Many Trump Spending And Deregulatory Executive Orders Bypass DOGE

Forbes

2 days ago

Media gloating over Elon Musk's departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is fairly widespread and overly unfair. However as a Special Government Employee, the Musk Max was always 130 days.
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 30: Tesla CEO Elon Musk shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump as they ... More speak to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Musk, who served as an adviser to Trump and led the Department of Government Efficiency, announced he would leave his role in the Trump administration to refocus on his businesses. (Photo by)
The broader project, however, has more than a year to run—set to dissolve amid the July 4, 2026 America 250 celebrations and present a final report of findings and recommendations. The overarching Trump-Vance deregulatory program has, of course, nearly another four years remaining (at least).
A $9 billion set of recissions targeting 2025 fiscal year funding—such as foreign aid and taxpayer-funded broadcasting—is being sent to Congress this week. No DOGE cuts had been included in the recent 'Big Beautiful Bill' recission package.
If one had to choose, the hallmark of Musk and DOGE's four-month tenure has been a bold stand against the entrenched federal employee, contractor, and NGO complex—an apparatus whose relentless pursuit of taxpayer funds at times strays far from the ideals of limited constitutional government. The initial recission package reflects elements of this challenge.
DOGE has also moved to delete non-statutory programs and agencies, deflate others (by shifting functions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for example), and implement federal reductions in force.
Efforts to centralize information collection and electronically track funding flows are underway—moves that, if successful, could uncover what even the House Oversight Committee sees as money laundering spanning the federal government. DOGE's remit spans both federal spending and regulation, so tight reviews of procurement and grants can advance the goal of terminating regulatory laundering through those channels.
The real test of Congress's commitment to DOGE will be whether spending-cut votes this year go beyond the few billion announced so far—and whether terminations extend to statutory agencies and commissions, not just the non-statutory ones.
Curiously, most of Trump's executive orders implementing his spending and deregulatory agenda don't assign DOGE as the lead. Of the 157 executive orders issued by Trump through May 23, only eight by my handcount explicitly invoke DOGE.
Milestone directives that do not mention DOGE include the 10-for-one regulatory rollback (surprisingly enough), a groundbreaking order aimed at ending regulatory overcriminalization, the torpedoing of a Central Bank Digital Currency, and even defunding National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
While DOGE is prominent, it's one piece of a larger hierarchy of streamlining actions coordinated by the White House OMB, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and other agencies. A large increase in funding for OMB in the House-passed Big Beautiful Bill to address regulatory matters with considerable discretion supports this notion.
Trump's eight executive orders that do invoke or instruct DOGE appear below. Despite the impression of DOGE as a go-it-alone entity, perusing text of these directives reveals that OMB and other agencies play prominent roles in regulatory streamlining efforts that will persist beyond America 250.
Some presidential memoranda invoke DOGE, such as April 9's 'Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations,' which builds on EO 14219 by employing the Administrative Procedure Act's 'good cause' exemption to bypass notice-and-comment procedures for certain unlawful and harmful rules.
In keeping with the first Trump administration, some actions are interventionist and swampy, potentially overwhelming savings from deregulation. Tariffs, concert ticket pricing, capping drug prices (EO 14273) and a teased DOGE dividend that would advance the progressive left's goal of a universal basic income all raise red flags. Some of Trump's ostensibly deregulatory measures could create unwelcome public/private entanglements, like an energy dominance council (EO 14227), healthcare pricing disclosure mandates (EO 14221) and a continuation of broadband subsidies by the Department of Commerce.
Looking beyond DOGE (and beyond the swampy aspects), a broader survey of Trump's executive orders reveals DOGE as one part of a larger agenda streamlining spending and regulation—sometimes with greater fervor than the DOGE directives themselves. Beyond the aforementioned ten-for-one rule elimination and overcriminalization orders, Trump's directives target a range of priorities that overlap with or reinforce DOGE. These include recissions of numerous Biden 'whole-of-government' regulatory executive orders—ranging from clean energy mandates to DEI social policy to censorship of dissent—as well as measures on immigration, border security, foreign aid, federal disbursement controls, energy access, federal employment accountability; and the termination of small agencies. Others address digital financial innovation, regulatory relief for critical industries, and enact routine administrative adjustments typical of any presidency.
While Elon Musk drew headlines, Trump's deregulatory push isn't confined to DOGE's 18-month lifespan. It leverages OMB and other agencies, making them the real engines of the agenda. Bigger DOGES, perhaps?