Slate:  I Have a Suggestion for What the DOGE Guys Could Actually Do to Cut Government Spending, by Adam Chodorow (Arizona State; Google Scholar):

One of the first things Donald Trump did after winning the election was to appoint Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose main goal is to reduce government spending. Technically, this commission exists outside of government and has no power to enact any cuts. Nonetheless, members of Congress have created a DOGE caucus and intend to create a formal subcommittee, suggesting that DOGE’s ideas will get meaningful consideration. Musk initially suggested that he would cut $2 trillion from the budget. More recently, he and Ramaswamy indicated they would start with a more modest $500 billion.

If Musk and Ramaswamy are serious about cutting government spending, they should start with the tax code. This sounds counterintuitive—taxes are where we raise money, not spend it—but in fact, we spend approximately $1.7 trillion each year through the tax code.

This spending—disguised as deductions, exemptions, and tax credits—tends to favor the wealthy in ways that would likely never be approved if proposed as direct subsidies, obscures the government’s size and impact, and impedes our ability to tackle government spending.  Let me explain. …

While this spending is disguised, it is not fully hidden. The government actually publishes not one, but two tax expenditure budgets, one by the Treasury Department and the other by the Joint Committee on Taxation, listing all of the spending found in the tax code. …

Trump’s proposed Treasury secretary has made addressing the deficit a priority. Musk and Ramaswamy have indicated that they want to go after government spending. If they are serious, and not simply interested in cutting headcount, hamstringing agencies that issue those pesky regulations, and cutting programs that predominantly help the poor—such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP—they could do a lot worse than starting with the tax code. And they have a fabulous opportunity, given that Congress is already gearing up to pass a tax bill to address the expiring Trump tax cuts, and needs to find a way to pay for it. Who knows, they might even attract some Democratic votes. But something tells me Musk and Ramaswamy are only interested in cutting certain types of government spending—and this won’t be it.

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