President-elect Donald Trump has tasked billionaire Elon Musk and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new Department of Government Efficiency that Trump says would help slim down the federal bureaucracy. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement this week.
While not actually a department of the federal government (only Congress has the power to create departments), the effort has historical precedent. It is reminiscent of the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, popularly known as the Grace Commission, created by former President Ronald Reagan, which was similarly tasked to eliminate government waste and inefficiency.
