March 14, 2025

DOGE, THE EARLY YEARS:

Well, we know Obama wasn’t very serious about this cost-cutting effort, because Joe was allegedly in charge it. (“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up,” to coin a phrase.) Note that Joe’s speech is slowing down a bit in this 2011 video, there are several edits in his portion of the clip, and he looks a little glassy-eyed, but he’s not yet the withered husk of 2020-2024.

UPDATE: Flashback: When Did DOGE Really Launch?

Obama and Biden promised taxpayers a DOGE-esque housecleaning. They conceded the point of its necessity. Eventually, voters were going to demand delivery on those promises. They whetted the appetite for an outsider to come in and clean house — and even then, it took Trump a second opportunity to make good on it.

To be fair, though, Obama and Biden weren’t the first to virtue-signal on that point. Bill Clinton and Al Gore made a big production over their study on “reinventing government,” launching what certainly looked like a DOGE-esque effort to put the recommendations into action. Like Obama, Clinton put his VP in charge of the effort, which went exactly nowhere after the press conference announcing it. It sure seems like a consensus existed for a major executive branch overhaul for decades before Mr. Musk came to Washington.

Dems were happy to go along with both Obama and Clinton, because they knew it was all kabuki — but now they’re terrified — and furious — that Trump and Musk are actually implementing a plan to shrink government.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll