I spent 20 years in Congress fighting to create conditions that enabled America’s workers, builders, and doers to thrive and prosper. I tried to make life easier for innovators and entrepreneurs, speed economic growth, and secure American dynamism and dominance. Through numerous spending battles and debt ceiling fights, I had a front-row seat to Washington, D.C.’s spending addiction and its dysfunctional bureaucracy.
As someone who recently left government for the private sector, I have great respect for those in the business world who have temporarily stepped the other way — putting careers on pause to lend their talents to streamlining our bloated government.
The Trump administration’s work to cut waste and reform government is hugely popular with the public. A supermajority wants a full audit of federal expenditures and supports a dedicated Department of Government Efficiency. Aided by an injection of ideas and talent from our nation’s world-leading tech sector, DOGE has already identified billions in potential savings. Only in Washington, D.C., and its wealthy suburbs could a little sunlight and accountability provoke this much panic and outrage.
Americans know we need this. Our country is $36 trillion in debt. That’s more than 120% of our GDP. Our interest payments consume over $1 trillion yearly, more than our entire military budget. This trajectory is not sustainable for any nation, let alone a preeminent superpower that wants to remain one.
Given the scope of this crisis, striving for fiscal sanity shouldn’t be partisan. It didn’t used to be. Former President Bill Clinton launched an initiative to eliminate waste and find inefficiencies. It shrunk the federal workforce by hundreds of thousands, including through voluntary buyouts, and sought to track worker performance better. Sound familiar? Clinton talked about toll-free tip lines where citizens could suggest cuts — not unlike ElonMusk’s crowdsourcing ideas from X. A key legislative accomplishment former President Barack Obama talked up on the 2008 campaign trail was his bipartisan work with the late Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to create an online portal they dubbed “Google for government.”
Americans across the political spectrum appreciate DOGE rooting out millions of dollars of wasteful spending. Elected officials on both sides of the aisle should express appreciation for the outside experts assisting in this work. Unfortunately, many of the same voices who discuss the nobility of civil service as a way to criticize President Donald Trump’s reforms have been willing to lob unfair attacks at those outside the government who have answered their country’s call.
Private-sector leaders advising government is nothing new. Under Obama, the technology leader Eric Schmidt, then executive chairman of Alphabet, led the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Obama also tapped Schmidt and Craig Mundie, then Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, for his President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt to lead another advisory board on jobs and competitiveness.
America prizes energy, ideas, and merit. We should be a country that appreciates those who step up to serve their country, not one that attacks them. We should cheer, not jeer, seasoned executives who come forward to help lead the charge.
The country is fortunate to have veteran tech investor David Sacks advising the White House on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. We are lucky to have former Hewlett-Packard Vice President Scott Kupor, with a venture capitalist background, nominated to lead the Office of Personnel Management. We should be grateful that a leader such as Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause, a seasoned executive with decades of expertise at the high-stakes intersection of software and finance, is helping lead transparency and modernization at the Treasury Department.
THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A BURNING TESLA
Our government needs all the energy, accountability, and fresh thinking it can handle. Believe me — however stuck in its ways you think the federal bureaucracy is, it’s worse. Every day, millions of Americans keep track of what they spend, trim their budgets, and plan around the reality that no job is guaranteed. If these are the rules for taxpayers, the bureaucracy that vacuums up their hard-earned dollars can play by them, too.
Former President Franklin Roosevelt famously looked to his own “brain trust” of outside advisers for fresh perspectives. As FDR once remarked, “No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.” Our nation should celebrate anyone willing to pitch in. I can think of 36 trillion good reasons why.
Patrick McHenry is a former member of Congress from North Carolina who served as the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.