Cnn
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Republican governors and legislators in more than a dozen states draw from the brand of Elon Musk, borrowing from its Approach to the Ministry of Government efficiency – And in many cases, its name – to draw attention to their own offers to reduce expenses.
State efforts have been slower to start and smaller – a reality that follows years of budgetary austerity in states where Republicans have long been in power and where budgets are already required to be balanced. In most cases, governors and legislators have simply added new names or have launched new committees to highlight the discounts for which they have spent years claiming credit.
Unlike Federal DogeMany of these state efforts are working groups led by conservative business leaders appointed and authorized solely to issue recommendations.
“There is a very real possibility that all recommendations come from their DOGE state groups will really be put into practice by legislatures. But they cannot do it by themselves, “said Whitney Tucker, director of state fiscal policy for the center of the left on the budget and political priorities.
Kindergarten in the 12th year, most of the state budgets are the largest areas of spending on state budgets – in particular programs like Medicaid, where costs are shared with the federal government and states are faced with legal restrictions on the changes they can bring to admissibility and coverage. The other main budget engines include transport, prisons and pensions.
Unlike the federal government, which can operate in a deficit, states are already required to balance their budgets – which means that, in particular in state houses where the Republicans control all the levers of the government, the party has already implemented many of its tax priorities. Other steep cuts would quickly be felt in classrooms, by motorists and more.
However, most initiatives in the DOGE state aim to rely on the elements of the Federal Doge.
In Florida and Iowa, it is Tech: GOP governors say that they will use artificial intelligence to further identify the means to reduce the governments of the states that their party has long controlled.
In Oklahoma, he abandoned the contracts. The government’s effectiveness division of Governor Kevin Stitt has launched a website where he has regular updates, such as hundreds of thousands of dollars per month saved by eliminating certain mobile phones and fixed lines, and $ 200,000 saved per year by dismissing entrepreneurs who have cut the reasons for the state capitol and replacing them with automated bronchi.
And in Wisconsin – where power is divided between the legislature controlled by the Republican and a Democratic Governor – GOP legislators focus on work issues such as diversity initiatives and distance work in states and local governments.
A big difference between federal and state efforts is speed. Musk’s Doge quickly moved to considerably reduce spending and redo the federal government – a chaotic campaign that has been riddled with inaccurate demands, has seen reductions quickly returned and was confronted with a myriad of legal challenges.
The efforts of state DOGE, however, are much slower departures. In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds created the Doge Task Force on February 10, the initial meeting of this working group should take place 60 days later. In New Hampshire, Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte created a government efficiency committee with his first decree; This committee has so far met twice. In Georgia, Texas and South Carolina, proposals aimed at creating Doge style efforts are still making their way thanks to the legislatures led by the GOP.
Kansas and Missouri have created online portals with the Doge brand so that residents submit ideas and comments on government ineffectures, but it is not clear that these portals have still led to a concrete action.
The slow beginnings in households across the country come in the middle of the polls that reflect concern among the Americans about DOGE and the Trump administration expenses. With an uncertain economic perspective that could quickly change the political landscape, it is too early to predict what will happen from state efforts.
Their recommendations could end up “being just a list of conservative ideas that they already wanted to set up in the United States,” said Tucker.
If the voters have accelerated on Musk and the Federal Doge, Tucker said that it is possible that “many of these state Doge groups are quietly fading in the governments of states evaluating what is effective through their normal processes”.
Pressing the DOGE brand
Republican governors were impatient to draw on the Doge brand – but clearly wanted them to try to reduce spending for years.
“I like to say that we were doing before Doge was one thing,” said the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, in January when she launched an Iowa Doge committee made up of business leaders who will subject a report with recommendations in the six months.
“We were Doges in Oklahoma before it was cool,” said Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma, on social networks.
“I say that we were Doge before Doge was cool,” said Florida Governor Ron Desantis at a new February conference by launching his own Doge at the level of the state.
DESANTIS said that DOGE DE Florida – in place for a year – would bring a new wrinkle to its cost reduction efforts using artificial intelligence.
He said the working group abolish 70 councils and state commissions, would audit local governments and examine spending, staff and the state universities program.
“This is the Doge-Ile of our state university system, and I think it will be good for taxpayers, and it will ultimately be good for students,” said Desantis.
Other ambitious republicans are also trying to bond in Doge.
The lieutenant of Georgia, Governor Burt Jones, who is widely considered as a candidate for the post of probable governor in 2026, underlined the adoption by the State Senate of a bill which would oblige State agencies to examine all their rules every four years and to assess the economic impact of these regulations with a simple line of subject: “Georgia does.”
Last week, the Texas Senate approved a measure that would establish a state office similar to the federal doge led by muscles.
“The creation by President Trump of the` `Department of Effectiveness of the Government” inspired me to find the way Texas can save money from taxpayers and businesses by reducing heavy regulations, “said Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick in a press release.
The Republicans of the Wisconsin Assembly launched a government committee on operations, responsibility and transparency – or “goat committee”, entering a name of musk for their efforts. The first hearing of the panel was focused on the remote employment policies of state agencies.
His vice-president of the GOP, meanwhile, demanded the details of cities and counties on politicians, positions, subsidies and even more-and when the Democrats have complained that he exceeded that the vice-president, the Shae representative, wrote on social networks: “Just because you do not like it and whining on this subject, that does not mean that I cannot do it.”
“They copy and stick the substance of a meme of efficiency and budgetary responsibility,” said representative Mike Bare, the best democrat of the committee. “It seems to me just like in a blatant way contrary to our” Schoolhouse Rock “!” Understand the functioning of the government. »»
The Republicans, however, described an effort limited by the reality of a separate government between a GOP legislature and the Democratic Governor Tony Evers.
Representative Amanda Nedweski, who chairs the goat’s committee of the Wisconsin Assembly, said that the Committee acted in the surveillance role of the Legislative Assembly. “We do not have the power to bulldozer our way through state agencies that exercise hammers or scalpels,” she told CNN.
Nedweski, criticizing the state’s second mandate governor, said the committee “was doing the difficult duties and the heaviness that state agencies should do themselves.”
She said the Committee can identify the means to reduce regulations, eliminate redundancy and discount expenditure. But it has recognized its limits in a divided government, claiming that Evers “must obtain an index or withdraw for a republican governor if a real change will occur in Wisconsin.”