Tommy Washbush
An oversized Elon Musk cuts of the D.C. Capitol dome with a chainsaw.
If I walked up to a random group of Madisonians and said, “Wasn’t ‘Reinventing Government’ the smartest and most effective government reform effort ever?” I would, I am sure, draw blank stares and “huh?” responses.
The Reinventing Government initiative (1993-2000), led by Vice President Al Gore, implemented recommendations from the 1993 National Performance Review (“NPR”), a six-month data-driven, comprehensive review of all U.S. government agencies and regulations undertaken at the beginning of President Bill Clinton’s administration. The NPR and Reinventing Government efforts had large, ambitious goals: making the federal government more efficient and less costly, reducing the size of the federal workforce, measuring and improving customer service, and balancing the federal budget.
Reinventing Government was hugely successful. It reduced the federal workforce by more than 400,000 employees. It repealed thousands of federal regulations and eliminated hundreds of federal programs. It led to a balanced federal budget. A customer service culture pervaded federal agencies, with the Social Security Administration leading the way. While Reinventing Government implemented government-wide reforms, there was no chaos.
Fast-forward to 2025. President Donald Trump unleashed Elon Musk and the presidentially-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) without the benefit of the systematic review or data that guided the Reinventing Government effort. The result: chaos. While the DOGE effort reduced the federal workforce by 199,000 persons, according to the Partnership for Public Service, its slash-and-burn approach to government reform is causing harms we have only begun to feel.
DOGE eliminated 23,000 jobs at the Internal Revenue Service. Have you tried calling the IRS lately? I recently received a mysterious $14 refund check from the IRS for tax year 2019. Having no idea what this was for, I called the IRS. A bot answered and gave me two options: press 1 for the status of my ‘23 or ‘24 tax return or press 2 for the status of my ‘23 or ‘24 tax refund. No other options. Fortunately, Rep. Mark Pocan’s office was able to help me, but is his office now the all purpose backstop for decimated federal agencies?
What about the chaotic rollout of COVID vaccines? DOGE and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, cut HHS’ workforce by more than 20,000 persons, or about 25%. Although one branch of HHS announced that COVID vaccinations would be available to folks 65 and over without a prescription beginning Sept. 1, a different HHS branch failed to send approval for Medicare reimbursement for COVID shots until Sept. 4. The result? When I tried to schedule my COVID shot on Sept. 1, the pharmacy said I needed a prescription. When I contacted my primary care provider for a prescription, her office said I didn’t need one. I wasn’t alone: For several days, Wisconsin’s pharmacies and doctors’ offices were swamped by calls from confused patients 65 and older who could not get promised COVID shots.
DOGE also has a big hand in upending significant federal policies and programs. Take rural high-speed broadband expansion in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission spent three years working with local and tribal leaders and internet service providers to plan the expansion of reliable high-speed broadband to over 98% of Wisconsin’s rural communities that lack such service. On the eve of implementation, the DOGE-influenced National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the federal agency responsible for funding rural broadband expansion under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, abruptly changed the funding rules to prioritize cost over reliability. Why? This last-minute rule change essentially requires funding unlicensed services sold by Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet company, and other similarly less reliable sources, rather than highly reliable fiber optic providers.
In Wisconsin, over $1.5 billion in broadband subsidies must now be awarded to providers of less reliable broadband access. Rural communities lacking reliable high-speed broadband will now get…less reliable high-speed broadband service. Chair Summer Strand explained at a Sept. 3 meeting of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission that the arbitrary, last-minute DOGE-inspired rule changes require “[s]hifting the program results to less reliable technology,” and that rural communities will receive “short-term, less reliable” technology.
What can we do to stop the chaos? Congress, not the president or DOGE, has the constitutional authority and responsibility to oversee the budgets, missions and workforce size of federal agencies. Just because Congress has thus far abdicated its responsibility doesn’t mean that we, the people, should abdicate ours. Contact U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson and your U.S. representative to demand that Congress use its authority to stop the interference of DOGE and exercise its oversight authority. Tell them the meat-cleaver, thoughtless approach to cutting federal programs and staff is having direct and harmful effects on folks right here in Wisconsin. Do this every day. Really.
Eileen Harrington, a lawyer, is a Madison native and resident who spent 30 years as a senior federal career civil servant in Washington, D.C.
