Little of DOGE’s work likely to survive

OPINION:

As an occasional resident of the District of Columbia, I am definitely in favor of the increased presence of those with guns and uniforms, especially on the Senate side and especially in the evening. It is difficult to be opposed to the clearing out of the vagrants, junkies and mentally ill who routinely give Union Station its distinctive vibe and smell.

Similarly, it is easy to be in favor of cutting waste and mismanagement in government, reducing the number of folks on the payroll and reducing the federal debt wherever possible. Moreover, very few can coherently oppose shrinking the burden that regulations impose on American citizens or the necessity of securing our border in the face of what has been a slow-motion invasion of our nation.

Team Trump deserves credit for taking on all these issues. Unfortunately, one of the hardest lessons of public policy is the fundamental impermanence of governmental actions. The temporary increase in federal law enforcement and National Guard units, for example, is unlikely to have any lasting effect in the District, except to demonstrate what can be done if one is serious about policing the city and reducing crime.

As painful as it is to acknowledge, Mayor Muriel Bowser is correct: If the federal government gave the District more cash, she could recruit more cops who would work the streets for years rather than the few days the National Guard members will be with us.

The Department of Government Efficiency suffered from a similar problem. If you are trying to change the size, spending habits and culture of a government that is among the largest on the planet, you should probably have some idea how that government spends money, and you should plan to hang around for more than a few weeks. You can’t really do a drive-by on the federal government, and you probably should be aware that only about $1 trillion of the federal budget out of almost $7 trillion is discretionary spending.

The DOGE guys seemed well-meaning, but hardly anything they did will survive.

The American system of government is intentionally designed to frustrate and delay change. Power is divided by the levels of government and the various components at each level, as well as by staggered terms of office and election years. Only political sentiments that are national in scope and durable over time become embedded in law.

Federal policies typically change within a fairly narrow range because of the difficulty of navigating the system and because American voters prefer, for the most part, change that is practical and incremental rather than ideological and expansive.

The more permanent victories in American governance tend to be found in Congress and, ironically, in the courts. Executive orders are good, specific executive actions are better, but much of what the president does is ephemeral unless it is embedded in law. Just ask former President Joseph R. Biden.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher captured the nature of political permanence when she noted, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”