DOGE: The newest federal department

The Department of Government Efficiency's start and its role in the future of the federal government 

Design by Sonya Pandya & Arshita Sunnam

Raina Jain, Staff Writer & Arshita Sunnam, Staff Writer

Immediately after his inauguration, President Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Jan. 20, 2025. Its purpose is to modernize the operation of federal departments to maximize productivity. Additionally, it aims to cut down on waste and fraud in certain federal agencies. It is currently run by Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk. Previously, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was also nominated as co-head of DOGE, but he decided to leave the role in Jan. to pursue his candidacy for Governor of Ohio. 

Before becoming the DOGE, it existed as a play on Bitcoin, originally a viral meme known as the name of "Dogecoin," Featuring the face of Kabosu from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake, Dogecoin was originally created by International Business Machines (IBM) software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer to create a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin. Additionally, they wanted to distance it from the controversial history of other coins, such as bitcoin. Dogecoin was officially launched on Dec. 6, 2013, and within the first 30 days, there were over 1 million visitors to Dogecoin.com. 

Currently, the DOGE has been focused on cutting federal spending, mostly by removing certain federal departments that were deemed unnecessary. So far, the DOGE has shut down numerous Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and is planning to continue this with federal departments such as Department of Education (DoE), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Federal Aviation Association (FAA), and the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA). As of Jan. 20, 2025,  they have removed 2 million federal workers from office by offering them buyout payments.

Kasey Smarr, an AP World History teacher at Northview High School, predicts some of the actions that the DOGE might take in the future and the potential implications of those actions. According to their guidelines, they are only allowed to operate in a short timeframe, as they will no longer be considered a government agency by July 4, 2026. 

"I'm kind of wary about the different agencies they might look into, especially environmental protections [and] the post office," Smarr said. 

Considering the DOGE's recent involvement with the Department of Education (DoE) and attempts to remove it, there could be potential changes to educational policies that would impact students and teachers across the nation. Northview High School principal, Martin Neuhaus, shares his perspective on the potential impacts of this. 

"Congress writes and approves the [educational] policy, and the Department of Education works through any kind of laws. I think there'll be a minimal impact on policy," Neuhaus said.

However, with the speed at which the DOGE is operating, people may overlook the way certain departments integrate into daily processes and how important they are. According to AP News, the DOGE is getting involved with the DOE's Institute of Education Sciences, an agency that kept track of student literacy rates and progress that had the potential for $900 million worth of cuts. He discusses how they seem to focus mainly on the spending of the agencies rather than their use to the public. 

"They try to look at these kinds of large forms of monetary use, and they make kind of an arbitrary judgment, in my mind, of what they decide is useful or not," Smarr said.

With the department's origins in cryptocurrency, another potential policy might be more direct government involvement in the field of cryptocurrency. Jason Delong, a math teacher, shares some potential implications about this. 

"What [the government] wants to do is...not immediately sell [illegal] crypto that they seize, but hold on to it for the idea that it'll be a future investment...but I do believe that if we actively start using the US dollar to buy cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, that can be detrimental to the value of the dollar," Delong said.