It is called the Department of Government Efficiency and it doesn’t even exist yet. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray discusses the hope of D.O.G.E. and why it will require some very heavy lifting to see real change.
Rob Artigo: A lot of changes have come up in the last month or so, and we’re going to have a new president and we’ve got a lot of things going on. So one of the things I wanted to look at based on all this experience you’ve had in the corporate world, and talk a little bit about this organization called DOGE, which is the Department of Governmental Efficiency, which Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be taking over that, or I guess they’re in the early stages right now of making sure that they’ve got that organizational structure in place. But the idea is to cut the deficit and also reduce government waste in the process. And the numbers they’re talking about is one and a half, $2 trillion is I’ve what I’ve heard. They’d like to try to do it in two years. Is this a pipe dream or is this something you think can happen?
Ray Zinn: Well, sure it can happen. So let’s talk about that a little bit. I always thought, and I’ve lived a long time here on Earth, and I always thought we had that department already. In other words, I thought that we were always trying to reduce government spending. And I know there are pork barrel projects all the time that come up. And they’re there to make that congressman or senator look good to his community, to those that he serves. Because he’s getting these little perks for his area. And it looks like that they’re working for their community as opposed just to serving on committees in the Congress or whatever. So I think it’s gotten out of hand in the sense of the word that that government continues to bloom, get larger and larger and larger. And unfortunately it has become very, very expensive. We have to decide how much government do we really need?
I live in Helena, Montana, and I think half the people in Helena work for the state of Montana. And so they are jobs and there people are being employed by the government. And so the debate is how much good does the government really serve in the large scheme of things. So whether or not you’re a Republican or Democrat, you have a different view of government spending. Technically, I guess, or policy-wise, Democrats are for a larger government and the Republicans are for smaller government, given that the Republicans are now in control of all three branches or two branches, Congress and the executive branch, or legislative and executive, then they’re going to do what they promised on the campaign, which is they’re going to reduce government spending. And that’s what Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have been chartered to do.
Rob Artigo: So you mentioned Elon and Vivek. What do you think about these two guys who have a track record of business success like yourself? What do you think of these guys being the ones tapped to do it?
Ray Zinn: Let me back up. First, I want to talk about something else for just a minute before I jump onto that. When I ran Micrel, my semiconductor company for 37 years. And there were times when we had to do cutbacks, we had to do shortened work weeks or we had to do reduce salaries or layoffs. That was never pleasant. It was never, never pleasant. Because the people that were either had a salary cutback or laid off, they weren’t happy about that because now they had to go find a job and that increases unemployment. The government is supposed to be balanced. In other words, you’re supposed to not spend more money than you take in. And so right now we’re spending more money than we’re taking in. There has to be some control or you go out of business. I think that the concept of cutbacks or reducing spending is necessary because we spend it to an excess.
In the last four years or maybe the last eight years, we’ve spent far more money than we were taking in. If we want to have reduced taxes, that’s less revenue for the government. And so there’s got to be give and take. There’s got to be some reduction in the spending unless you’re going to increase your revenues, which is through taxation or other means, tariffs or whatever, you got to find some way to increase your bottom line as you would. If you’re going to spend more, you got to take in more.
So I think we’re at the point where there is too much spending and not enough revenue. Now Democrats, again, are more for increasing taxes. They say tax the rich, they’re not paying their fair share. They always said that. I can remember since I can read and write that the government has always said, or the people, some of the government anyway, says that “We’re not taxing you enough.” In other words, “You’re not paying your fair share.” And so that’s always been the battle that one side who wants to increase spending always says, “We’re not taxing you rich guys enough.” With that being said, we can talk about Vivek and Elon.
Rob Artigo: These guys seem like they’re pretty good choices, but what’s your take?
Ray Zinn: Well, both of them are from industry and so they’re obviously familiar like I am. I’m from industry and have lots of experience in running companies, and when you run a company, you learn to run a company. And if it’s a profitable organization as opposed to a non-profit, you’re trying to increase your profitability. And to do that, you have to either increase revenue or reduce spending. Now right now, they’re looking at, again, reducing spending because they’re talking about having tax cut, no taxes on tips, no taxes on social security, no taxes on overtime, and that’s just reduced revenue. So if you’re going to reduce your revenue, you have to reduce the spending commensurate with that.
If you’re working for the government, you’re not going to be happy to lose your job. If you’re one of the ones that’s going to have your job eliminated. Elon and Vivek mean they’re choices. I mean, are they the best choice? Don’t know. They’re good choices, but we will find out. We know that both of them want to be involved in the Trump administration and they get their name known or they want to accomplish something good. I’m sure that they’ve convinced themselves that they’re going to do something good. And we’ll see. We’ll see what kind of good they do. Some of the pork barrel ones that have been promoted as potential ones to reduce are a bit silly.
The monies they’re given out are really not necessary and should be eliminated. Now, they’re not huge amounts of money. They’re not like billions or trillions, but they’re hundreds of millions in many cases. And they all add up. So getting rid of the pork barrel ones are going to be very, very important. If it’s in your territory. If you’re a congressman or a senator and it’s in your territory, you’re not going to be happy about that because that’s revenue that people that support you are not going to get. In most cases, these pork barrel or less-than-contributional projects should be eliminated. But that’s again, politics is, as they say, is dirty. And so there’s no clear winner or loser.
There’s give and take. You’re going to increase unemployment when you cut back all these jobs, there is going to be less revenue for those opportunities as you would. And so if you’re being impacted, you’re going to be unhappy, impacted negatively if you lose your job or lose your project or whatever. Some of these are very, very silly and probably should be eliminated. I contribute a lot to different organizations philanthropically. And some of the ones that I contribute to aren’t as profitable in my mind as they really should be. For example, I contribute philanthropically to the Helena Symphony. Now, not everybody goes to a symphony and appreciates what that music is.
And so my contribution to that, is in my mind, I’m helping the fine arts and we need to be cultured and so forth. So I felt okay about that, but obviously I’ve got a lot of friends who don’t go to that symphony. That’s not their thing as you would, and so they think it was a silly thing for me to contribute to because they don’t enjoy fine art. It is not easy. These are difficult decisions to make, and depending upon which side of the fence you’re on, you’re going to be happy or you’re going to be unhappy.
Rob Artigo: And like you said, if you have, I remember the old speaker of the house, Tip O’Neill, probably remember him from, I’m pretty sure the ’80s. He wrote a book, a short book about politics, but it was really good, called All Politics is Local. And that’s what it comes down to is you have people from both parties and then some independents that are going to have their home districts impacted. And that’s where you’re really going to have to work some political magic because it is going to be tough to get some of these things passed even if they’re ridiculous.
And like you said, I think the symphony is a good cause because you get to support the symphony, and symphonies generally don’t make a lot of money. But at the same time, it’s a nonprofit and it’s cultural and you want to keep it, but you also have to figure out, okay, so how do I do that and make it all work and come together and still get cuts. And also do, I guess you can call it harm reductions, so that you can keep the unemployment situation down and also try to impact people as little as possible while making a big impact, if that makes sense.
Ray Zinn: Well, the people that are in the symphony, they’re earning a living. In other words, they’re getting paid for performing in the symphony, and so you’re helping their employment as you would. Not everybody agrees that that’s an important aspect of life is to have the symphony. I could see both sides. I can understand how they feel if I were in the orchestra and I would say, “Well, I’m told that we’re no longer going to have it.” then I got to go find another job. Or if I’m contributing to the symphony or helping the symphony, then the people say, well, but you could be helping out some poor person, somebody who’s got some serious psychological problems or some medical problems. You should be using that money to help them.
So it’s difficult. And I have to make that decision on a regular basis as to who I choose to help, even though it is from my income and my financial structure is what’s helping. It’s none of their business. I’m using my money. But they’re arguing with me saying, but you could use it for this other more important part as you would. So you’re not going to please everybody. You’ll please some of the people some of the time, but you’re not going to please all the people all the time.
Rob Artigo: And what it comes down to is it’s a human issue at its core because it does impact people. So it’ll be interesting to see how this all comes out, where they can make improvements and what they have to say after the experience. Because maybe they’ll determine that they could have done a lot of different things, a lot of things different, and then maybe you’ve been more successful. I don’t know, and I hope it goes well. Anyway, for the listeners, as always, you can reach out to raise in with your questions at toughthingsfirst.com, continue your education and the conversation with all the podcasts, blogs, and links to information about Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zen series one, two, and three, and an upcoming book we’ll let you know about very soon. We appreciate you listening. Thanks again, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Thanks a lot, Rob.
