DOGE Is Only Doing What Congress Was Supposed To Do All Along

We are now deluged on a daily basis with headlines trumpeting the latest outrageous government expenditure documented by Elon Musk’s DOGE team of auditors, wiz kids, and sleuths

It is likely this all began during World War II when the demands of a world wide war prompted the wartime congresses to give up many of their oversight duties in order to expedite winning the war. In fact, they were driven to it. In January, 1942, FDR sent a one-year budget to congress that totaled a stunning $56 billion.

FDR To Congress: Act Or I’ll Take Over

For context, the first time the annual budget of the US topped $1 billion had been in 1917 after entering the Great War. Congress went to work going over it. But this was 1942, and with the threat of Japanese invasion in Hawaii and even California, the budget process was so frustrating to FDR that he publicly threatened to take on the powers of a dictator and take over the functions of the congress if they didn’t approve what he wanted immediately. The headline read like this:

FDR To Congress: Act Or I’ll Take Over

It was one of the greatest national emergencies in American history, and FDR was not willing to wait for the democratic process to play out. Within a few days, congress caved, giving FDR vast emergency powers and handing over the money, borrowing much of it. In each year of the war the spending soared ever higher, totaling $400 billion or more by the time it ended. Congress was bulldozed out of the way in each of those budget years, afraid to be seen as opposing the war effort. The wartime budgets initiated a pattern which was to be duplicated for decades afterward.

With the end of the war came the Cold War close on its heels. After defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, there appeared an even more menacing foe, the communist Soviet Union, but the new enemy, a former friend, had nuclear weapons, too. Secrecy became the byword in every government agency and in every congressional budget.

Cold War, and the unrestricted growth of government

Entire agencies were created then given secret budgets, off limits to taxpayers who paid for them. There were closed-door hearings for the secret agency budgets, but no scrutiny was possible by ordinary citizens. Only insiders and politicians and their staffs were privy to this information. Oversight became specialized and more restricted.

The 1960s and 1970s saw more and more agencies added to the executive branch of the federal government, paid for by congress, of course. Because the power of congress consists of the money it spends, the budget grew and grew. By 1980 there was already too much money being spent to be tracked even by 535 members of congress and their staffs. By the 2000s the federal budget had become even more severely bloated.

A major obstacle to the unrestricted growth of government was the constitutional requirement that congress pass an annual budget. Here is the explanation from The Constitution Center (constitutioncenter.org) :

Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 has a second provision, which complements the requirement of appropriations: “and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” Like the appropriations requirement, this requirement states not a power but a legislative duty that has been interpreted to require an annual budget. Justice Story explained the connection between the two requirements as well as anyone has, in Commentaries on the Constitution in 1840:

The power to control and direct the appropriations constitutes a most useful and salutary check upon profusion and extravagance, as well as upon corrupt influence and public speculation. . . . [A]nd to make their responsibility complete and perfect, a regular account of the receipts and expenditures is required to be published, that the people may know, what money is expended, for what purposes, and by what authority.

Obama and the Continuing Resolutions

When the Obama administration took over in Washington in 2009 there was a renewed effort to grow government. With the executive and legislative branches at an impasse over increased government spending in that year, there began the practice of regularly using continuing resolutions, or CRs, to fund the government for a period of time, avoiding the requirement to pass an annual budget via the usual process in the legislative branch. When one CR expired, another one would be passed to keep the government operating. The CRs were catch-all bills that included government spending for every imaginable project, necessary or just desirable to some. Ever since the budget year of 2009, the federal government has been funded by a series of CRs. There has been no regular procedure budget for sixteen years!

It was during the monumental debate over Obamacare in 2010 when Nancy Pelosi famously said “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

I was just stunned when I heard that. The arrogance was so outrageous that people everywhere gasped at the idea that the little people out in the hinterland who would have to pay for socialized medicine would not be allowed to know what was in the bill before it passed. The same approach soon applied to the CRs. They began to be called “omnibus” bills because they covered everything including the kitchen sink. They were inevitably kept secret until there was no time to read them before the vote. Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate revelled in this charade, preventing the other party from actually looking at what the money was being spent for. Republican objections were dismissed, and the ardor of Republicans for budget honesty seemed to fade, too. Even with a couple of days for reading, bills of 2,000 or 3,000 pages with thousands of line items could not be scrutinized properly. 

Nancy Pelosi: “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"

Once the CRs had passed and the dreaded shutdowns had been avoided, holidays and breaks that followed took the heat off what had just been done. When congress met again there were other distractions. Meanwhile, mind-boggling quantities of money flowed out to all those offices and agencies who would spend it. It was a giant money pit with little or no accountability. This went on for years. Then with COVID the urgency and secrecy went completely out of control. CRs of $2 trillion and more were passed. No one had a clue what was in them, but the spenders were happy, and the dark bloat grew and grew.

Those who pushed another CR and cried that reform was not worth shutting down the federal government for even an hour--Blame them--Blame them all from both sides of the House

All during those years it was the job of our representatives and senators to account for every tax dollar that was spent and every dollar of debt accrued. With scare tactics about shutting down the government and lots of pressure from big-spending Progressives and socialists in congress, this job fell by the wayside. There was so much money available from tax revenues and much more from debt that Washington, DC became a gusher of cash for every pet project and every crazy scheme. Even that went on and on for years.

Today the debt stands over $36 trillion. Even when using the visual of pallets of $100 bills, the figure is too large to even comprehend. Until four weeks ago, the powers that be in Washington were just fine with this scenario of unlimited spending on dark projects in secrecy and ruinous debt to finance it. They knew it was all too cleverly hidden and entrenched to ever be even partly uncovered. They could just scream about helping the poor and say racism and the opposition would fade just like it always had.

So DOGE is only doing what many congresses were supposed to be doing over the past eighty years

Then January 20, 2025 came along. Within a few days we could tell things were being done differently, but most of us still had no idea what was about to happen. The big reveal was when Elon Musk’s wiz kids arrived at the Treasury Department and the USAID offices in the wee hours of the morning. Before the regular employees arrived, the DOGE gang had discovered and documented the labyrinth of back channels and dark caves of the federal gusher. 

Those arriving for another day of bureaucratic drudgery while the presses printed more millions of checks were turned away from the door. Upper level managers were given notice and often escorted out of the buildings by US Marshals. A collective gasp went out across the Potomac swamp. 

Protests were met by more firings and even more rapid DOGE raids on the stunned bureaucrats. Lists of outrageous payments began to emerge, becoming a tidal wave of revelations that have swept all opposition before it. These revelations continue on a daily basis, and have only begun. It’s bloody marvelous, glorious even. 

Every day the spirits of the taxpayers soar to greater heights. Finally we are going to see something done about the outrageous fiscal disaster so carefully crafted over the decades. We’re watching it unfold every day, and the smiles of those who have been paying for it grow ever wider.

So DOGE is only doing what many congresses were supposed to be doing over the past eighty years. They were supposed to prevent this disaster from ever starting. There were many squandered opportunities to stop it over the years, but just look back to those who pushed another CR and who cried that reform was not worth shutting down the federal government for even an hour. Blame them. Blame all of them from both sides of the congressional aisles. Cheer on the heroes who have finally begun to bring accountability to the gruesome fiscal monster lying silently in the great swamp.

Today is the day of St. George and Beowulf and Henry V and Grant and Patton, bearing the sword of the Republic against those loathsome creatures who would weaken and finally kill it.

What days these are, and how blessed we are to live to see them. Next!

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