17 hours ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
DOGE Needs a New Strategy After Elon Musk
David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S., makes the case that 'DOGE Has Work Left to Do' (op-ed, June 10) after Elon Musk's departure. It appears that Mr. Musk and his associates relied in large part on analysis of large databases to determine if waste, fraud and abuse were present, without actually deploying boots on the ground to interview those involved. Such database analysis provides useful information but not definitive answers about individual circumstances.
When I worked as a special agent for the Government Accountability Office, I was assigned to interview an administrative law judge who appeared to be collecting disability payments from Social Security despite his having returned to his federal job after heart surgery. The judge readily admitted to it. I asked why he didn't inform Social Security of his return to work, to which he responded that he had, several times. He had saved the letters and made note of the numerous phone calls too. I asked why he didn't return the Social Security checks, but he said that the payments had been directly deposited into his bank account and that he was ready to return all the money once someone told him how to do so.
