Adopting a chainsaw-based approach to reform undermines the goal of creating a more efficient government.
Over the past several decades, a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers, executive branch leaders, and program practitioners has coalesced around the value of adopting an evidence-based approach to policymaking in the federal government.
In 2016, the U.S. Congress established the bipartisan Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking and tasked its members with compiling a report on the use of evidence-based policymaking in the federal government. The Commission defined the term “evidence-based policymaking” as “the application of evidence to inform decisions in government” and recommended adopting such an approach to address the American people’s demand for “a government that functions efficiently and responsibly.” In response, Congress moved quickly to enact the bipartisan Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018. To this day, the Act requires federal agencies to plan for building and applying evidence to assess the effectiveness of their programs.
Given the Commission’s emphasis on efficiency, one might logically assume that a newly created government entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would align strongly with the evidence-based policymaking approach codified in the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act. Proponents of evidence-based policymaking advocate developing and applying evidence as a way for the federal government to “fund more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” This is because they recognize that ineffective federal programs have significant costs: the taxpayer dollars spent on a program that did not work, the opportunity costs for individuals who participate in such a program at the expense of pursuing other avenues for assistance, the erosion of trust between the public and the government when federal programs do not work, and the time and energy that could have been spent developing and implementing a more effective program.
Since the term “efficiency” is defined as “something that is done to avoid wasting time, energy, or money,” proponents of evidence-based policymaking might have initially been excited by President Donald J. Trump’s September 2024 announcement that he planned to create a new “government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.” Not only does the concept of efficiency align with the use of evidence in policymaking, but the first Trump Administration undertook the first presidential effort to implement the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act’s requirements. In July 2019, then-acting, and now current, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought spoke highly of evidence-based policymaking as a way to “enable agencies to shift away from low-value activities toward actions that will support decision makers” in fulfilling their agencies’ stated missions.
Unfortunately, it almost immediately became clear that DOGE would decidedly not be adopting an evidence-based approach to government reform. In a November 2024 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Elon Musk and his co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy made clear that DOGE had identified a “North Star for reform” and that it would not be evidence. Instead, they erroneously stated that the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in West Virginia v. EPA and Loper Bright v. Raimondo meant that a “plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.” Instead of heeding Chief Justice John Roberts’s clear statement that the Supreme Court did “not call into question” the many “prior” decisions upholding particular agency regulations, they promised to work with legal experts and “advanced technology” to rescind regulations in tension with these holdings.
Ultimately, however, with Ramaswamy having left DOGE right as the Administration began, Musk abandoned even this purported North Star in favor of his preferred “chainsaw for bureaucracy” approach to reform. In just a few months, DOGE has eliminated approximately 260,000 federal jobs and has worked with President Trump and his cabinet to eliminate entire program functions across many agencies. President Trump himself has adopted the chainsaw approach by issuing executive orders calling for staff reductions, the elimination of foreign aid programs, and the closure of the U.S. Department of Education. In doing so, President Trump, Musk, and DOGE have irreparably undermined decades of bipartisan efforts to implement an evidence-based framework for federal policymaking.
What might government reform have looked like if DOGE had adopted an evidence-based policymaking approach instead of wielding a chainsaw? The Education Department provides a great example of the opportunities lost by the abandoning of evidence in the reform process.
As the Education Department explained, it has been engaged in “evidence-building for the purpose of improving outcomes for all learners for more than 70 years.” During the early 2000s, the use of evidence to inform education policy became a focal point for both the George W. Bush Administration and Congress, which enacted the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. The No Child Left Behind Act emphasized the importance of evaluation and effectiveness, and the Education Sciences Reform Act created a new Institute of Education Sciences to serve as the Education Department’s primary research arm. Under the purview of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Education Department soon began using randomized control trials to assess the effectiveness of its programs. Today, the Institute of Education Sciences continues to house significant data from the Education Department’s ongoing trials and other evaluation programs.
It would therefore have been not only possible, but relatively straightforward, for DOGE to adopt an evidence-based approach to reforming the Education Department. For example, Musk could have used the “advanced technology” he touted in his Wall Street Journal op-ed to review the trove of evidence the Education Department has collected about the effectiveness of its programming at the Institute of Education Sciences over the past twenty years. Instead, President Trump has proposed $12 billion in across-the-board cuts to the Education Department as part of his effort to “responsibly” wind down the agency entirely.
By leaving evidence at the door and picking up the chainsaw instead—not just at the Education Department, but across the federal government—the Trump Administration has failed to capitalize on decades of bipartisan work to encourage agencies to be as effective and efficient at serving the American people as possible. The opportunity costs of this calamitous policy choice are nationally consequential and likely irretrievable.
