President-elect Donald Trump has proposed radically downsizing the federal government, and two of his allies are going to be in charge: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. WSJ’s John McCormick walks us through the plans for DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency. Further Reading: - Musk, Ramaswamy Want Federal Workers in the Office Full Time. There’s a Hitch. - Vivek Ramaswamy’s Marching Orders: Cut Trillions for Trump Further Listening: - Uncovering Elon Musk's Secret Political Donations - The Scramble Is on to Fill Trump’s Cabinet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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There's a word that's been kicking around the internet for years.
You're doge? What are you talking about?
Doge. D-O-G-E. It's a term that started to go viral in 2013. And it's often paired with a picture of a cute dog. A Shiba Inu with golden fur and beady black eyes. Then, as a joke, Doge became a cryptocurrency, Dogecoin. Take a look at Dogecoin. It is up more than 900%.
The cryptocurrency that started off as a joke is no longer a laughing matter.
Now, Doge has gone beyond the realm of memes and cryptocurrencies and into the government. It's the name of a new project created by President-elect Donald Trump. and it stands for the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump plans to use this new doge to slash regulations, reduce federal spending, and cut federal jobs. And Trump says he wants to achieve all of this in less than two years.
They really want to gut the government. That's our colleague John McCormick. What they're proposing here is so audacious that even if they manage to get 10% of it done, it would be a huge change to the size of the federal government and sort of the role of the federal government. If they're able to pull this off, it would be an absolutely huge victory for Trump and conservatives in general.
I mean, this is the sort of change that they've been dreaming about, you know, for decades.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Wednesday, December 4th. Coming up on the show, Trump's plan to radically downsize the federal government. Two of Trump's key allies are going to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. Billionaires Elon Musk.
This is crazy. So we've got this suffocating, this vast, suffocating federal bureaucracy that just gets bigger every year.
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