Red states are echoing President Donald Trump’s quest to slash the size and cost of the federal government with their own initiatives aimed at making government smaller and more efficient.
In the first hours of his second term, Trump signed an executive order creating a temporary commission he dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency. He first announced DOGE, named after a viral meme and a cryptocurrency, in November as an effort led by billionaire Elon Musk to find billions in federal cuts.
In recent weeks, GOP governors and lawmakers have set up their own government efficiency task forces and committees to find ways to cut state spending.
The Texas House of Representatives recently announced plans for a 13-member Delivery of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, committee that will examine state agencies for inefficiencies, and Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said a DOGE bill would be one of his top legislative priorities. GOP leaders in Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin have recently announced similar ventures.
Conservatives have long sought to shrink the size and cost of government. And it’s common practice for officials from both parties to hire outside consultants to help reduce inefficiency or waste in school, state and city bureaucracies. But the DOGE effort is gaining new steam as Republicans look to fall in line with Trump and blue and red states alike face massive budget gaps that will require some combination of spending cuts or increased taxes.
Democrats, however, argue that many states already have government watchdogs and efficiency panels, so the efforts might be redundant. And Democratic governors also have made gains in cutting red tape and increasing state efficiencies.
Cutting services or raising taxes: State lawmakers weigh how to fill big budget gaps
In her Condition of the State speech in January, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds noted recent efforts to consolidate state agencies, centralize programs and reduce regulations, which she said had already saved Iowans $217 million. In 2023, the governor signed legislation to shrink the state’s 37 executive-level Cabinet agencies down to 16 and changed some of the powers of the governor and attorney general.
“We were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,” Reynolds said.
But in her address, Reynolds announced the launch of a state DOGE advisory body, which will be led by Emily Schmitt, a prominent business leader and Reynolds campaign donor. To pass meaningful property tax reform, Reynolds said Iowa must find more savings in state and local government.
Iowa Democrats noted that the state constitution already requires a government watchdog, the state auditor — currently Rob Sand, the only Democrat elected to statewide office.
In 2023, Reynolds signed a bill limiting the auditor’s access to certain information and barring his office from suing state agencies.
Sand, widely speculated to be a potential gubernatorial candidate, called it the “greatest pro-corruption bill and the worst perversion of checks and balances in Iowa’s history.”
“We have someone who has a whole office whose job is to work on this,” said Democratic state Rep. Adam Zabner. “I think we’re more likely to find efficiencies through the state auditor who Iowans elected to that role than we are through a major supporter of the governor’s campaigns.”
Zabner serves on the legislature’s long-standing government efficiency review committee, which examines state government operations every two years.
Zabner said it’s unclear how much true savings were realized from Reynolds’ realignment, as the state previously had hundreds of unfilled jobs. And he said those cuts haven’t necessarily improved the delivery of state services.
“We still have trouble getting all of our nursing homes inspected,” he said. “And there’s a lot of services like that where the delivery hasn’t really been improved.”
The Democratic Governors Association noted that blue-state governors also have taken steps to make state government more efficient and responsive. In November, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro took executive action to speed up state permitting for economic development projects. And Colorado Gov. Jared Polis used a table saw to cut through a pile of outdated executive orders on dormant state committees and energy efficiency in December — the latest in his push to make state government more efficient and responsive to taxpayers.
“This isn’t a flashy trend for Governor Polis, it’s something he has carried out during his time in office,” Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement.
Waste or vital service?
Across the country, it’s unclear how much might be cut in efforts to weed out waste or inefficiencies — terms themselves that are entirely subjective.
“One person’s concept of waste is another person’s vital service,” said William Glasgall, public finance adviser at the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit that works to support public sector workers.
Glasgall said government services are not designed to operate as efficiently as for-profit companies.
While many companies run multiple factory shifts per day to get the most out of their capital investment, schools and government offices with different missions mostly sit empty overnight, on weekends and during breaks. Similarly, cities must staff up police and fire department resources for disasters, even if their crews and equipment idle for long stretches.
Still, Glasgall said, governments have plenty of line items worth scrutinizing.
One person’s concept of waste is another person’s vital service.
– William Glasgall, public finance adviser at the Volcker Alliance
He pointed to the numerous tax breaks, incentives and abatements states award to individuals and businesses. In a paper last year, the Volcker Alliance estimated these programs reduce state revenues by $1 trillion a year — almost three times the amount state and local governments spent on education in 2021.
Often those forgone revenues are not transparent to taxpayers or scrutinized by state audits or budget offices, Glasgall said.
States contemplating cuts do so from a relatively strong position: A booming economy and federal pandemic aid ballooned state spending and reserve funds.
“States are cutting from a very, very high base,” Glasgall said. “So the cuts they’re making, I’m not sure they’re going to be terribly painful right now.”
Wisconsin Republican state Rep. Amanda Nedweski said the state should constantly be scrutinizing its operations and expenses. But she said the legislature often relies on agencies to self-monitor.
“We sort of operate state government in silos,” she said, “and there can often be redundancy in functions and redundancy in positions.”
Nedweski is leading the new state Assembly committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency, or GOAT.
Nedweski said the committee will take a big-picture look at state government but is also prepared to dive deep into issues such as regulation reform, the use of state office space, and how Wisconsin can leverage technology such as artificial intelligence to increase efficiency.
The GOP-controlled legislature will likely disagree with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on budget priorities and programs. But Nedweski said the new committee can suggest meaningful changes that don’t necessarily require a reduction in state services.
“There’s a lot of things that can be reviewed and spending that can be shifted without being cut so we’re more efficiently and productively using our resources,” she said.
Nationwide coordination
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group known as ALEC that works with lawmakers nationwide, is pushing similar efforts in statehouses across the country.
While that organization ultimately wants to shrink governments, it views examining the effectiveness and costs of existing programs as a commonsense first step.
“One of the things we keep going back to is just the review of current government spending,” said Jonathan Williams, ALEC’s president and chief economist. “In so many cases, performance audits are not done on a regular basis in programs to look for these efficiencies.”
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The organization just launched a government efficiency coalition to give state lawmakers best practices “to optimize all levels of government.”
“From our ALEC perspective, we hope that Washington [D.C.] does less going forward,” he said, “and the states and local governments probably need to do more in some cases.”
Many states will be confronting tough spending decisions as revenues flatten or decline.
“So, it’s going to be important to really tighten the belt, right-size government programs, and look for ways to provide those core government services more efficiently so we’re able to deliver real services to those truly at need,” Williams said. “And that, I think, is something that really plays into really a red-state or a blue-state outlook.”
But making governments more efficient can be a battle of inches.
Last week, the newly formed Kansas Senate Committee on Government Efficiency considered a bill that would nix requirements for certain state filings regarding labor organizations, tax abatements and water easements.
Clay Barker, general counsel for Kansas’ Republican secretary of state, told the committee that many of those documents are filed with other state offices and do little aside from creating work for the office.
If passed, the legislation is expected to save 400 hours of one-time IT labor and an ongoing 50 hours of labor annually, Barker said. But officials hope it will encourage other agencies to examine their operations for inefficiencies.
“This bill will not revolutionize state government,” he said.
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