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Now that Donald Trump has become president, one of his signature initiatives is a proposal to form a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to Trump, DOGE will “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”1 This new entity will be led by Elon Musk.2 Back in November, then President-elect Trump stated, “I look forward to Elon … making changes to the federal bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans.”3 DOGE has been a controversial proposition in itself, but it is particularly so because of the involvement of Elon Musk. He recently said that DOGE will work to achieve substantial cuts in government spending: “I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting 1 [trillion].”4

But does the government need to be more efficient? We have strong evidence to suggest that it does. Incredibly, during relatively strong economic times during the past fiscal year, the federal government ran a budget deficit of almost 2 trillion dollars. Our overall national debt is over 36 trillion dollars, and in the last few years, the debt/GDP ratio for the USA has been at its highest level since World War Two.5 Both political parties have been fully complicit in this long-term process of overspending. The fact that the government can engage in continual deficit spending removes much of the discipline necessary for efficiency. Why be efficient if one can just continue to borrow?

Further evidence of government inefficiency can be found in reports from nonprofit organizations, watchdog agencies, and individual politicians. It is fair to say that there are a lot of these reports.6 Whether it is in the provision of a new military weapons system or a program to encourage public transportation, we are not often surprised when we hear of cost overruns and unmet goals. It may be expected that such a large endeavor as the government would have some substantial inefficiencies, merely as a result of the size and scope of its activities. However, FedEx and UPS are large organizations, and while far from being perfect, they are known for being very efficient. In contrast, The United States Postal Service, while providing many similar services, is known for substantial inefficiencies. Our expectation of inefficiency in government is a significant part of how we understand the world to work. What is surprising is that we accept this reality so easily, and as a nation, we don’t do much to change it.

Efficiency and Stewardship

For economists, efficiency has always been an important concept; our models often make distinctions between efficient and inefficient outcomes. At the same time, economists have understood that there can be important tradeoffs between efficiency and issues of equity. Making decisions in these cases is not generally easy, but economists can sometimes provide insights into the nature of the true costs involved.

For Christian economists, the concept of stewardship has also played an important role in our design and evaluation of government policies and programs. Stewardship is a central part of the Biblical message to God’s people. In Genesis, humankind was given the task of nurturing and developing God’s creation. The Psalms tell us that the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof. In the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the talents emphasizes our role in fostering the growth of important resources. Our response as God’s people is to gratefully and carefully tend to what God has entrusted us.

So how does efficiency connect to good stewardship? There are several points of connection between these two ideas. First, is the government taking care of its resources, so they are not stolen or lost? Even the “worthless servant” in Matthew 25 was able to make this happen. However, many examples exist where the government has not met this standard. The Wall Street Journal notes that up to 135 billion dollars of unemployment benefits were stolen during the Covid pandemic.7 In addition, the US Government Accountability Office reported that the federal government made “an estimated $236 billion in “improper payments” during the most recently completed fiscal year (FY 2023).”8

Second, is the government operating cost-effectively in its spending? Other things being equal, it would be better for the government to construct an office building for 20 million dollars instead of building the same exact facility for 40 million. The phrase “other things being equal” might disguise a number of things we could be concerned about, but if these projects truly are equal, it seems evident that the government should spend less. Good stewardship and efficiency go hand in hand in these cases.

Are the programs the government is spending its money on achieving the desired results at a minimum level of cost? There is substantial evidence that the government doesn’t always act in a cost-effective manner. As just one example, in 2021, Congress allocated 7.5 billion dollars to build electric vehicle charging stations in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. Near the end of 2024, only 214 individual chargers were operational.9

A third point of connection between stewardship and efficiency relates to whether government should even allocate funds to a particular program. Is it wise to tax families and businesses, and remove their choices of how to spend their own money, to create and fund a program administered by the government? If the government does decide to collect taxes or borrow money for programs, is it spending money on the right things? Most of us would likely agree that there are many cases where this is good stewardship. Society needs good roads, support for the poorest among us, a fair judicial system, and many other forms of public investment; this is what provides much of what we know as “civilization.” However, there are many cases where we can seriously question government decisions.

One prominent example is the case of high-speed rail construction in California. Initially proposed in 2008, this project was estimated to cost 35 billion dollars. Currently, cost projections have increased to 135 billion dollars, and not a single mile of rail line is in service.10 There are arguments for and against this project, but it is fair to ask whether taxing families and businesses 135 billion dollars to provide high-speed rail is better stewardship than allowing them to spend the money themselves. If the government does decide to tax or borrow money, we could also ask if this expenditure would be better used on other projects. Some of the money spent on this high-speed rail project could have just as easily been spent on forest fire prevention in California. Hindsight is often 20/20, but it appears that the choice for high-speed rail was quite inefficient as well as poor stewardship.

Calling attention to inefficiencies and poor stewardship within government is not supposed to suggest that our government is especially evil or that the people within government are more evil than the rest of us. As Christians, we can see the impact of sin in our own lives very clearly. However, it should not surprise anyone that when sinful individuals work together in government and have power, the effects of sin can be concentrated.

This blog provides just a handful of examples of government inefficiency and poor stewardship. Unfortunately, there are many, many more. It is not often that we hear our public servants state that they will be very careful with every dollar they spend, and will work overtime to be good stewards of the resources they command. Given that the financial resources at their disposal were collected from individuals and businesses through taxation, this may seem surprising. However, we have slowly come to accept government inefficiency as the normal state of affairs. We need to hold the government accountable for the use of the financial resources that they have taxed and borrowed. Inefficiency and bad stewardship are not acceptable.

Conclusion

If we assume that the government should pay much more attention to efficiency and stewardship, is Elon Musk the right person for the job? It is hard to know, and only time will tell. Musk has a history as a successful businessman who is unconventional in his methods. However, his behavior and statements have become even more controversial recently, engendering both severe criticism and strong support.

In the past, many have talked about bringing efficiency to the federal government. However, no one from inside the government has been perceived as having been particularly successful in this task. I am interested in seeing what Musk and DOGE can do. Could he fail? Absolutely. Could he move on in a month or two? Certainly. But given our nation’s nearly 2 trillion dollar deficit and over 36 trillion dollars in national debt, it is hard to imagine things getting too much worse, unless we do nothing. I am willing to give him a chance, or anyone else, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, who wants to bring more efficiency to the government.

At the same time, I am not sanguine about the possibilities. There are many reasons why the government has spent trillions more than it has taken over the last 50 years. Both political parties have shown relatively little commitment to efficiency or good stewardship, and it is not always in their self-interest to do so. Government has the power of the sword, as well as the power of taxation. Christians have historically seen government as instituted by God, with the responsibility to promote stewardship and justice. Let us pray that our government demonstrates better efficiency and stewardship in the next four years, and for every four-year period after that. There is a lot of room for improvement.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/11/trump-vows-dismantle-federal-bureaucracy-and-restructure-agencies-new-musk-led-commission/400998/.
  2. Initially, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was appointed as co-director.
  3. https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/11/trump-vows-dismantle-federal-bureaucracy-and-restructure-agencies-new-musk-led-commission/400998/.
  4. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/09/elon-musk-doge/77585771007/.
  5. For more information on our fiscal situation, see https://christianscholars.com/a-deficit-unlike-any-other-implications-for-generational-justice/.
  6. Many organizations and some politicians provide lists of what they believe are “government waste.” For example, see https://www.cagw.org/about-us, orhttps://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-releases-2024-festivus-report-on-government-waste/.
  7. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/time-is-running-out-to-recover-up-to-135-billion-in-pilfered-jobless-benefits-39505ea7.
  8. https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-government-made-236-billion-improper-payments-last-fiscal-year.
  9. For more information on this program, see https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-electric-vehicle-charging-stations-75-billion-buttigieg-1ddcd6ee193fc1847e5401c95c016ec3.
  10. More on this project can be found at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail.

Todd Steen

Hope College
Todd Steen is the Granger Professor of Economics at Hope College, and he serves as the Managing Editor of Christian Scholar’s Review.

15 Comments

  • Dr. Nancy Brownlee says:

    Thanks for your insight!

  • Rocky Wallace, Professor of Education, Campbellsville University says:

    Dr. Steen: You are spot on. Thank you for addressing the reality of a society that has illogically accumulated most of this enormus debt in just the last 25 years.

  • Brian Howell says:

    “However, FedEx and UPS are large organizations, and while far from being perfect, they are known for being very efficient. In contrast, The United States Postal Service, while providing many similar services, is known for substantial inefficiencies.”

    The “known for” evidences here are not too convincing. Much of the “efficiency” of these private corporations comes in the way they manage labor. The stories of the post office often are about how hard it is to fire someone and how secure (and, via pensions, generous) the jobs are. While there may be legit reasons to reform some of the work rules so that incompetent people can be removed more easily, the “efficiencies” of corps like FedEd and UPS often come through temporary workers, radical lay-offs, and abusive work rules that hurt people and dehumanize them in substantive ways.

    “Efficiency” is not a bad concept, but it needs to be interrogated beyond the bottom line. We can get lots of efficiencies through abusive and exploitive work rules. But should Christians support that? (Spoiler alert: Isaiah 3)

    • Todd Steen says:

      Brian-

      Thanks for reading this blog and your thoughtful comments. If you are suggesting that efficiency isn’t everything, I completely agree. I note that economists deal with the trade offs between efficiency and equity. Efficiency does need to be interrogated beyond the bottom line. I am not looking for efficiency “through abusive and exploitive work rules.” The kind of issues I point to are completely irresponsible and inefficient use of taxpayer money. They are not driven by the fact that the government somehow treats its workers better. I don’t think we can accept things that are truly wasteful or that lead to massive deficit spending. You make no statement concerning the need to eliminate any inefficiencies.

      As a personal note, when it comes to USPS, UPS and FedEx, I have 30 plus years of experience working with these companies in my role as managing editor of CSR, and getting the hard copies of the journal delivered all over the world. There are significant differences that I believe go way beyond merely how workers are treated. Workers need to be treated well everywhere, but packages need to arrive as well. Some places manage it better than others.

      • Brian Howell says:

        Of course not everything in the delivery example can be attributed to work rules, but some of the evidence you use for the need for DOGE doesn’t expose any efficiency problems at all. The fact that the US government runs deficits or spends a lot on various programs is not, of course, in itself evidence that anything is being wasted or is inefficient. It just demonstrates that a) things are expensive and b) the government doesn’t collect enough to cover these things.

        Of course I’m sure there are ways that anything being done by the government can be more efficient, but even a casual observation of many private corporations reveals the same things there. There’s a reason that Dilbert and The Office have been such popular parodies of corporate America; they ring true for almost everyone who has worked in such contexts.

        The Trump administration has actually eliminated many of the offices in place to oversee spending throughout the agencies under the executive branch and then created an entirely new Department to do that work, headed by billionaires who have conflicts of interest all over the place. How does this inspire confidence in their ability to actually bring about these efficiencies?

        I think overall, yes, certainly there are efficiencies we can improve in government services, but what’s happening through DOGE does not suggest this is the real purpose, nor will be the outcome, of these objectives.

      • Brian Howell says:

        Hey Todd,

        Right now DOGE is dismantling USAID, which is a tiny fraction of overall government spending, and it is not looking for “efficiency,” it is simply suspending it’s work, moving it away from independent operations accountable to congress, and trying to put it into the State Department so the President can fill it with his loyalists.

        Your defense of DOGE seems somewhat disconnected from the real politics of what this administration is doing. Most government agencies did have Inspector General offices tasked with overseeing the spending that was happening in these agencies, making sure it was complying with regulations and using money and resources ethically and legally. DOGE is dismissing those and replacing them with nothing.

        Your evidence for the need for “efficiency” in government seems mostly predicated on the simple fact of deficit spending. However, that doesn’t reveal inefficiency. It reveals a simple imbalance in expenditures and revenue. It may be that these services are being provided efficiently, but that they’re expensive. Sure, there can always be great efficiency, but is that found in the private sector? The Office and Dilbert were extraordinarily popular satires of corporate America because so many people could relate to the (mis)management and foolishness that is built into every human system.

        The USPS example aside (which, in my experience, is always less expensive than UPS/FedEx), DOGE is proving to be a partisan nightmare and while we may get a much reduced federal government from its efforts, I very much doubt we will get a more effective and efficient organization. Just a hobbled and hopeless one.

  • Van B. Weigel says:

    Who can argue against the government being more efficient with its tax dollars? However, I was surprised by what I perceive to be the uncritical tenor of this piece–particularly since Dr. Steen is rooting his comments in the biblical notion of stewardship.

    For example, take Elon Musk’s quote that was highlighted in the first paragraph: “I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting 1 [trillion].” No one who is familiar with the federal budget and non-discretionary entitlement spending think that can think that cuts in that magnitude are even remotely possible (unless we are going to completely gut the Defense Department, funding for regulatory agencies, and most social spending). Statements like this from Musk make it clear that he has little or no real understanding of the Federal budget. So why uncritically hold this up as a hoped-for or feasible goal?

    More recently, think of the Musk-inspired “Fork in the Road” memo to two million federal employees, offering a buy-out proposal (with no credible funding source), effectively paying them not to work for eight months with the not-so-subtle hint that they may find themselves without a job if they don’t accept the offer. How is a blanket buy-out proposal like this a gleaming demonstration of efficiency from a human capital standpoint? This, along with the Schedule F reclassification of federal employees, is clearly an attempt to dismantle the civil service system that has been in place since 1883 (and revised in 1978). Is Dr. Steen suggesting that a return to political patronage for government workers represents an efficient “solution” for our country? Think of the potential loss of human capital that is taking place because of these and other DOGE initiatives.

    Christian stewardship requires careful, critical thinking–a quality that seems in short supply with Elon Musk and the Trump Administration.

    • Todd Steen says:

      Van-

      Thanks for engaging with the blog and your thoughtful comments. You were surprised by the “uncritical tenor” of the piece. I think I was pretty critical of the target of my writing—incredible inefficiencies in government and massive deficit spending.

      I did quote Musk just to try and describe what he was thinking, not to suggest his approach was optimal. But I also noted that Musk is controversial and has received “severe criticism.” I wrote that both parties are fully complicit in the problem, that Musk could fail, and that he might be gone in a month. I also said I wasn’t that optimistic that this would work. Given that the process is really just starting to take place, I am least willing to see a little more. I do understand your concerns as you outline them, as well as the design of government budgets, but I am more fearful of the problems that I discuss, starting with massive long-term deficit spending and debt that will be a significant overhang for future generations.

      I will turn the “uncritical” comment back toward you. You seem quite uncritical about the inefficiencies and overspending that I highlight as examples of poor stewardship. There is no doubt that changing things will be extremely difficult. But something has got to change.

      • Van Weigel says:

        Thanks so much for your perspectives on this and your thoughtful response.

        All the best,

        Van

  • Larry Molnar says:

    This blog misses the context of the question of stewardship in government. Since the 1970s, Congress has developed a system of inspector generals that were given independence to speak out and expertise to understand on an agency-by-agency basis what each agency is supposed to do. Their task is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. (They have been particularly championed by Republican Senator Grassley from Iowa, but they have acted in a nonpartisan way with bipartisan support for decades.) In his first presidency, Trump fired a number of inspectors that had been critical of his administration. In the first week of his new administration he illegally fired 18 of them. (Illegally in that current law states the president must submit intent to fire an inspector to Congress with 30 days notice and a statement of how the inspector had failed in his or her duties first.)

    The point that is clearly made is that the Trump administration has no interest in avoiding waste, fraud, or abuse. It prizes only personal loyalty to him. Given this context it is fanciful to think the DOGE (which has little idea of how government works) is intended to do what is advertised.

    • Todd Steen says:

      Larry-

      Thanks for reading the blog and for responding. I think I totally understand the context of stewardship in government. It hasn’t been good! The system of inspector generals that you mention haven’t been able to deal with the problems, over the last 4 years, the last 8 years, or over the last 50 years. The fact that they are bipartisan hasn’t made them successful.

      As noted in my blog, I am not confident that Musk and DOGE will be successful; I also can’t evaluate the motives of President Trump regarding avoiding waste, fraud and abuse. In a year I may be writing that the efforts were unsuccessful, and that we need something else. The point of my blog was that something needs to happen with regards to government inefficiency (broadly defined) and poor stewardship. You seem to be content with the status quo. I am not.

      • Larry Molnar says:

        I did not say I was content with the status quo. We can and should do better.

        What I said is that the actions of the Trump administration make clear they do not intend to do better. So looking to Musk does not forward a genuine concern with doing better. I pointed out their actions relative to the inspectors general undermine progress. Their additional uninformed broad brush approaches promise still worse. We have already seen a hiring freeze attached to air traffic controllers (and not rescinded) while there is universal agreement they are understaffed. We have also seen contractors with no security clearance seizing secure information (which is a disaster waiting to happen). Etc.

  • Todd Steen says:

    Brian-

    There is no doubt that the word inefficiency in this essay does a lot of heavy lifting, including waste, overspending, poor judgment, etc. There is plenty of all of it to go around; there were hundreds of examples to choose from. All of it is poor stewardship.

    I believe that your suggestion that government and business have parallel degrees of inefficiency is misleading. There is no business that has spent billions, or tens of billions, or hundreds of billions more than they took in year after year. No one would invest in such a business. More importantly, we generally aren’t forced to provide revenue for inefficient businesses or any business at all.

    I love the comedy The Office, but fortunately Dunder Mifflin can’t force me to pay to support them. The government can and does, and that is why they need to be particularly accountable for poor stewardship. Your comments suggest to me that you just aren’t that concerned about the poor stewardship in the government that has saddled future generations with trillions of dollars of debt. I am.

    I never suggested in the essay that I have a lot of confidence in Musk and Company to handle these problems—I can’t evaluate their motives either.
    But we need something new to try to improve things, whether it is DOGE or something else. The people in the offices you mention who have been working on this in the past just haven’t done the job.

  • Natalie says:

    Please explain how anything that is being done by the current administration is doing anything to increase efficiency—including the work of DOGE? How is it doing anything to help US Citizens, much less the world? As far as I can tell, it has only worked to increase power in the Executive branch. Asking current federal employees to choose between a buyout or being fired? A hiring freeze on air traffic controllers? Freezing grants and federal funding? Gutting US Foreign Aid? Attempting to change curriculum of public schools across the country?

    You may come back and say that you never said DOGE and the current administration was THE correct answer. This is true. But for some reason, your desire to write about how efficiency is biblical reads as thinly veiled propaganda for the current presidential administration. If this was not your intention, then maybe you could have left DOGE and the government out of the blog post. You could have said something about efficiency being part of the current social discourse without any mention of the government or the world’s richest man (a man who will is likely to not enter the Kingdom of Heaven based on Scriptures and therefore may not be someone to look to as an example of someone demonstrating Christ-like qualities).

    I would caution all of us Christian Scholars against using examples that are clearly “of the world” to demonstrate biblical truths. The message quickly gets muddled.

  • I am unclear on how the magnitude of the budget deficit works as a measure of efficiency or inefficiency. It seems like a better measure of efficiency would involve some identification of what needs doing or procuring, and then an estimate of how few resources could be allocated to that task while still accomplishing it. It seems theoretically possible for any entity to have a large budget deficit, while still having accomplished some designated task for the least cost.

    I’m not saying the government is “efficient” in some absolute sense. I am saying that I don’t see how your use of the deficit figures establishes its inefficiency.