Donald Trump’s best idea: unleashing Elon Musk on government

Donald Trump’s speech on the economy last week was as usual a jumble of good (deregulation and taxes), bad (tariffs), and incoherent (child care). But one new idea he floated is a very good one and deserves more attention: The former President said he’d ask Elon Musk to run a Government Efficiency Commission.

Eyes understandably glaze over at the sound of “commission,” which is usually intended to duck a hard issue. The purpose in this case seems to be the opposite — to discover and highlight the countless ways government doesn’t work well, and suggest how to do tasks better, or perhaps not at all.

“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” Mr. Trump said in his speech to the Economic Club of New York.

He added that “as a first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months. This will save trillions of dollars. Trillions.” That’s typical Trump hyperbole, but there’s no doubt a huge amount that could be saved merely by fixing loopholes in programs that invite fraud.

The government paid tens of billions in fraudulent unemployment benefits and Paycheck Protection grants during the pandemic. According to the Internal Revenue Service, a California prison inmate allegedly claimed more than $550 million in Covid-era Employee Retention Tax Credits. The ERTC is one of the great Beltway boondoggles and will continue to add to the deficit with dubious payouts.

But there are countless other programs that run on autopilot with little evidence that they yield any results. Does anyone think federal job training works? Or the Jobs Corps? Or for that matter, Pentagon procurement?

Mr Trump said the restless Mr. Musk volunteered for the job, and he does seem well-suited for it. His Space X has demonstrated how a private business can do better than NASA in sending rockets into space. He’s seen the waste and inefficiency of government first-hand, and he could no doubt call on many people from the private economy to help.

The shame is that the U.S. hasn’t taken a detailed look at the routine follies of government in decades. It keeps growing, and rolling along, regardless of results.

As Ronald Reagan used to quip, the closest thing to eternal life is a government program. An old Washington joke told of the Agriculture Department worker who was asked why he was so unhappy. Answer: “My farmer died.” The point is still relevant.

The last serious look at government was the Grace Commission established by Reagan in the 1980s. The commission, led by J. Peter Grace of W.R. Grace & Co., made 2,478 recommendations to save $424 billion over three year in 1984 dollars and $115 billion immediately by the Administration without Congress. Not everything was implemented, but much of it was as the effort grabbled public attention.

Bill Clinton in his New Democrat phase tried something similar by appointing then Vice President Al Gore on a mission to “reinvent government.” It did some good, such as proposing a reform of federal air traffic control. But the Clinton Administration abandoned the effort amid union opposition and Mr. Gore’s desire to appeal to his party’s left as he sought the presidential nomination in 2000.

A federal Leviathan that now commands nearly 25% of the U.S. economy and extends its reach into every corner of American life is in desperate need of reform. The pro-Democratic press will scoff. And even some conservatives will claim nothing can be done without reforming Social Security and Medicare.

But as we wait for the fiscal crisis that may be required to galvanise entitlement reform, there is plenty that could be done to cut spending and reduce government waste. Democrats should welcome the effort as much as Republicans. Even trying could help increase public trust in government, which is reaching historic lows — 22% this year in the Pew Research Center’s moving average.

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Mr Musk has come up with a good idea here, and credit to Mr. Trump for seeing its substantive merit and political potential.