five audits, yet Hicks reacts with zero acknowledgment that anything went wrong — despite the Pentagon’s inability to account for 61 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets — offering only a maddeningly stubborn refusal to accept responsibility.)

The other reason for the failed efforts to tame the metastasizing spending was that we simply didn’t have the technology to carry out such a complex process. The systems are so complicated that following the paper trail, untangling the knots of acronyms and money transfers, and comparing the deliverables with the outcomes across agencies, bank accounts, NGOs, partners, and their reports was not humanly possible. Which is precisely why it’s a perfect job for AI and why now is the first time in history we can trace all the money and projects and uncover all the waste in that previously impenetrable web.

But learning what went wrong is only one part of the equation. I’d argue that the best outcome of the DOGE activities is that it will fortify the other side of the same equation: the preemptive saving, a form of individual and organizational self-censorship that will make people stop and think before committing money to various programs. Let’s call it self-restraint, so it’s more palatable. Regardless of the semantics, this is the best outcome of the technology-induced radical transparency.

What is the fastest-spreading virus in the world? An idea. A thought. It was Richard Dawkins who said that different units of cultural transmission ideas, behaviors, and styles spread like viruses in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Recently, this view was popularized by Christopher Nolan’s movie Inception, making the same point: Once you know, you cannot unknow.

This is precisely why we may assume that transparency will lead to self-restraint and the mind shift will happen. Because now that it’s out there, it’s in the open. We cannot unknow. We now have the ability to look, to trace. And the thought that we, the taxpayers, the public, can follow the breadcrumbs in record time anywhere they lead is going to change the behavior of government officials.

This is what’s going to happen next time some bullsh-t wasteful project lands on the desk of some bureaucrat: He will have to weigh whether or not to attach himself to this project of funding transgender operas in Colombia and Iraq, or a DEI musical in Ireland, or some other similarly questionable endeavor. From now on, bureaucrats will know that we can trace the funds, that we can trace the approval process. They’ll know that we’ll know. The bureaucratic actions are no longer hiding behind red tape, hundreds of acronyms, and impenetrable processes.

This is huge. Never in the tax-paying history was the distance between a taxpayer and the bureaucratic apparatus greater than in the last few decades. We basically had a whole cadre of people who were spending crazy amounts of money without taking one second to consider that this was somebody else’s money — that in order to fund some nonsensical project, a carpenter there, a business owner here, and a nurse somewhere else had to take the money from their kids’ college tuition or that medical bill or the bonus for their employees and give it to the IRS. That connection between the actual people’s contributions and “the budget” was lost.

But now, thanks to the technology and radical transparency, officials and organizations trusted with federal money will have to go through that self-restraint process and ask: Do I want to attach myself to this project? Is this something that the taxpayers would want to see? Is this something I have a mandate to deliver or is this an overreach?

This idea that the taxpayers now can and will look has been unleashed. It’s out there for every organization and every bureaucrat. It’s out there in the United States, but it’s also out there for the rest of the world. It’s a thought, it’s an idea — and it can’t be stopped or contained. That’s a clear, unequivocal victory for all of us.

Hana Kabele Gala has been teaching Hotel Business Management for over 15 years. She holds a Ph.D. from Charles University, Prague as well as several other degrees of questionable value. Hana also runs a thriving coaching practice in Seattle, Washington, where she uses neuroscience and hypnosis to help overthinkers live better. Follow Hana on X @HanaKabeleGala.