Advice for DOGE: Look at the Enumerated Powers

We’re within three weeks of the (hopefully) peaceful transfer of power. With the vacuum of leadership in the current administration, the world is already turning to President-Elect Donald Trump as the de facto leader, and change is underway. I expect there’s a lot more change to come.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is not a new government agency or entity; it is to be a commission to make recommendations, which, as I understand it, would then have to be followed up by the legislative or executive branches, depending on what a particular recommendation pertains to. It is to be co-led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Both are really smart guys. And Vivek, at least what I’ve heard from him, understands the Constitution pretty well. Elon has shown his ability to do nearly impossible things, one of which was to turn Twitter into X, with most of the employees gone, and make it now a much freer-speech platform. Maybe they can do the job.

A tweet Elon Musk put out in November, embracing the Doge meme
image that predates the creation of DOGE by more than a decade.

Here's what Wikipedia says about DOGE:

Musk has suggested that the commission could help to cut the U.S. federal budget by up to US$2 trillion through measures such as reducing waste, abolishing redundant agencies, and downsizing the federal workforce. Ramaswamy also stated that DOGE may eliminate entire federal agencies and reduce the number of federal employees by as much as 75%. DOGE may attempt to do this through re-enacting Schedule F. Musk has also proposed consolidating the number of federal agencies from more than 400 to fewer than 100.

It looks like a complicated and difficult undertaking—at which I hope they succeed.

While I have little expectation that advice from me will get to them, I offer it anyway. I’d like to streamline their process by suggesting that they simply go by the Constitution. If the power wasn’t granted to the federal government in the Constitution, then do away with that function.

We’ve looked at the limits of the Constitution before (specifically here, here, and here): the purposes in the Preamble, the enumerated powers, and then the just-to-make-sure-these-aren’t-ignored limits spelled out in the Bill of Rights. But we haven’t done it in the context of an actual, possibly imminent, opportunity to make it happen. So let’s review.

The Constitution’s Preamble, in bulleted form, gives us the mission statement for the federal government:

We the People of the United States, in order to:

·         form a more perfect Union,

·         establish Justice,

·         insure domestic Tranquility,

·         provide for the common defence,

·         promote the general Welfare,

·         and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

You could sum up this mission as to protect the people as a whole: to secure their life, liberty, and property. So anything else in the Constitution will be to make those things happen. Most notably, there are the enumerated powers, from Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, spelling out for Congress what it can legislate, what the Executive can then administer and carry out, and what the Judiciary can then adjudicate on:

Article I, Section 8, is where you find most of the enumerated powers.

1.     The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2.     To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

3.     To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

4.     To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

5.     To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

6.     To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

7.     To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

8.     To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

9.     To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

10.  To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

11.  To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

12.  To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

13.  To provide and maintain a Navy;

14.  To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

15.  To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

16.  To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

17.  To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

18.  To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Article I, Sections 9, lists some limitations on the federal government, and Section 10 lists some limitations on the states.

Then there are a few more enumerated powers added as amendments to the Constitution:

19.  Thirteenth Amendment: To outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude (except as a punishment for crime), and to enforce this prohibition.

20.  Sixteenth Amendment: To lay and collect taxes on income—changing this from the original language in Article I, Section 8, which didn’t allow this type of direct tax.

21.  Fifteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments: To enforce equal voting rights laws across all the states.

It undoubtedly doesn’t take 400 agencies (and probably not even 100 DOGE set as their goal) to do these 21 things. That means the federal government is doing a whole lot that it hasn’t been given power by the people to do—including things that the people can’t rightly give to government (for example, redistribution of wealth: if an individual does it, it's theft; and so it is when the government does it).

So, for the benefit of DOGE, here’s a list of powers the federal government has NOT been given:

ü  Power to govern education.

ü  Power to offer charitable services (welfare).

ü  Power to force purchase of a service or product (such as health insurance).

ü  Power to forbid purchase of a legal service or product (such as gas-powered vehicles).

ü  Power to require payment into a retirement supplement (Social Security).

ü  Power to interfere with commerce that doesn’t cross state lines.

ü  Power to redefine marriage in a way that is contrary to long-standing law and tradition, and to enforce acceptance of the new definition, even when it violates personal religious beliefs.

ü  Power to subsidize any industry (such as alternative “green” energy).

ü  Power to target industries in accordance with a social agenda (gun manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, nuclear energy, oil and gas, fast food, or sugary drinks).

ü  Power to use taxpayer funds to support abortion, nor power to claim abortion as a federal right.

ü  Power to subsidize or control (or forgive) student loans.

ü  Power to take over any industry (as when the Obama administration temporarily took over GM and banks).

ü  Power to favor or disfavor individuals or groups for hiring, educational opportunities, or other purposes based on their race, religion, or ESG or other invented social score or category.

ü  Power to coerce a person to subject themselves to a particular medical intervention.

ü  Power to censor legal speech, or encourage or allow censorship by businesses as censors-by-proxy for the government.

 ü  Power to partner with businesses to accomplish by proxy what the federal government is not lawfully allowed to do.

ü  Power to commit US military lives and US treasure to fight wars not declared by the US Congress.

 ü  Power to use regulatory agencies to legislate, execute, and adjudicate laws within a single branch of government.

I’m sure that list is not exhaustive. But it’s enough to get DOGE started. Anything the government is doing that it has not been specifically granted the power to do—has to go.

The question will be how to cut: swiftly and completely, or more gradually but on a definite timetable with the end in sight (so a future administration can’t revive it). Personally, right now, I’m in favor of swiftly and completely. It’s working for Argentina right now. And we have reason to believe, not only will cutting mean less government spending, but it will free up all kinds of resources to be used for creating value that's currently being blocked from being created.

Exceptions to swiftly and completely might be where long-standing promises have gone into financial planning, wherein the government has deprived people of alternatives. Taking money out of paychecks for Social Security would be an example; you can’t take it out all those years, depriving earners of the use and investment power of their money, and then take away the promised, albeit inadequate, benefit. (COLA for Social Security benefits this year is 0.2%, in a high-inflation environment, which is clearly inadequate.) Then the question will be how to get us from the current mess we’re in to a constitution-abiding state.

DOGE could keep in mind this Spherical Model axiom:

Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.

What DOGE has been tasked with will not be easy; but it is simple: limit the federal government to its proper role by abiding by the Constitution. I pray for them to take this rare opportunity and make the radical changes necessary to rescue our constitutional republic.