Shattered 'efficiency' dreams: Musk could save $2 trillion just by undoing previous reforms

Here's something you won't hear from Congress, President Biden, President-elect Trump, or the media: There has never been a government shutdown.

That's right. It has never happened.

To be sure, budget stalemates have occurred. It's just that they never actually cause the government to stop running. And they don't save money, either. What shutdowns actually do is create more government jobs and waste more money.

When nuclear power plants need their cooling systems monitored by government officials, they get monitored — shutdown or no shutdown. When enemy aircraft enter U.S. airspace — even mysterious drones — they are tracked. When lethal food contamination threatens millions, it gets caught and dealt with. The government doesn't shut down because it can't shut down. The consequences would be catastrophic.

Elon Musk, the designated head of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, advanced the threat of a shutdown last week to show he's "serious" about cutting waste. The DOGE is yet to be formed (and will probably never be a real department), yet the efficiency czar is already flexing his muscles, proving in the process that he doesn't understand the most basic lesson about government: Shutdowns and the threat of shutdowns, don't eliminate waste — rather, they create it, billions and billions of dollars of waste.

Here's one reason why: Before each "shutdown,” 800,000 federal employees are pulled from their real jobs to update 186-page "Contingency Operations" plans for the impending shutdown. That takes approximately 2.4 million work hours that are wasted documenting (for example) why you can't turn off nuclear reactors as if they were computer servers.

Every time shutdowns proceed or are threatened, or Congress passes a continuing resolution instead of a full-year budget, the bureaucratic reporting requirements and workload increase. Even when the shutdown never occurs, like last week, time and money are wasted, and all for political shutdown theater that accomplishes nothing.

The supreme irony is that DOGE could save $2 trillion annually by simply eliminating the budget uncertainty associated with shutdown dramas and the mountains of "efficiency" paperwork that have been created by previous so-called "government efficiency" reformers. Instead of making things better, Musk just created more uncertainty. And the odds are he will ultimately create more paperwork, just like everyone who tried to do this before him.

As someone who has been there, let me describe what actually happens inside agencies during shutdown showdowns in Congress.

At the National Institutes of Health, grant officers, who normally have 12 months to process $100 million in cancer research, now have just five months. Quality checks are thus compressed. Error rates spike by 32 percent, even as the work becomes more expensive because Scientific Review Officers work mandatory overtime at GS-14 Step 10 rates — $164,102 per year. Meanwhile, instead of doing research, the scientists spend their days rewriting grant proposals to match shifting deadlines.

Contracts can be even messier. When funding finally arrives, months late, contracting officers who normally have months to evaluate complex technical proposals now have just weeks. Studies show that contracts awarded during these compressed schedules score 12 points lower on quality metrics than normal awards. That's billions in taxpayer dollars pushed out the door with minimal scrutiny because artificial deadlines trump due diligence.

But here's where budgetary tough talk in Congress really creates the permanent bloat. In order to handle the staggering workload created by shutdown threats in Congress and the overreliance on short-term continuing resolutions to fund government, agencies add new positions. For example:

• Shutdown Planning Officers (GS-14, $126,788 per year)
• Continuity Specialists (GS-13, $108,885)
• Emergency Response Coordinators (GS-15, $172,500)
• Budget Contingency Analysts (GS-14, $126,788)

Note that these positions don't just disappear after the crisis passes — they stay on to prepare for the next crisis. Multiply that across 523 agencies, and you've created a billion-dollar bureaucracy dedicated solely to planning for shutdowns that never actually shut anything down.

If Musk actually wants to save $2 trillion, he could start by eliminating the "efficiency" oversight requirements implemented by the efficiency czars of Christmases past.

This includes President Bill Clinton's Government Performance and Results Act, with its 247-page strategic plans ($1.2M per agency). It includes President George W. Bush's performance scorecards and metrics tracking ($670M annually). It includes President Barack Obama's Cross-Agency Priority Goals reporting ($47M per agency). It also includes President Donald Trump's reorganization documentation requirements ($4.2M per agency), and President Biden's new equity tracking systems ($220M government-wide).

Instead of increasing efficiency, Musk risks dancing straight down the same old reform path. He will have failed if he adds new reporting requirements while embracing shutdowns that spawn more work and more permanent government positions. These measures will not eliminate waste — rather, they will magnify it.

Consider last week's exercise just another expensive lesson in how tough talk on budgets and efficiency creates more bureaucracy. It's a lesson that taxpayers can't afford to keep learning.

Cheryl Kelley is a retired federal employee, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Pell Center at Salve Regina University. She is the author of "An Informed Citizenry: How the Modern Federal Government Operates," and the novel, "Radical, An American Love Story."