On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) even further. While DOGE has been making headlines for looking into the IRS and the Department of Education, under Trump's order DOGE will have even more power over the federal government as a whole.
As the executive order makes clear from the start, with its very title, the goal in mind is "cost efficiency," with the executive order being titled "Implementing the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency' Cost Efficiency Initiative." As Ward Clark at our sister site of RedState put it, "best of all, [it] makes the DOGE official."
🚨 NEW: President Trump just signed an executive order to further reign in government waste and officially implement @DOGE's cost efficiency initiative.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 26, 2025
Here is the text of the order:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United…
🚨 #BREAKING: President Trump has just signed an executive order launching DOGE’s cost efficiency initiative, giving DOGE a much bigger mandate.
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 26, 2025
All agencies will be required to:
➡️ Immediately review all grants and contracts
➡️ Justify and publicly disclose employee expenses… pic.twitter.com/4eAp3xxB2b
The order makes clear from the start and throughout that DOGE is to work with "Each Agency Head," including when it comes to a section on "Cutting Costs to Save Taxpayers Money." That section goes on to mention how "
The order makes clear from the start and throughout that DOGE is to work with "Each Agency Head," including when it comes to a section on "Cutting Costs to Save Taxpayers Money." That section goes on to mention how DOGE and the agency head will "build a centralized technological system within the agency to seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment."
There's plenty of other parts of the order worth highlighting, including how DOGE and agency heads will not just review covered contracts and grants, but, "where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration." They must complete the review within 30 days.
When it comes to a "Non-Essential Travel Justification," DOGE and agencies must record approval for federally funded trips, including to conferences, if workers want to even think about going on the taxpayer's dime. "Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system," the order mentions. Further, we have a right to know what such travel entails. "Such justifications shall be posted publicly unless prohibited by law or unless the Agency Head grants an exemption from this requirement," it later reads.
Agency employees must also operate as if they're under a "credit card freeze" for 30 days, "except for any credit cards held by employees engaged in, or charges related to employees utilizing such credit cards for, disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services as determined by the Agency Head, and subject to such additional individualized or categorical exceptions as the Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, deems appropriate."
No doubt, Democrats will throw even more tantrums than the ones they've been throwing after Trump dares to use his administration to get to the bottom of government waste and fraud.
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