It’s clear – 20/20 crystal clear. Elon Musk was the right selection to bring accountability to the federal government.
Elon, a newly minted “special government employee” and the man who famously turned his jet around on Christmas Eve to cut the cord of an unneeded Twitter (now X) data center, has wasted little time getting to work in President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He’s quickly identifying and reeling in fiscal abuses of the federal government, and it has brought pleasurable displays of shock and awe that conservatives have longed to see. It confirms what we already knew – the federal government has been funding leftist, anti-American causes for decades.
When Elon and Vivek laid out their strategy for DOGE in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (Vivek has since left DOGE to run for governor of Ohio) to defund entities such as Planned Parenthood, they included three primary tools: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings. They wrote that they would concentrate on driving reform through executive orders grounded in existing legislation, the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s repeal of the “Chevron Doctrine,” which shifted rule interpretation and enforcement power away from federal agencies and back to the courts and Congress. The ACLJ filed a critical amicus brief at the Supreme Court, helping overturn this unconstitutional, court-made doctrine. This repeal was the window DOGE needed.
The op-ed also broached the idea of impoundment: a compelling argument that the president should have the constitutional authority to spend less than the amount authorized by Congress. Presidential underspending was common in the founding era, reinforcing this authority. There will be a significant legal debate over this issue, likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Whether the Supreme Court agrees with the constitutionality of impoundment or not, Elon and the administration are confident that DOGE can help curb federal overspending by targeting the $500 billion or more in annual expenditures that are either unauthorized or being used in ways Congress never intended. And because the Chevron Doctrine was repealed, this decision will fall to the courts and Congress – not radical, unaccountable bureaucrats.
Sure enough, on Day One of his term, President Trump followed through with establishing DOGE via an executive order (EO). The order establishes a temporary organization to focus on the president’s DOGE agenda for the next 18 months. It requires each federal agency to set up a DOGE team to identify and root out wasteful bureaucratic spending and regulations that crush our liberty. In addition to the establishment of DOGE, several other EOs were signed to target disbursements of financial assistance for Left-leaning programs. Vitally important to us was the executive order relating to the Hyde Amendment – to stop public funding of abortions.
Of course, the Left has jumped on these attempts to rein in spending on pet causes. Two dozen far-Left state attorneys general have brought lawsuits, the second of which is by the National Council of Nonprofits and the American Public Health Association. In both cases, judges issued temporary restraining orders against the executive orders. The ACLJ will file an amicus brief defending the president's authority to redirect funding and to enforce the Hyde Amendment. Keep up with those developments at ACLJ.org.
After the court actions, the administration once again captured headlines when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt broke the news that DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had found $50 million taxpayer dollars tagged by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to “fund condoms in Gaza.” Leavitt added, “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.” Yes, indeed. Even in America, where we have grown accustomed to government-spending malfeasance, one could hear a collective gasp coast to coast as we tried to compute the absurdity of such an expenditure.
Though details on the condoms for Gaza are light, a 2023 Daily Caller article highlighted that the Biden administration had approved taxpayer spending for over 65 million condoms sent to foreign countries in fiscal year 2022 as part of a “family planning” program, which the agency also promoted in other documents as a climate change solution. USAID shipped “65.5 million condoms, 9.8 million injectable birth control products and 334,000 IUDs abroad in fiscal year 2022.” At this point, nearly anything is believable.
And now, just three weeks into President Trump’s term, we have been treated to the realization that our government – via USAID – is essentially a Leftist slush fund that never saw a radical they wouldn’t fund with our tax dollars. Elon has seen enough, declaring, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”
Obviously, this is far from just a USAID issue – it’s widespread and deep across every agency. From vacant buildings with active leases to meals for terrorists, here are some of the shock and awe DOGE has exposed and cut:
- $784 million in taxpayer dollars for a new U.S. embassy in South Sudan
- $420 million in taxpayer dollars to current and impending Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) contracts and leases
- 17 DEI websites by the U.S General Services Administration
- $45 million to DEI scholarships in Burma
- $520 million for Environmental, Social, and Governance investments in Africa
- $500 million for funding the radical, pro-abortion World Health Organization
- Through January 29, 85 DEI-related contracts totaling $1 billion from over 25 federal agencies have been cut
It’s truly breathtaking, and we’re just getting started.
At the ACLJ, an organization dedicated to fighting for pro-life causes, we are honing in to support DOGE’s mission of enforcing the Hyde Amendment and defunding Planned Parenthood in the courts.
As mentioned, President Trump’s EOs freezing wasteful and unlawful government funding, potentially including the EO enforcing the Hyde Amendment, are currently caught up in a temporary restraining order, and we will fight it out in court. The Hyde Amendment is a foundational component in making sure taxpayer money does not fund the elective killing of the unborn.
As President Trump’s EO outlined:
"For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent Federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice. However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs."
And, of course, a discussion about taxpayer funding for abortion can’t be had without looking into the hundreds of millions of dollars the Planned Parenthood universe receives in public funding. The abortion giant’s funding is on the DOGE chopping block, and it is a goal the ACLJ has long fought for. As the DOGE WSJ op-ed notes:
"DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood."
The DOGE strategy of lightning-quick strikes that opens the books of our radical Left bureaucracy is brilliant. The Left is spinning. The ACLJ will support this mission in any way possible – all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Why? Because we work tirelessly to defend the constitutional rights of each U.S. citizen. Our federal government has abused the trust placed in it by taxpayers. Decisions regarding the interpretation of our laws and spending are to be made by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches as outlined in the Constitution, just as our founders intended – not by the unelected entrenched Leftist bureaucrats DOGE has exposed. In the words of Elon, “Time for it to die.”
Join us in battle by adding your name to our petition: Defend DOGE Gutting the Far-Left Bureaucratic State.