Deconstructing DOGE
The Big Con
Today, I spent too much time breaking apart the unconstitutional creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and settled on how the so-called Department was paying it’s employees. Throughout the course of the day, more information came to light. I’ve come to one inevitable conclusion: This isn’t good for the American people.
I began the day with a simple question after seeing this post that was posted to X, the site former known as Twitter:
How can an unfunded illegal government agency hire employees? was my first question. Do they complete a W4? What’s their GS pay scale?
Every person in American that collects a salary MUST complete a W4. Every Federal employee is assigned a GS level. The General Schedule (GS) pay scale for federal jobs in the United States is based on education, experience, and position. The GS system has 15 grades, from GS-1 to GS-15, with each grade having 10 steps. If you’ve ever worked for the federal government, you had a GS grade.
I wondered, what is the GS grade level of DOGE employees? DOGE can’t have a budget because it was never appropriated money by Congress. That sent me down a rabbit hole that got larger and wider as the day went on.
This is what I found out.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW
DOGE is not a real department because it was not created by Congress. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time harping on this point. If you claim to care about the U. S Constitution, then you should care about this.
Congressional action is required to create Executive Branch departments, to fund them, to determine the nature and scope of their duties and to confirm the appointment of their top leaders. That never happened with DOGE.
The U.S Constitution gives Congress the “power of the purse.” That means, all funding must be appropriated by Congress and appropriations must originate in the U.S House of Representatives. This allows for separation of powers and adequate checks and balances. The Constitution does not give the President of the United States power to unilaterally create an Executive Branch department. That must be done by an act of Congress.
Donald Trump’s Executive Order that established the Department of Government Efficiency, created DOGE by renaming the United States Digital Service (USDS) to the United States DOGE Service (USDS). There’s one problem. This action is unconstitutional. Any restructuring of an Executive Branch department must be done by Congress.
Case-in-point. In 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower created the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). It was created as a cabinet-level department as part of the President’s Reorganization Plan Number 1 of 1953 and transmitted to Congress on March 12, 1953.
The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare remained until it’s name changed to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after its education functions were transferred to the newly created United States Department of Education under the Department of Education Organization Act.
The name change from HEW to HHS was done by an act of Congress. It was not unilaterally changed by President Jimmy Carter as President Donald Trump has done with his, United States Department of Government Efficiency Services or DOGE.
THE MORE YOU KNOW: The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was the only department of the U.S. government to be created through presidential reorganization authority because the power do so was removed after 1962. Furthermore, in 1983 the Supreme Court ruled that legislative vetoes, a stipulation of the presidential reorganization authority, was unconstitutional.
In the Supreme Court’s Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha decision, the Court ruled that legislation providing Congress with a one-house veto over an action of the Executive Branch was unconstitutional because it does not meet the constitutional requirements of presentment and bicameralism contained in Article I Sec.
The method by which agencies of the United States government are created, abolished, consolidated, or divided is through an act of Congress. The presidential reorganization authority transfers that power to the president for a defined period of time, permitting the President to take those actions by decree. Should Congress take no action in response to an reorganization plan issued under the authority, then the plan becomes law. The U.S Supreme Court ruled this to be unconstitutional.
The last Presidential Organization Authority to be transmitted to Congress was done by Ronald Reagan in 1983. It was H.R.1314 - Reorganization Act Amendments of 1984. The Reorganization Act Amendments gave the President more authority to send reorganization plans to Congress. The law also extended the deadline for these plans to be submitted.
While the Executive Order claims to rename the U.S Digital Service department to US DOGE Service, the U.S Digital Service department still exists and operates out of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The previous head of U.S Digital Service was Mina Hsiang. She was appointed by the OMB to lead the department in 2021 and resigned ahead of Trump’s inauguration. Her vacancy has not been filled, and there’s a reason for that. Well, rather institutional or organizational structure confusion.
Donald Trump’s Executive Order supposedly publicly renamed the United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service (USDS). They did this while keeping the original United States Digital Service operational. Its website is still up and the Administration has updated the department’s Wikipedia page. There are problems with their updates:
U.S DOGE Service still refers to itself U.S. Digital Service
U.S. Digital Service was formed in 2014. US DOGE Service was formed on January 20, 2025. It uses the 2014 date as the date it was formed.
The page provides the U.S. Digital Service website, which supposedly no longer exist because it was renamed US DOGE Service.
The Wikipedia page for U.S Digital Service page redirected to US DOGE Service only for the site to inform users “Not to be confused with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).” The problem is US Digital Service IS US DOGE Service which is also the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Confused? No worries. So, are they.
Those are amateurish mistakes and trust me, there are much larger issues to address with DOGE, which makes this, rightly so, petty.
Shall we begin?
When you click on the join.doge.gov link in DOGE’s Xwitter post, it opens a very scaled-down ‘application’ page. When you print the page it informs it is “An official website of the United States government.”
If you’re confused by U.S. DOGE Service referring to itself as USDS, don’t feel bad. So, was I.
I immediately thought they were referencing the original U.S Digital Service, which uses the acronym, USDS. But they’re not. For DOGE, USDS is short for U.S DOGE Service. Yes, they are hoping we’re not critical thinkers.
Trump supposedly renamed USDS to DOGE. By maintaining the original acronym, people will immediately assume they are the same thing. They are not, AT ALL.
The U.S Digital Service is part of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. U.S DOGE Service doesn't appear to be, though it is an Executive Branch ‘department’.
The Office of Management and Budget names the administrator of the United States Digital Service. The last Administrator was Mina Hsiang. She succeeded Matthew Cutts. If DOGE is simply a renaming of USDS, then the OMB would name the new Administrator of US DOGE Service.
That did not happen.
President Trump hand-picked Elon Musk to lead DOGE immediately after his election victory in November 2024. Originally, Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were to co-lead the newly ‘created’ Department of Government Efficiency. Ramaswamy was later dropped.
If Musk is the administrator in charge of US DOGE Services, then who is the Administrator in charge of U.S Digital Service and its existing employees? The agency has projects, which apparently still exists despite DOGE’s Wikipedia page. US Digital Service also still has Mina Hsiang as its Administrator on its webpage.
The landing page for the U.S Digital Services is still reachable. The application page for the original USDS is also very different from that of U.S DOGE Service, even though the latter took over the former and the former supposedly no longer exist in its original form. It’s Orwellian Doublespeak, yes, I know.
Now, Let's Talk Money
The U.S Digital Service is funded through Information Technology Oversight and Reform (ITOR) funding. In 2024 , the USDS used funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. It requested $30 million in FY2025 to fund its operations.
It has been reported that in just seven days, DOGE has burned through $7 million dollars of taxpayer money. The $7 million dollars has been “apportioned,” which means Musk’s illegal staff has been drawing an official salary from the budget of the U.S Digital Service.
How is that possible when the U.S. Digital Service is part of the Office of Management and Budget, drawing its annual budget from an account within the Executive Office of the President labeled “Information Technology Oversight and Reform?” A Trump White House official said the DOGE “apportionments” simply represent what had instead been going to the U.S Digital Service before it was transformed into DOGE.
If that’s the case, then did that $7 million dollar come from the overall $30 million dollars appropriated for the U.S. Digital Service?
It was also reported that Billionaire Elon Musk isn’t receiving a salary. This is also, illegal.
The Anti-Deficiency Act of 1884 and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibit Federal employees from working for free. Elon Musk must have completed a W4 and he must earn a salary.
This came up during Trump’s first term when Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka Trump worked for Donald Trump’s Administration. By law, they would have had to be sent a check each month but they were thought to be contributing them to various charities.
Donald Trump stated he donated his salary to charities. A releases of his 2020 tax return showed he made no contributions to charities that year. There isn’t any found information if the Kushners actually received a salary or donated it.
President John F Kennedy donated his entire $100,000 presidential salary to charities he chose. There is no documentation that any other president since Kennedy had arranged to have his salary directed to charity. Not even Donald Trump, despite stating that he would.
Also, according to Roll Call, the $7 million dollars appropriated to DOGE was allocated for a range of expenses, that included the following:
Tech Upgrades: DOGE reportedly spent millions on “proprietary software” to analyze Treasury’s payment systems.
This is a huge red flag🚩. Proprietary software is software that is developed, owned, and distributed by a specific company or organization. Proprietary software also means there must be licensing requirements.
Ethics rules bar an individual from working as a Government official on any matter in which the contractor’s company has a financial interest.
Congress must finds out what is the proprietary software that was installed on these government computers, who owns it, developed it, and if that company/individual represents a conflict of interest. If the software is owned/developed by Musk, then that poses an even bigger problem.
This unknown software could literally be anything: Trojan Horses, Password sniffers, keyloggers, ransom ware, etc.
Musk’s DOGE team had the software installed over objections from career officials who argued that whatever the function of the software, they already had the tools to do that job, thus the software was redundant as well as overpriced.
Congress must ask, and the public should demand who received the payment for the software.
It is also reported that Elon Musk used OPM to send an email purporting to be from “hr@opm.gov,” asking federal employees to reply. The email was part of a program called “Fork in the Road.”
Congress must ask, and the public should demand if software program was installed, and if so, who wrote/owns the program? How was it approved to be installed on government-owned computers? What does the program do and can it be deleted?
The program Fork in the Road purportedly offered federal employees the chance to resign early. Two employees have filed a lawsuit.
The lawsuit states: “The evidence suggests that, at some point after 20 January 2025, OPM allowed unknown individuals to simply bypass its existing systems and security protocols and install one or more new systems to ingest and store vast quantities of PII about Executive Branch employees … for the stated purpose of being able to communicate directly with those individuals without involving other agencies.”
OPM has also been accused of allowing employees outside its department to install a server to ingest and store vast quantities of Personal Identifying Information (PII) about Executive Branch employees for the stated purpose of being able to communicate directly with those individuals without involving other agencies.
Those non-departmental employees were the DOGE-team. Which is consistent because DOGE is purportedly under OMB.
The federal government didn’t previously have the capability to mass-email all federal employees, as most communications come directly from the departments where employees work. In other words, OMB employees should not be able to send mass emails to employees using an OPM domain.
According to Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee “acquiring such a capability securely and in compliance with federal cybersecurity, privacy, and procurement laws would likely not have been possible in such a short timeframe.”
DOGE hired ‘private consultants’.
The ‘consultants’ currently hired all have ties to Musk’s other ventures and appear to be getting paid a rates far above government pay scales.
Again, ethics rules bar an individual from working as a Government official on any matter in which the contractor’s company has a financial interest. This must be investigated.
To become a private consultant for the feds, you need to have top-level qualifications and also register your business as a government contractor.
Congress must ask, and the public should demand to know if the ‘private consultant’ followed the proper protocols and appropriately registered to be able to be employed as private consultants for the federal government.
If Musk’s minions are indeed Federal employees, did they complete a W4 and what is their GS grade? Does their GS pay scale properly align with their education and experience.
Congress must ask, and the public should demand to know.
Office Renovations: It is also reported that assigned offices for DOGE underwent massive office renovations in the short time it’s been operational.
The department created to eliminate government waste underwent a rapid makeover complete with state-of-the-art conference rooms and ergonomic furniture that compares with Musk’s Silicon Valley offices.
It is reported that there’s a footnote in the release, which states that the money “[p]rovides for anticipated reimbursements from agencies in support of Software Modernization Initiative.”
This means the money is being provided to DOGE to perform work on the agencies’ behalf and using their money to pay for it, a House Democratic aide explained.
In laymen’s terms this is called ‘double-dipping.’
What Does This All Mean?
Puppeteer, Elon Musk is using the United States Government like his new toy puppet. It seems to all be fun and games to a billionaire bored and spoiled little boy little for something more grand to play with. His new toy is the United States Government. He paid for this new toy for pennies on the dollar in the form of campaign donations (to the tune of $277 million dollars) to the Donald Trump Presidential Election Campaign. Therefore, as President, Donald Trump simply hands him the United States Government and its Treasury to do with as he pleases for 18 months.
We all know that Musk is not updating the government’s IT systems.
On the surface, Musk is scourging sensitive federal government data searching for programs and agencies to cancel or shut down.
His purpose appears to be based on ideology and whim rather than efficiency.
Beneath the surface, we also know that whatever Musk is up to, it has nothing to do with DOGE and everything to do with running the United States Government, likely into the ground.
For what purpose...only time will tell.
Thank you Darlene McDonald.
One major problem with your analysis: the "Department" of Government Efficiency is not actually a department. The United States Digital Service was not a department and, as far as I am aware, Congress never established it. Obama established the USDS as a unit within the executive branch. However, how such a function gets funded is a very good question to ask. Was what Obama did constitutional to begin with?