HARRISBURG, Pa. – The brash and chaotic first days of President Donald Trump ‘s Division of Authorities Effectivity, as soon as led by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, spawned state-level DOGE mimicry as Republican governors and lawmakers intention to point out they’re consistent with their occasion’s chief.
Governors have all the time made political hay out of slashing waste or taming paperwork, however DOGE has, in some methods, raised the stakes for them to point out that they’re zealously dedicated to slicing prices. Many drive dwelling the purpose that they’ve all the time been targeted on slicing authorities, even when they don’t seem to be conducting mass layoffs.
“I prefer to say we have been doing DOGE earlier than DOGE was a factor,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds stated in asserting her personal activity power in January.
Critics agree that a few of these initiatives are nothing new and counsel they’re wasteful, basically duplicating built-in processes which might be usually the area of legislative committees or unbiased state auditors.
On the identical time, some governors are utilizing their DOGE automobiles to take intention at GOP targets of the second, resembling welfare applications or range, fairness and inclusion applications. And a few governors who is perhaps eyeing a White Home run in 2028 are rebranding their cost-cutting initiatives as DOGE, maybe keen to assert the mantle of probably the most DOGE of all of them.
No chainsaws within the states
No less than 26 states have initiated DOGE-style efforts of various sorts, in response to the Financial Coverage Institute based mostly in Washington, D.C.
Most DOGE efforts have been carried out by a governor’s order — together with by governors in Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma — or by lawmakers introducing laws or making a legislative committee.
The state initiatives have a markedly completely different character than Trump’s slash-and-burn strategy, symbolized by Musk’s chainsaw-brandishing appearance at a Conservative Political Motion Committee look in February.
Governors are tending to entrust their DOGE bureaus to loyalists, somewhat than unbiased auditors, and are sometimes using what might be yearslong processes to consolidate procurement, modernize data expertise techniques, introduce AI instruments, repeal regulations or scale back automotive fleets, workplace leases or employee headcounts by attrition.
Steve Slivinski, a senior fellow on the libertarian Cato Institute who researches state authorities regulatory buildings, stated that a number of what he has seen from state-level DOGE initiatives are the “identical stuff you do on a fairly common foundation anyway” in state governments.
States usually have routine auditing procedures and the methods states have of saving cash are “comparatively unsexy,” Slivinski stated.
And whereas the state-level DOGE automobiles is perhaps helpful over time find marginal enhancements, “branding it DOGE is extra of a press op somewhat than something new or considerably completely different than what they often do,” Slivinski stated.
Analysts on the pro-labor Financial Coverage Institute say that governors and lawmakers, primarily within the South and Midwest, are utilizing DOGE to breathe new life into long-term agendas to consolidate energy away from state companies and civil servants, dismantle public companies and profit insiders and privatization advocates.
“It isn’t truly about slicing prices due to some fiscal duty,” EPI analyst Nina Mast stated.
Governors selling spending cuts
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry rebranded his “Fiscal Duty Program” as Louisiana DOGE, and promoted it as the primary to group up with the federal authorities to clean illegitimate enrollees from welfare applications. It has already netted $70 million in financial savings within the Medicaid program in an “unprecedented” coordination, Landry stated in June.
In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt — who says in a blurb on the Oklahoma DOGE web site that “I’ve been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since earlier than it was cool” — made a DOGE splash with the primary report by his Division of Authorities Effectivity by declaring that the state would refuse some $157 million in federal public well being grants.
The largest chunk of that was $132 million supposed to assist epidemiology and laboratory capability to regulate infectious illness outbreaks.
The Stitt administration stated that funding — about one-third of the whole over an eight-year interval — exceeded the quantity wanted.
The left-leaning Oklahoma Coverage Institute questioned the knowledge of that, pointing to rising numbers of measles and whooping cough instances and the rocky transition below Stitt of the state’s public well being lab from Oklahoma Metropolis to Stillwater.
Oklahoma Democrats issued rebukes, citing Oklahoma’s awful public well being rankings.
“This isn’t management,” state Sen. Carri Hicks stated. ”It’s negligence.”
Stitt’s Oklahoma DOGE has in any other case advisable adjustments in federal legislation to economize, opened up the suggestion field to state staff and members of most of the people and posted a spreadsheet on-line with price financial savings initiatives in his administration.
These embrace issues as mundane as companies going paperless, refinancing bonds, shopping for automated garden mowers for the Capitol grounds or eliminating a fax machine line within the State Board of Licensure for Skilled Engineers and Surveyors.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an government order in February making a activity power of DOGE groups in every state company.
Within the order, DeSantis recited 10 factors on what he described as his and Florida’s “historical past of prudent fiscal administration” even earlier than DOGE.
Amongst different issues, DeSantis vowed to scrutinize spending by state universities and municipal and county governments — together with on DEI initiatives — at a time when DeSantis is pushing to abolish the property taxes that predominantly fund native governments.
His administration has since issued letters to universities and governments requesting reams of knowledge and acquired a blessing from lawmakers, who handed laws authorizing the inquiry and imposing fines for entities that don’t reply.
After the June 30 signing ceremony, DeSantis declared on social media: “We now have full authority to DOGE native governments.”
In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched her cost-cutting Arkansas Ahead final 12 months, earlier than DOGE, and later stated the state had performed the “identical factor” as DOGE.
Her administration spent a lot of 2024 compiling a 97-page report that listed tons of of the way to probably save $300 million inside a $6.5 billion funds.
Attaining that financial savings — largely by standardizing data expertise and buying — would typically require up-front spending and take years to appreciate financial savings.
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