The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, gets a lot of criticism in the news, but what are they really doing and how might it impact agriculture?
Washington Representative Dan Newhouse says it’s worth watching, but he thinks it’s doing some needed things.
“I just talked to Secretary Bergum from the Department of the Interior. His interest is trying to match the workforce with the workload, seeing that we have people, literally the people in the field to do the necessary work and maybe reduce some of the overhead and labor in Washington D.C. and some of the offices that don’t have as much face-to-face contact with producers.”
And Newhouse says it won’t be easy.
“I think we can get there. I think it’s going to take some time though. We’re losing some people in some of these agencies that bring a lot of experience and wisdom, but we’re also looking at ways to make sure that those people interface with the producers. Those are the people that we’re keeping in place.”
But Newhouse says underlying all of this…
“The federal government, nobody would argue that it is not bloated. We have some things that we have to do to make all agencies and functions of the federal government more efficient.”
But as a farmer, are you concerned?
“As a producer, as a farmer, yes, I am very concerned that we, in our effort to be efficient, I want to make sure we don’t cut off our nose to spite our face.”