In late November, the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) quietly disbanded months forward of schedule, with senior officers confirming that the company “not exists” in any centralized type. Its finish marks not solely the collapse of a broadly publicized initiative however one of many best missed alternatives of the Trump administration. At a second when synthetic intelligence was reworking almost each main business, the federal authorities had a uncommon probability to reinvent itself. As an alternative, it stepped backward.
When DOGE launched in January 2025, President Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk — a world know-how determine — as this system’s celeb face. With its rhetoric of trillion-dollar financial savings and sweeping modernization, DOGE might have turn out to be essentially the most bold public-sector innovation mission in American historical past. But as an alternative of utilizing Musk’s technological experience — and particularly synthetic intelligence — to modernize federal operations, streamline public providers, 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 counsel 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. Applications that have been ripe for AI augmentation — veterans’ claims processing, Social Safety workflows, IRS casework, public-health analytics, fraud detection, and regulatory evaluation — weren’t redesigned or modernized. They have been merely downsized, usually in ways in which made the remaining work slower, dearer, and fewer safe. Businesses have been pressured to rehire most of the identical employees as contractors. Anti-fraud packages that recovered extra money than they value have been shut down solely. 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 businesses confronted growing old methods, hovering service calls for, and quickly escalating cybersecurity threats. Total cybersecurity groups have been dismantled simply as AI-powered assaults have been multiplying worldwide. Public disputes between Musk and senior officers — usually 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 way more profitable modernization effort. From 1993 to 2000, Vice President Al Gore led the Nationwide Partnership for Reinventing Authorities (NPR), the biggest and only authorities reform initiative of the trendy 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 reasonably than theatrical. NPR modernized processes, digitized operations, diminished administrative layers, strengthened customer support, and embedded reforms by way of bipartisan laws such because the Authorities Efficiency and Outcomes Act. Workforce adjustments have been dealt with by way of attrition, early retirements, and voluntary buyouts — not mass firings — permitting reforms to be steady, 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 employees, superior fraud-detection engines able to saving billions, AI-accelerated code modernization instruments, stronger cybersecurity, and dramatically diminished backlogs throughout veterans’ providers, 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 an alternative, it selected elimination over innovation.
By the point DOGE dissolved, the chance was gone. The USA was left with a federal workforce that was no more trendy, no more environment friendly, and in important areas, considerably weaker. The demise of DOGE will not be basically about missed value financial savings. It’s the story of a historic alternative squandered. Modernizing authorities doesn’t require chainsaws, celeb 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, america may right now be main the world in digital governance, providing quicker providers, safer methods, and extra clear operations. As an alternative, DOGE stands as a cautionary story — a reminder that spectacular claims aren’t any substitute for critical reform. As policymakers contemplate the following chapter of presidency modernization, they might do properly to check Al Gore’s quiet, sturdy NPR — and picture what is likely to be attainable if right now’s most superior AI labs have been lastly invited to assist construct the way forward for American authorities.
Ed Gaskin is Government Director of Larger Grove Corridor Most important Streets and founding father of Sunday Celebrations
