Illinois Introduces Its Own D.O.G.E. Plan. Would You Trust It?

As Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E. team digs into federal agencies and departments in Washington D.C. to root out fraud waste and abuse, it has state legislators across the country considering applying it to individual state agencies and departments.

Last week Missouri started the conversation in Jefferson City. Now, Rockford Illinois representative John Cabello is introducing House Bill 1266 in Springfield which would create an Illinois Department of Government Efficiency.

Some have pointed out that creating a new department in state government would spend money that would need allocating in every budget. There is already an Auditor General in Springfield for the state of Illinois. Wouldn’t this be the type of redundancy that a D.O.G.E. is supposed to highlight and remove?

If the position is the Auditor General isn’t doing the job, there’s a legislative way to go about fixing that, and if there’s not, that would be a place to start if you’re wanting to be a good steward of the people’s money.

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The point of the federal Department of Government Efficiency is to come in independent of the agencies, its’ internal ways, norms and biases. It’s the “fresh eyes” look at how the omelet is made. Without leverage from a political party, but to represent the people paying for everything.

Should Illinois or Missouri, or any state want to implement a D.O.G.E. type program to make state government leaner, that’s wonderful. You should take notes on how Elon Musk is going about approaching it in D.C.  Conduct a search in state to find a group who could go line by line through state government agencies and departments. Whomever that is ultimately will make everyone within government uncomfortable and that’s not a bad thing.

The taxpaying voters don’t trust that their money is being managed competently. Elected members of government picking up on that perspective is good. Understanding that employing government to fix the very government that it is beholden to isn’t sufficient for the taxpayers.

For the love of Adam Andrzejewski open the books, be transparent and forthcoming. This would be revolutionary in Illinois. Were Andrzejewski still with us, he would be the right person to do this.