Business
DOGE Theory

One of the most intriguing developments following Donald Trump’s election victory has been the announcement of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The initiative, which hopes to cut up to $2 trillion from the federal budget, has generated notable excitement, momentum, and memes. The world’s richest man and a successful biotech entrepreneur, Ramaswamy, have revitalized what seemed to be a mostly dormant libertarianism, drawing on the inspiration of Milton Friedman and promising to slash the bureaucracy to the bone. But what are its prospects for real-world success?
Elon Musk is our era’s most gifted entrepreneur, having revolutionized several industries and run multiple major companies. But the private sector operates on radically different principles than the public sector, which has a way of stalling or disarming even the most determined efforts. I foresee three potential impediments to DOGE’s success.
First is the problem of authority. While President-elect Trump has dubbed the effort the “Department of Government Efficiency,” it is not a government department at all. Rather, Musk and Ramaswamy will remain in the private sector and preside over what is, in effect, a blue-ribbon committee providing recommendations to the president and to Congress about potential cuts. In practice, though, blue-ribbon committees are often where ideas go to die. Politicians who feel the need to “do something” about a given problem often establish such committees to create the perception of action, which masks their true desire or, at least, the eventual result: inaction.
DOGE’s challenge will be to translate its recommendations into policy. It is almost certain that an entrepreneur of Musk’s ambition will not be content with writing a report. His and Ramaswamy’s task, then, is to persuade the president and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to enact real (and politically risky) cuts, and, if possible, to persuade Congress to abolish entire departments, such as the Department of Education, in the face of left-wing backlash.
The second problem for Musk and Ramaswamy is public opinion. Libertarians and small-government conservatives have long promised to reduce the size of government; one reason that they have never done so is that federal programs and agencies are generally popular. All of the major federal departments, with the exception of the IRS, the Department of Education, and the Department of Justice, have net-positive favorability numbers. Congressional members, even conservative Republicans, fear that slashing these departments would expose them to savage criticism from the Left and backlash from voters. They know that Americans complain about the size of government in theory but oppose almost all spending cuts in practice—the key paradox that libertarians have been unable to resolve.
Musk and Ramaswamy have repeatedly appealed to the work of Argentinian president Javier Milei, who has dramatically reduced the number of departments and created flashy video clips of himself stripping down organizational charts and yelling, “Afuera!” But what is possible in Argentina, which has been mired in a decades-long economic crisis, may not be achievable in the United States, which is much more stable, and, consequently, may not have the appetite for such dramatic action.
Which brings us to the problem of politics. Sending a rocket into space requires mastery over physics, but cutting government departments requires mastery over a more formidable enemy: bureaucracy. As Musk and Ramaswamy will see, the relationship between would-be reformers and Congress is vastly different from that between a CEO and a board of directors. To succeed, Musk and Ramaswamy must persuade a group of politicians, each with their own interests, to assume a high level of risk.
DOGE’s first task—identifying the budget items to cut—is the easy part. The hard part will be actually cutting them. They will have to convince Congress, which, for nearly 100 years, has refused to reduce the size of government, even when that notion had bipartisan support, as it did during the presidency of Bill Clinton, who promised that “the era of big government is over.”
This does not mean that DOGE cannot succeed. Though there may not be an appetite for a $2 trillion reduction in government spending, there is a hunger for targeted cuts that would strip the federal government of hostile ideologies that have made our institutions dysfunctional and our national life worse. For example, slashing grant funding for critical race theory would likely win support from voters; cutting the budget for USDA meat inspectors would not, and, given opportunity costs, would probably prove unproductive as well.
Perhaps the name of this committee—the Department of Government Efficiency—is also slightly off the mark. The problem is not only about efficiency, which suggests quantity, but about orientation, which implies quality. The federal government has long been captured by ideologies that misdirect its efforts. Simply making the bureaucracy more efficient will not solve that problem. DOGE must first determine what federal spending is worthwhile; from there, it can focus on creating “efficiencies.”
I hope that Musk and Ramaswamy can dispel my pessimism. Political realities have stifled countless reform efforts before now, and DOGE is an enterprise that would be difficult, if not impossible, under normal circumstances. But these are two remarkably talented men; if anyone is capable of shattering the mold, they can.
Please share your ideas, dissents, and thoughts in the comments. In the next newsletter, we will feature the best material in a“comment of the week” section. In the meantime, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Automotive
Auto giant shuts down foreign plants as Trump moves to protect U.S. industry

MxM News
Quick Hit:
Stellantis is pausing vehicle production at two North American facilities—one in Canada and another in Mexico—following President Donald Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars. The move marks one of the first corporate responses to the administration’s push to bring back American manufacturing.
Key Details:
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In an email to workers Thursday, Stellantis North America chief Antonio Filosa directly tied the production pause to the new tariffs, writing that the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” but is “temporarily pausing production” at select assembly plants outside the U.S.
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Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario will be paused for two weeks, while the Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico will be offline for the entire month of April.
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These plants produce the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the new Dodge Charger Daytona EV, the Jeep Compass SUV, and the Jeep Wagoneer S EV.
Diving Deeper:
On Wednesday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs aimed at revitalizing America’s auto manufacturing industry. The 25% tariffs on all imported cars are part of a broader “reciprocal tariffs” strategy, which Trump described as ending decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out U.S. industry.
Just a day later, Stellantis became the first major automaker to act on the new policy, halting production at two of its international plants. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Stellantis North American COO Antonio Filosa said the company is “taking immediate actions” to respond to the tariff policy while continuing to evaluate the broader impact.
“These actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations,” Filosa wrote.
The Windsor, Ontario plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica and the newly introduced Dodge Charger Daytona EV, will shut down for two weeks. The Toluca facility in Mexico, responsible for the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S EV, will suspend operations for the entire month of April.
The move comes as Stellantis continues to face scrutiny for its reliance on low-wage labor in foreign markets. As reported by Breitbart News, the company has spent years shifting production and engineering jobs to countries like Brazil, India, Morocco, and Mexico—often at the expense of American workers. Last year alone, Stellantis cut around 400 U.S.-based engineering positions while ramping up operations overseas.
Meanwhile, General Motors appears to be responding differently. According to Reuters, GM told employees in a webcast Thursday that it will increase production of light-duty trucks at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant—where it builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. These models are also assembled in Mexico and Canada, but GM’s decision suggests a shift in production to the U.S. could be underway in light of the tariffs.
As Trump’s trade reset takes effect, more automakers are expected to recalibrate their production strategies—potentially signaling a long-awaited shift away from offshoring and toward rebuilding American industry.
Business
‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.
“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”
“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.
Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.
“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.
WATCH:
With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.
“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.
“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.
The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.
“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”
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