After successful a return to the White Home, President Donald Trump tapped Tesla CEO Elon Musk to move the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a physique tasked with making the federal government more cost effective and extra environment friendly.
It’s an arduous and unenviable activity. It’s also not the primary such endeavor: Within the Nineteen Nineties, then–Vice President Al Gore undertook an identical effort. What can we study from Gore’s expertise?
As president, Invoice Clinton famously declared that “the period of huge authorities is over.” Weeks into his time period, Clinton had introduced “a nationwide efficiency evaluation” (NPR) to “reinvent” authorities. He put Gore answerable for the venture, which was later codified into legislation by the Authorities Efficiency and Outcomes Act of 1993.
A devoted web site mentioned the NPR initiative—later renamed the Nationwide Partnership for Reinventing Authorities—would make authorities “work higher, value much less, and get outcomes American [sic] care about.”
The NPR issued its first report in September 1993, From Pink Tape to Outcomes: Making a Authorities That Works Higher and Prices Much less. It listed 1,200 suggestions throughout your complete authorities that, if carried out, it mentioned might save $108 billion in 5 years ($235 billion in 2024 {dollars}).
“If we observe these steps, we are going to transfer a lot nearer to a authorities that prices much less and works higher for all of us,” the report concluded. “It will likely be leaner, simpler, fairer, and extra up-to-date. It will likely be a authorities price what we pay for it….And maybe the federal debt—that $4 trillion albatross across the necks of our youngsters and grandchildren—will sluggish its rampage.”
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance research on the Brookings Establishment who labored as an adviser to Gore on the time, touted the NPR’s accomplishments in testimony earlier than the Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform in 2013: “We lowered the federal workforce by 426,200 between January 1993 and September 2000,” she mentioned, “making the federal authorities in 2000 the smallest authorities since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president” whereas additionally “yielding $136 billion in financial savings to the taxpayer.”
The federal government did minimize its workforce in the course of the Clinton years, with the general variety of federal staff falling from 3.09 million in January 1993 to 2.75 million in September 2000—suggesting that Kamarck’s cited cuts outpaced hiring. Donald Kettl, a Brookings Establishment scholar who studied the NPR on the time, advised a Senate subcommittee in Could 2000 that whereas some businesses shrank considerably throughout Clinton’s tenure, “three cupboard departments have grown: Commerce (particularly to handle the census); State (to deal with worldwide pressures); and Justice (to extend the variety of guards at federal prisons).”
These cuts additionally weren’t throughout the board: “Since 1993, the discount within the govt department workforce, not counting the U.S. Postal Service, quantities to roughly 400,000 jobs,” Stephen Barr wrote in The Washington Put up in October 2000. “The downsizing was fueled by the post-Chilly Struggle base closings and finances cuts on the Protection Division, the place about 70 p.c of the civil service cuts passed off.”
A 1999 Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) report expressed skepticism concerning the claimed financial savings. “NPR claimed financial savings from agency-specific suggestions that might not be absolutely attributed to its efforts,” the report discovered, because the Workplace of Administration and Price range (OMB) “typically didn’t distinguish NPR’s contributions from different initiatives or components that influenced finances reductions on the businesses we reviewed.”
The GAO additionally “recognized two situations the place OMB counted at the very least a part of the estimated financial savings twice,” together with two suggestions that constituted “probably as much as $1.4 billion in estimated financial savings” on their very own.
Nonetheless, there have definitely been extra profligate presidencies. Throughout Clinton’s tenure, the quantity of federal debt held by the general public barely budged, rising from $3.3 trillion to $3.4 trillion. The federal government even ran finances surpluses for a number of years, contributing a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} towards paying down the debt.
Can Musk and Trump obtain that a lot? It might be a tough raise.
Requested earlier than the 2024 election how a lot he thought he might minimize from the federal finances—which presently tops $6.8 trillion—Musk replied, “I believe we might do at the very least $2 trillion.”
Such a minimize could be troublesome, however not unattainable: The 2019 federal finances totaled $4.4 trillion ($5.4 trillion in 2024 {dollars}). Even adjusting for inflation, Congress might minimize $2 trillion and spend solely $700 billion much less in fixed {dollars} than it did earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
However Musk walked again his prediction after the election, admitting in January that it was simply “the best-case consequence” and that “I believe if we strive for $2 trillion, we have got a great shot at getting 1.” In a put up this week on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk mentioned he was “cautiously optimistic” he would attain his objective of $4 billion per day in financial savings from the finances for fiscal 12 months 2026, which would scale back the deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion.
The GOP hasn’t been a lot assist: Though entitlements are the largest deficit drivers, the 2024 Republican platform pledged to “FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE.” There’s equally no assure that Republicans can merely develop the financial system sufficient to outweigh the deficit.
One tactic Musk has adopted is buyout-style affords to federal staff. That, because it occurs, is one space the place there are direct classes from the Al Gore expertise.
Final week the U.S. Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM) despatched a mass e-mail to federal staff with a “deferred resignation supply.” Anybody who accepted the supply might, it mentioned, resign instantly however get pleasure from full pay and advantages by way of the tip of September. (The e-mail listed February 6 because the deadline, however a decide has since delayed it till February 10. ABC reviews that 40,000 staff have accepted the supply to this point.) There was a good quantity of confusion across the proposal, as when OPM despatched the message to air visitors controllers however then clarified that they weren’t truly eligible for the deal.
The NPR, equally, provided federal staff “the lesser of $25,000 or the quantity of the worker’s severance pay” to resign. “There was an effort to scale back the variety of middle-level managers. Generally, nevertheless, the downsizing occurred on account of particular person staff’ responses to the buyout the federal government provided,” Kettl mentioned in 2000. “There’s little information concerning the ensuing ability mixture of the federal workforce. There was little advance planning of what ability combine the federal authorities wants for the longer term.” Put extra bluntly, there was little assurance that they removed the deadweight and stored the individuals with the very best expertise.
Setting apart such particular classes of the Clinton-era effort, the NPR at the very least affords us a casual benchmark: If Elon Musk cannot deliver huge authorities beneath management, can he at the very least scale back it as a lot as Al Gore?
After successful a return to the White Home, President Donald Trump tapped Tesla CEO Elon Musk to move the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a physique tasked with making the federal government more cost effective and extra environment friendly.
It’s an arduous and unenviable activity. It’s also not the primary such endeavor: Within the Nineteen Nineties, then–Vice President Al Gore undertook an identical effort. What can we study from Gore’s expertise?
As president, Invoice Clinton famously declared that “the period of huge authorities is over.” Weeks into his time period, Clinton had introduced “a nationwide efficiency evaluation” (NPR) to “reinvent” authorities. He put Gore answerable for the venture, which was later codified into legislation by the Authorities Efficiency and Outcomes Act of 1993.
A devoted web site mentioned the NPR initiative—later renamed the Nationwide Partnership for Reinventing Authorities—would make authorities “work higher, value much less, and get outcomes American [sic] care about.”
The NPR issued its first report in September 1993, From Pink Tape to Outcomes: Making a Authorities That Works Higher and Prices Much less. It listed 1,200 suggestions throughout your complete authorities that, if carried out, it mentioned might save $108 billion in 5 years ($235 billion in 2024 {dollars}).
“If we observe these steps, we are going to transfer a lot nearer to a authorities that prices much less and works higher for all of us,” the report concluded. “It will likely be leaner, simpler, fairer, and extra up-to-date. It will likely be a authorities price what we pay for it….And maybe the federal debt—that $4 trillion albatross across the necks of our youngsters and grandchildren—will sluggish its rampage.”
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance research on the Brookings Establishment who labored as an adviser to Gore on the time, touted the NPR’s accomplishments in testimony earlier than the Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform in 2013: “We lowered the federal workforce by 426,200 between January 1993 and September 2000,” she mentioned, “making the federal authorities in 2000 the smallest authorities since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president” whereas additionally “yielding $136 billion in financial savings to the taxpayer.”
The federal government did minimize its workforce in the course of the Clinton years, with the general variety of federal staff falling from 3.09 million in January 1993 to 2.75 million in September 2000—suggesting that Kamarck’s cited cuts outpaced hiring. Donald Kettl, a Brookings Establishment scholar who studied the NPR on the time, advised a Senate subcommittee in Could 2000 that whereas some businesses shrank considerably throughout Clinton’s tenure, “three cupboard departments have grown: Commerce (particularly to handle the census); State (to deal with worldwide pressures); and Justice (to extend the variety of guards at federal prisons).”
These cuts additionally weren’t throughout the board: “Since 1993, the discount within the govt department workforce, not counting the U.S. Postal Service, quantities to roughly 400,000 jobs,” Stephen Barr wrote in The Washington Put up in October 2000. “The downsizing was fueled by the post-Chilly Struggle base closings and finances cuts on the Protection Division, the place about 70 p.c of the civil service cuts passed off.”
A 1999 Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) report expressed skepticism concerning the claimed financial savings. “NPR claimed financial savings from agency-specific suggestions that might not be absolutely attributed to its efforts,” the report discovered, because the Workplace of Administration and Price range (OMB) “typically didn’t distinguish NPR’s contributions from different initiatives or components that influenced finances reductions on the businesses we reviewed.”
The GAO additionally “recognized two situations the place OMB counted at the very least a part of the estimated financial savings twice,” together with two suggestions that constituted “probably as much as $1.4 billion in estimated financial savings” on their very own.
Nonetheless, there have definitely been extra profligate presidencies. Throughout Clinton’s tenure, the quantity of federal debt held by the general public barely budged, rising from $3.3 trillion to $3.4 trillion. The federal government even ran finances surpluses for a number of years, contributing a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} towards paying down the debt.
Can Musk and Trump obtain that a lot? It might be a tough raise.
Requested earlier than the 2024 election how a lot he thought he might minimize from the federal finances—which presently tops $6.8 trillion—Musk replied, “I believe we might do at the very least $2 trillion.”
Such a minimize could be troublesome, however not unattainable: The 2019 federal finances totaled $4.4 trillion ($5.4 trillion in 2024 {dollars}). Even adjusting for inflation, Congress might minimize $2 trillion and spend solely $700 billion much less in fixed {dollars} than it did earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
However Musk walked again his prediction after the election, admitting in January that it was simply “the best-case consequence” and that “I believe if we strive for $2 trillion, we have got a great shot at getting 1.” In a put up this week on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk mentioned he was “cautiously optimistic” he would attain his objective of $4 billion per day in financial savings from the finances for fiscal 12 months 2026, which would scale back the deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion.
The GOP hasn’t been a lot assist: Though entitlements are the largest deficit drivers, the 2024 Republican platform pledged to “FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE.” There’s equally no assure that Republicans can merely develop the financial system sufficient to outweigh the deficit.
One tactic Musk has adopted is buyout-style affords to federal staff. That, because it occurs, is one space the place there are direct classes from the Al Gore expertise.
Final week the U.S. Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM) despatched a mass e-mail to federal staff with a “deferred resignation supply.” Anybody who accepted the supply might, it mentioned, resign instantly however get pleasure from full pay and advantages by way of the tip of September. (The e-mail listed February 6 because the deadline, however a decide has since delayed it till February 10. ABC reviews that 40,000 staff have accepted the supply to this point.) There was a good quantity of confusion across the proposal, as when OPM despatched the message to air visitors controllers however then clarified that they weren’t truly eligible for the deal.
The NPR, equally, provided federal staff “the lesser of $25,000 or the quantity of the worker’s severance pay” to resign. “There was an effort to scale back the variety of middle-level managers. Generally, nevertheless, the downsizing occurred on account of particular person staff’ responses to the buyout the federal government provided,” Kettl mentioned in 2000. “There’s little information concerning the ensuing ability mixture of the federal workforce. There was little advance planning of what ability combine the federal authorities wants for the longer term.” Put extra bluntly, there was little assurance that they removed the deadweight and stored the individuals with the very best expertise.
Setting apart such particular classes of the Clinton-era effort, the NPR at the very least affords us a casual benchmark: If Elon Musk cannot deliver huge authorities beneath management, can he at the very least scale back it as a lot as Al Gore?
