Handling a single executive order among Donald Trump’s vast array of first-day edicts is like picking a single bullet out of an AK-47. Then one of them hit me in the gut. in other words “A new efficiency department directly under the President will be established and implemented.”‘ The acronym for the name is DOGE (named after the memecoin), an Elon Musk-led effort to cut government spending by $1-2 trillion. Until this week, DOGE had been introduced as an external agency, but the move makes it a formal part of the government, joining an existing agency previously part of the Office of Management and Budget called the United States Digital Service. The latter will now be known as the US DOGE Service, and its new head will be more closely linked to the President and report to the Chief of Staff.
The new USDS looks to shift its previous focus on building cost-effective, well-designed software for a variety of institutions to a hardcore implementation of Musk’s vision. This is like the government’s version of a SPAC, a fraudulent financial scheme that launched Truth Social on the public markets without having to disclose a coherent business plan to acquirers.
In a sense, the order is surprising, as DOGE seemingly becomes more limited than the original and very ambitious plan. This iteration appears to be more focused on reducing costs by streamlining and modernizing the government’s vast and messy IT infrastructure. There are huge cost savings, but there are a few zeros that don’t amount to trillions of dollars. It is still unclear whether Musk will become DOGE administrator. It doesn’t seem like a big deal to him. (USDS’s first director, Mikey Dickerson, jokingly posted on LinkedIn, “‘I’d like to congratulate Elon Musk on his promotion to my old job.'”) But reports say Musk pushed for this Structured as a way to include DOGE in the White House. I was told that there were numerous pink post-it notes inside the Executive Office Building claiming space beyond the scope of USDS. It also includes notes about the former Chief Information Officer’s (CIO) enviable office. So this could be the starting point for a more sweeping effort to eliminate entire institutions and change their policies. (We couldn’t get a White House representative to answer questions, which isn’t surprising considering there are dozens of orders equally begging for explanation.)
one thing is It’s clear. This will end the previously existing United States Digital Service and usher in a new, perhaps dangerous era for USDS, which USDS has been passionate about from the beginning. The 11-year-old organization went from cutting-edge rescue to rescuing Healthcare.gov, a disastrous website failure that nearly derailed the Affordable Care Act. That brave team of volunteers set the template for the agency. Internet-style technologies (cloud, not mainframe); Agile “Agile” programming style Instead of old-fashioned “waterfall” technology, we can make government technology as cool as the apps people use on their phones. Soldiers who often leave lucrative Silicon Valley jobs are attracted by the prospect of public service. They worked out of the agency’s funky brownstone headquarters on Jackson Place just north of the White House. USDS typically takes on million-dollar contracts and unfinished projects, delivering outstanding results within a few weeks. We will staff the agencies requesting assistance and work carefully with the life staff of the IT department. Typical projects included making the Department of Defense military medical records interoperable with the various systems used by the VA. USDS has become a darling of the Obama administration and a symbol of its affiliation with cool nerddom.
Under the first Trump administration, USDS was maintained through skillful maneuvering. This was Obama’s plan that rarely survived. Second-in-command Haley Van Dyck cleverly won the agreement of Trump’s internal fixer, Jared Kushner. When I went to see Kushner for a private lecture in early 2017, I met Van Dyck in the West Wing. She gave a conspiratorial nod that things were looking better, at least for now. Still, the four years of the Trump years have somehow become a balancing act of sharing the agency’s accomplishments without exposing it to scrutiny. One USDSer said, “At the Disney theme parks, they paint the invisible things a certain green color so people don’t notice when they walk by.” “We specialized in painting ourselves the color green.” That in itself was a feat when Covid hit, as USDS worked closely with White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx to gather statistics. Some of them the administration was not eager to make public.
By the end of Trump’s term, the green paint had worn thin. According to one source, Trump’s political appointee discovered that USDS was recruiting at a technology conference for lesbians and minorities and asked why. The answer was that it was an effective way to find great product managers and designers. The nominee accepted this, but asked if instead of listing “Lesbians Who Tech” on his refund, he could say LWT.
