If Idaho’s DOGE is anything like Musk and Trump’s, no thank you | Opinion

So Idaho legislators want to have their own form of the federal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the acronym Elon Musk came up with to mimic Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke.

We all wish DOGE were a joke.

Turns out the joke is on us.

Musk’s DOGE, with the blessing of President Donald Trump, has been a disaster, shutting down vital services of the U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting funding for National Institutes of Health research, eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and firing federal workers in such departments as Veterans Affairs and U.S. Forest Service without consideration of consequences, or the effectiveness or necessity of the positions.

Arbitrary, across-the-board cuts have hit the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services, as well as the IRS and National Park Service.

Even though DOGE was supposed to root out waste, fraud and abuse, the department so far has failed to prove that its efforts have found much waste, fraud or abuse.

Elon Musk’s DOGE has proved to be the exact opposite of government efficiency: In several instances, DOGE has had to say, “Oops, we shouldn’t have fired those people,” or: “We shouldn’t have eliminated that program. Let’s bring them back.”

Federal workers involved in nuclear weapons management and bird flu prevention were initially fired but later rehired after the realization that they held essential roles in national security and public health. And the whole process has been full of bad information.

Closer to home, about 200 workers were fired at the Bonneville Power Administration, a public power agency that runs hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest, according to Reuters.

About 30 were rehired after a public outcry over the reliability of the electric supply, according to an aide to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington.

DOGE’s reckless pursuit of eliminating government waste has mostly turned out to be a reckless, Trump-led pursuit of eliminating government.

Now, some Idaho legislators say they want to do the same thing in our state.

According to the Idaho Capital Sun, a group of Republican Idaho legislative leaders announced they formed the Idaho Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE Task Force.

They formed the task force even though the Legislature failed to pass House Bill 364 that called for the formation of the task force.

So just as Elon Musk’s DOGE is a rogue offshoot of the federal government and not a legitimate creation of Congress, Idaho’s DOGE task force has about as much legitimacy to change government operations as this editorial board does.

Since we have just as much authority as House Speaker Mike Moyle’s DOGE task force, we might as well offer our big suggestion to make the Idaho government more efficient: Go back to having the Idaho Legislature meet every other year, just as prescribed in the Idaho Constitution.

This way, not only could we save on the cost of paying legislators to come to Boise, but the move would cut down on Republicans’ unconstitutional laws that are expensive to defend, and especially expensive when Idaho loses.

Plus, you might recall that Idaho Gov. Brad Little has bragged about how President Donald Trump holds up Idaho as a model of government efficiency with its reduction in government regulations. Little himself has boasted that the state is a model of proficiency.

So which is it: Idaho needs to get DOGE’d, or Idaho was DOGEing before DOGE was cool?

We have no problem with finding ways to make government more efficient, but we have to question whether Idaho needs this at all. Idaho has a constitutionally mandated balanced budget, and the Legislature has already passed billions of dollars in tax cuts and rebates in the past few years.

And while Idaho legislators this session approved sending $60 million of Idaho taxpayer dollars to private schools, ask anyone in public education, especially facility maintenance, whether they have any fat to cut.

Even if Idaho did need a thorough DOGEing, the last thing we should do is imitate the irresponsible Trump-Musk way of going about it.