Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is expanding beyond the federal government.
According to Newsmax, Republican governors and lawmakers in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin are following the lead of the federal government and set up their own efficiency taskforces aimed at cutting government waste.
Among those is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has set up a “DOGE task force” to audit spending, reduce bureaucracy, and eliminate any remaining diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
“I am requiring state agencies to utilize AI [artificial intelligence] as a way to supplement our ongoing efforts to produce streamlined and cost-effective government,” DeSantis wrote on X earlier this week.
“Federal DOGE efforts have demonstrated the power of cutting edge technology, and I look forward to Florida’s DOGE task force doing even more for taxpayers.”
In just one month since President Trump’s inauguration, DOGE has exposed wasteful spending, tackled the entrenched bureaucracy, and challenged the way the federal government operates. We’ve been doing these things in Florida since I took office, but today, we are formalizing a… pic.twitter.com/Dnxof9eva8
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 24, 2025
Over in Texas, Republican lawmakers have established their own 13-member bipartisan Delivery of Government Efficiency, which will work to remove “inefficiencies” from across the state government.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds has similarly confirmed the launch of her own DOGE committee.
Her office said in a press release:
Over the last three years, Governor Reynolds has consolidated agencies with similar functions, centralized programs that served similar needs, eliminated 1,200 burdensome regulations, remade legacy systems, and cut 21 agencies from her cabinet.
In just 18 months, her efforts have saved taxpayers $217 million, already surpassing the initial projection for the first four years.
To build on this success, Governor Reynolds will issue an executive order to set up an Iowa DOGE task force to support DOGE’s efforts at the federal level and identify even more ways to reign in the cost of government at all levels.
Many other states have announced similar programs, all of which are intended to reduce waste and inefficiency in the use of public funds.
Since the federal Department of Government Efficiency was launched in January, Musk and his team have already iidentified approximately $1 trillion in potential cuts and savings.
While that money could be used towards paying down the national debt, Musk himself has expressed openness to the idea of a “DOGE Dividend” payment of $5,000 to every eligible taxpayer.
Elon Musk Open to ‘DOGE Dividend’ Payments That Could Send $5,000 Checks to Every American Taxpayer
