In late November, the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) quietly disbanded months forward of schedule, with senior officers confirming that the company “now not exists” in any centralized type. Its finish marks not solely the collapse of a broadly publicized initiative however one of many biggest missed alternatives of the Trump administration. At a second when synthetic intelligence was reworking almost each main trade, the federal authorities had a uncommon likelihood to reinvent itself. As a substitute, it stepped backward.
When DOGE launched in January 2025, President Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk — a worldwide expertise determine — as this system’s superstar face. With its rhetoric of trillion-dollar financial savings and sweeping modernization, DOGE might have turn into probably the most formidable public-sector innovation venture in American historical past. But as a substitute of utilizing Musk’s technological experience — and particularly synthetic intelligence — to modernize federal operations, streamline public companies, and construct a brand new digital basis for presidency, DOGE shortly devolved into old-school mass layoffs and headline-friendly cuts. Estimates from McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and the OECD recommend that 40% to 60% of all jobs could possibly be reshaped by AI, however the administration traded a once-in-a-generation modernization alternative for a chainsaw.
DOGE’s most dramatic motion was the firing of an estimated 280,000 federal workers in a matter of months. This created the impression of sudden effectivity, but it surely mirrored a deeper strategic failure: DOGE selected subtraction over transformation. Packages that have been ripe for AI augmentation — veterans’ claims processing, Social Safety workflows, IRS casework, public-health analytics, fraud detection, and regulatory overview — weren’t redesigned or modernized. They have been merely downsized, typically in ways in which made the remaining work slower, costlier, and fewer safe. Businesses have been pressured to rehire most of the identical staff as contractors. Anti-fraud packages that recovered more cash than they price have been shut down totally. And when DOGE abruptly ended FDA and EPA user-fee packages, Congress needed to go emergency appropriations to maintain important operations operating. Essentially the most important loss, nonetheless, was not monetary — it was the chance to make use of AI to rebuild authorities for the following technology.
Relatively than accelerating federal efficiency, DOGE slowed it down as companies confronted getting older methods, hovering service calls for, and quickly escalating cybersecurity threats. Whole cybersecurity groups have been dismantled simply as AI-powered assaults have been multiplying worldwide. Public disputes between Musk and senior officers — typically amplified throughout social media — additional undermined morale and belief. The disruption was damaging, however the deeper tragedy was the transformation that by no means even started.
This failure is very stark when contrasted with an earlier and much more profitable modernization effort. From 1993 to 2000, Vice President Al Gore led the Nationwide Partnership for Reinventing Authorities (NPR), the biggest and handiest authorities reform initiative of the fashionable period. NPR delivered verified, inflation-adjusted financial savings of roughly $300 billion, however its true success lay in how these financial savings have been achieved. Gore’s method was methodical fairly than theatrical. NPR modernized processes, digitized operations, decreased administrative layers, strengthened customer support, and embedded reforms via bipartisan laws such because the Authorities Efficiency and Outcomes Act. Workforce adjustments have been dealt with via attrition, early retirements, and voluntary buyouts — not mass firings — permitting reforms to be secure, sustainable, and non-polarizing. NPR constructed capability. DOGE dismantled it.
DOGE might have used its mandate to ask the world’s main AI organizations — OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta AI, Google Analysis, Microsoft AI, Amazon AWS AI, Apple AI, xAI, Mistral, Nvidia, and Cohere — to compete to unravel the federal government’s hardest operational challenges. Such a contest might have produced multilingual digital assistants for the American public, AI copilots for federal staff, superior fraud-detection engines able to saving billions, AI-accelerated code modernization instruments, stronger cybersecurity, and dramatically decreased backlogs throughout veterans’ companies, Social Safety, and tax processing. These instruments might have been interoperable, reusable, and transferable throughout each the private and non-private sectors. DOGE might have launched the primary AI-powered reinvention of the federal authorities — and as a substitute, it selected elimination over innovation.
By the point DOGE dissolved, the chance was gone. America was left with a federal workforce that was no more trendy, no more environment friendly, and in essential areas, considerably weaker. The loss of life of DOGE will not be essentially about missed price financial savings. It’s the story of a historic alternative squandered. Modernizing authorities doesn’t require chainsaws, superstar feuds, or ideological crusades. It requires imaginative and prescient, collaboration, technological experience, and respect for the institutional information essential to implement change responsibly. Above all, it requires a dedication to constructing.
Had DOGE embraced an AI-first technique, the US would possibly at present be main the world in digital governance, providing sooner companies, safer methods, and extra clear operations. As a substitute, DOGE stands as a cautionary story — a reminder that spectacular claims are not any substitute for critical reform. As policymakers take into account the following chapter of presidency modernization, they’d do nicely to review Al Gore’s quiet, sturdy NPR — and picture what may be doable if at present’s most superior AI labs have been lastly invited to assist construct the way forward for American authorities.
Ed Gaskin is Government Director of Higher Grove Corridor Principal Streets and founding father of Sunday Celebrations
