With DOGE, Trump can seize his cost-cutting mandate but itll take courage

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, and a likely GOP trifecta, will give him a rare opportunity to meaningfully cut government spending.Tuesday brought the official word that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are on board to lead Trump’s temporary Department of Government Efficiency — and opened a limited window to turn the Republican mandate into action.If they succeed, Trump can deliver on his promises to tamp down inflation, stimulate growth and shift power away from Washington and back to We the People.While Kamala Harris sold price controls during the campaign’s home stretch, Trump wisely enlisted Musk to rail against wasteful spending.In announcing DOGE, the president-elect said he aimed to reorganize federal agencies, “slash excess regulations” and “drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 trillion of government spending.”Musk, who said the moves would send “shockwaves” through the system, has suggested DOGE could cut roughly $2 trillion.That goal isn’t far off the audacious target offered by President Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission 40 years ago, which estimated that one-third of all federal income tax revenue was being wasted. Taxpayers are rightly skeptical about commissions and grand promises from Washington to cut spending.While Reagan’s economic policies were wildly successful during his eight years (inflation dropped from 13.5% to 4.1%), he failed to persuade Congress to cut the federal budget.I’ve seen what commissions can and cannot do firsthand as a staffer for the late Sen.

Tom Coburn when he served on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission in 2010.While it failed in its mission, Coburn’s work outside the commission helped bring about the only true federal spending cuts in the past 70 years.He won a protracted war against congressional earmarks, leading to a Senate earmark moratorium in 2010 that held for a decade.More importantly, in 2012 and 2013, the downward pressure...