Would a Local Government Accept DOGE's Recommendations?
Looking at a big idea through the lens of a small NH city
Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy invested millions to get Donald Trump in the White House and in exchange, Trump has created a new “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE to enable them to implement their ideas on how to streamline the government to make it more efficient.
Meanwhile, Lebanon NH, the small neighboring city, is facing a budget crisis that will require double digit property tax increases for the next several years. Anyone who follows the relationship between the federal, state, and local governments knows why local governments are challenged. Whenever there is a costly and/or controversial issue— like COVID closures, the housing shortage, the opioid crisis, or the costs to provide services to special education students with intense needs— the federal government declares them to be state issues and the states, in turn, hand them off to local governments…. and the money is seldom passed along with the responsibility.
In the op ed submission below, I describe the two principles DOGE intends to apply in order to accomplish its stated goal of reducing the government workforce by 75%, principles that have unfortunately guided the administrations of both parties for decades: deregulation and privatization.
Why have politicians embraced these ideas? Because they have helped corporations reduce their spending and thereby increase their profits by avoiding spending for employee and consumer safety and protection (deregulation) and getting cheap labor and avoiding unionization (privatization, especially in the form of outsourcing or off-shoring).
The tough unasked question in the op ed piece below is whether voters are voting to ruthlessly cut government staff out of resentment, whether they are doing so because they think that their piddling-to-middling tax cut is needed so that they can make ends meet, or they haven’t connected the dots to understand that the primary beneficiaries of these cuts and loosened regulations are the billionaires who underwrite the political campaigns of candidates.
Here’s what I submitted to our local paper yesterday:
Lebanon Might Consider a DOGE Solution to its Budget Woes
Last week Lebanon City government officials warned residents that a wave of tax increases will be needed to retain their current services. Citing employee contracts, debt payments and the need to replenish the city’s unassigned fund balance as the primary drivers of these anticipated budget increases, the city manager saw higher taxes or deep cuts as the only choices.
Based on what is happening at the federal level, there might be another way for the Lebanon City Council to balance its budget. They might use the playbook proposed by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Headed by billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, this new Executive Branch advisory group plans to use a combination of deregulation and privatization to reduce the government workforce.
Musk and Ramaswamy assert that recent Supreme Court cases open the door for the President to use Executive Orders to eliminate “unnecessary, costly and inefficient regulations”. They believe that by voiding hundreds of administrative rules it will be possible to eliminate entire departments in the federal government, departments with thousands of employees responsible for writing and enforcing regulations. As recently reported in Pro Publica, since June 2024 when the Supreme Court undercut the authority of government employees to write and enforce regulations based on laws passed by Congress, various lawsuits have been filed challenging “overreaching” agency rules on overtime pay, Obamacare, airline fees, noncompete agreements, gun sales, abortion funding, advertising, and immigration.
For decades businessmen and pro-business politicians have asserted that the government could realize savings by privatizing as many functions as possible. Advocates for privatization reason that government employees often receive higher pay and more benefits than private sector employees doing comparable work. Moreover, in many cases government employees are paid based on schedules that guarantee raises every year and receive relatively generous retirement benefits. When government functions are bid on by private contractors, the government employees doing that work can be laid off and comparable services can be provided for lower costs. Mail delivery, logistical services in the Armed forces, and airport traffic control are examples of how the Federal government has already outsourced job functions to the private sector.
Given the President-Elect’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that gives the President broad authority to fulfill his duties, it is possible that the DOGE initiatives described above might be possible through Executive Order. But should these Executive Orders be challenged in court, Musk and Ramaswamy see two other ways to fulfill DOGE’s mission: through legislation proposed by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 or through expedited court rulings. With GOP majorities in the House and Senate Musk and Ramaswamy believe it is possible for the President-elect to get the Project 2025 legislation passed. Failing that, they believe the President could expedite hearings before the Supreme Court, who appear sympathetic to loosening regulations of all kinds.
By using the cost savings approaches DOGE recommends, Lebanon’s City Council could address their financial challenges. They could use DOGE’s deregulation review as a template to eliminate local regulations for housing, safety, and the environment. Once those unnecessary, costly, and inefficient administrative rules are eliminated, the city could eliminate the jobs of government employees responsible for enforcing them.
The city could also implement DOGE’s privatization ideas by outsourcing the functions performed by their police, fire, library, public works, and recreation departments. Through competitive bidding, these services could be provided by the private firms at a greatly reduced cost to taxpayers. The elimination of these jobs would result in the elimination of existing contracts for employees in those departments, which, in turn, would eliminate the built-in wage and health insurance costs. As for the debt service for the new Fire Station, a well-crafted RFP for firefighting services could ensure those costs are paid by the private firefighting company seeking the lowest bid possible. Should the Charter prevent the budget cuts like those DOGE recommends, the City Council could use resources from a think tank like the Heritage Foundation to develop the local legislation required to make it possible.
These DOGE proposals when applied to a city or small town budget illustrate the consequences making budget cuts in the name of “efficiency”. Are regulations governing land use, zoning and public safety ”inefficient”? Is it “inefficient” to provide a town’s employees with wages that enable them to live in the communities they serve? Is it “inefficient” to provide residents with libraries, parks, and recreation opportunities? I would not want friends and neighbors who work for local governments in the Upper Valley to lose their jobs in the name of “efficiency”. The Upper Valley has already witnessed how CEOs in distant cities decided to close factories in the name of “efficiency”. Those decisions may have reduced costs and boosted their bottom lines but they did not improve the quality of life for the employees affected by them.
Before voiding regulations that “strangle the economy” and thereby eliminating the jobs of bureaucrats who write and enforce those rules, voters might consider who benefits from these actions taken in the name of “efficiency”. From what I’ve read, the money saved by ending “frivolous” regulations and firing thousands of government employees will be used to sustain tax cuts for billionaires like Musk and Ramaswamy, billionaires whose wealth will presumably increase if the deregulation they champion increases the profits of their enterprises.
A tax cut from the Federal government won’t help Lebanon voters sleep better at night. An increase in property tax to ensure their community is safe and orderly, provides good schools, employs workers who can afford to live in their town, and offers a wide array of services for residents of all ages will.