The Issue With DOGE

Although I am far from a fan of G.K. Chesterton — the Catholic British writer from the early 20th century — one concept of his has come to mind many times as of late. The notion, known as “Chesterton’s fence,” essentially says that you should not get rid of something until you know why it was created in the first place.

As Chesterton himself once explained it:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

I mention this because Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to run a new department called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which exists primarily to see where the federal government can reduce waste within the budget. Although it is far from a terrible idea, most of what it has done, best as I can tell, is post about specific things money has been spent on without any real context.