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Elon Musk has left the White House, but the Trump administration has no plans to halt or reverse the destruction Musk’s slash-and-burn tactics caused over his five months leading the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). And the damage doesn’t stop at the federal level. At least 26 states have launched “government efficiency” initiatives of their own in recent months, typically through executive order, legislation, or the creation of a legislative committee, according to an April analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

The EPI briefing outlines how these state-level initiatives “use disingenuous calls to ‘root out inefficiency’ and ‘cut wasteful spending’ as a smokescreen,” with the ultimate goal of funding tax cuts for the wealthy.

“State lawmakers are using the DOGE brand to restructure government in favor of partisan interests,” Nina Mast, an EPI policy and economic analyst and a coauthor of the briefing, told Truthout. “They’re weaponizing ‘efficiency,’ in order to limit agency authority and put burdensome new requirements on agencies that serve the public.”

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She added: “These efforts are not new, but this new [DOGE] brand gives them cover to enact changes that would otherwise be condemned as abuses of power.”

These state-level DOGE initiatives typically seek to wrest power from civil servants and state agencies. So far this year, four states (Kentucky, Utah, Oklahoma, and Louisiana) have enacted so-called “REINS-style” laws, modeled after the federal “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny” (REINS) Act. The federal REINS Act, which was originally designed by a Tea Party activist and has been introduced in every Congress since 2009, seeks to give Congress the authority to block major regulations issued by federal agencies. Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, warns that the REINS Act threatens the government’s ability to protect public health and safety, enact worker protections, and institute financial reforms, noting: “It will only benefit those corporations that wish to game the system and evade safety standards and do nothing to improve protections for the American public.”

While the REINS Act has never passed the U.S. Senate, and an attempt to slip it into Trump’s massive tax bill was stripped by the Senate parliamentarian in June, several similar laws have been enacted in the states, thanks in large part to Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a libertarian political advocacy group affiliated with the Koch family. Once passed, these laws hinder the ability of state agencies to enact regulations and protections. In Wisconsin, for example, which passed the second state REINS-style law under Gov. Scott Walker in 2017, the law prevented the Department of Natural Resources from restricting manure spreading in areas sensitive to groundwater pollution.

While some state DOGE efforts seem gimmicky or designed to impress Donald Trump and Musk — or have already stalled out or died — a handful of states are using DOGE initiatives to push ahead with cuts conservatives have been wanting for decades.

“I’ve been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since before it was cool,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt boasted earlier this year. Stitt created a “DOGE-OK” office by executive order in February, which he specified would be “dedicated to President Trump’s vision for federal regulatory and budgetary reform in coordination and partnership with the State of Oklahoma.”

Taking a page out of Musk’s book, DOGE-OK maintains a list of alleged cost-saving cuts made by state agencies. Stitt has said he wants to scrutinize any spending “more than a ham sandwich,” and many of the listed items are in fact small: One agency ended three laptop leases, another canceled contracts for a cell phone and iPad, and a third saved $600 by terminating a fax line.

More concerningly, Stitt proudly........

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