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In their roles as co-leaders of the forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have vowed to "delete" government agencies, much like a line of code.
However, their goal of cutting out entire departments faces significant bureaucratic, congressional, and political headwinds, making it a difficult task.
The DOGE will likely function as an outside advisory group, which could make recommendations about how to shrink federal spending but not enact any changes itself under current law.
"It would have no formal powers to raise or lower the spending on a department, no formal powers to shrink or abolish any existing government agency," Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, told Business Insider.
Experts previously told BI that the DOGE's stated goal of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget is unrealistic, and it seems the hope to eliminate agencies whole cloth is similarly far-fetched.
Ramaswamy during a Sunday appearance on Fox News said he expects "certain agencies to be deleted outright," but did not specify which particular departments he'd like to eliminate.
"We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated," he said.
When running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Ramaswamy flirted with cutting the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco, among others.
President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, has expressed interest in doing away with the Department of Education.
But such efforts would be extremely difficult to achieve politically, and it would also present a new dilemma: What agency would take on the roles of another if it were to be axed?
"The obvious question becomes, if the IRS were abolished, does that mean that they're abolishing the income tax?" Mordecai Lee, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told BI. "Or does it mean that a different federal agency will assume the responsibilities of collecting income taxes?"
He added, "If it's the latter, then you're probably just sort of shuffling boxes in an organization chart."
Presidents aren't able to eliminate agencies or Cabinet departments on their own — meaning Trump couldn't independently turn Musk and Ramaswamy's advice into reality. Previous presidents have tried and failed to get rid of departments, largely because they haven't had Congress' support.
"Even smaller, lesser known agencies are almost inevitably — they exist because of an act of law. So getting rid of them means passing a law," Kosar said. Presidents can get rid of administrative units in an agency that aren't enshrined in legislation, he said, but not much else.
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"The president can't 'delete' departments — or even almost all of government's subunits. That would require Congress to act, and even a Republican-controlled Congress is going to be reluctant to take such a large wrecking ball to government's structure," Donald Kettl, former dean of the school of public policy at the University of Maryland, told BI.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institute who led efforts to reform the federal government under former President Bill Clinton, said that there's little appetite among lawmakers to cut out entire agencies, and that doing so would "blow up in their faces."
"This is one of those areas where everybody likes it in the macro and the minute you discuss cutting down a department, people say, 'Wait a minute? Who is gonna do this? Who is gonna do that?," she told BI. The complicated process of firing federal employees is another roadblock, she said.
The DOGE could try to reorganize the government by moving programs from one agency to another, and deleting a bureaucratic body in the process. For instance, both Kosar and Kamarck said the DOGE could recommend moving student loans from the Department of Education to another governmental body, and then deleting the Department of Education.
"You could abolish an agency, but if you're not abolishing the programs and the governmental authority that goes with it, you're not really downsizing the government in a significant way," Kosar said.
Kettl said that any effort to delete the functions of a department is "an even bigger battle" than trying to delete a department itself.
The political calculus is complicated, the experts said. Republicans risk angering constituents if they agree to slash agencies that administer popular programs, but also risk failing to help Trump follow through on a splashy campaign promise.
Lee said that the current size of the US government is "a reflection of the powers that be."
"Farmers like having a Department of Agriculture," he said. "Let's say this commission were to recommend abolishing the USDA. Farmers would be against it, and senators from farm states would be against it."
Conservative activists for decades have sought to enact large-scale cuts to myriad government agencies, and they largely see Trump's second term as a prime opportunity to push GOP lawmakers on stances they've long advocated for.
"I would be surprised if they didn't manage to nix at least one agency. Whether it's an agency most Americans have ever heard of is a question," Kosar said. "There are hundreds of these things. Having made it a big promise, there's a lot of political pressure that comes with it, not to fail. Especially because you have single party control of Congress and the presidency, the pressure is all the higher."
