Editorial: Trump 2.0: Paw patrol

US President-elect Donald Trump has planned the perfect gift for America on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which will be unveiled on July 4, 2026. In the Republican's goodie bag is the promise of a smaller, fat-free, lean and mean government that will work with more efficiency and less bureaucracy. The twin conduits for this masterplan are Tesla owner Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been tasked with leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a programme aimed at improving governance and curbing wasteful expenditures.

The president-elect's crack team has its work cut out — cleaning out the humongous amounts of wasteful expenditure, bureaucratic wormholes, and syphoning channels prevalent throughout the American administration which coughs up nothing short of $6.5 trillion annually in government spending. Trump has declared that his idea is to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies, a critical measure that will lead up to his 'Save America' movement. The real estate mogul went on to liken the initiative to the Manhattan Project of our times. For history buffs, the Project was a massive top-secret government effort that resulted in the atomic bomb that ended World War II.

On paper, the prospects of this project are quite fascinating. As per Trump, DOGE is supposed to provide advice and guidance from outside of government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management and Budget to drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to the government never seen before. But that's a task easier said than done. In Washington DC, and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland, the federal government happens to be the biggest employer, doling out paychecks to over 3 lakh people.

Across the country, the government has close to 3 million people on its rolls, across various departments and bureaus. Collectively, they run-up a staggering tab or CTC of $6.7 trillion.

The owner of Tesla has envisioned $2 trillion in cuts, which makes up almost 30% of the government expenditure, a metric that has been shot down as unrealistic. But considering that Musk managed to keep Twitter afloat following his takeover and his culling of the workforce by 75%, his ambition might not be misplaced. Musk's desires are mirrored by those of Ramaswamy, the first Indian-American to have been tapped by Trump into his administration beginning January 20 next year. Ramaswamy has suggested shearing 75% of the federal workforce, eliminating the department of education, neutralising the IRS and the FBI, as he considers them the fourth branch of the government — the administrative state. The tech bro has gone one step further and sought the slashing of foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Back in 1993, US former President Bill Clinton had also proposed a reinvention of the US administration. However, over a period of half a decade, Al Gore, who was then the Vice President had barely managed to reduce some redundancies in government programmes, and eliminate some federal jobs — nothing that was in the vicinity of a complete overhaul. For the US, there are some caveats vis-a-vis Musk and Vivek heading the DOGE project. The duo will end up proposing streamlining of departments, agencies and bureaus that are responsible for overseeing the compliance mechanisms of businesses owned by the tech bros, and that’s a direct conflict of interest. Needless to say, Trump 2.0, with his paw patrol seems hellbent to prove that his bite is worse than their bark.