A lesson for DOGE from Iowa’s Herbert Hoover

Former President Herbert Hoover described the federal government as having “the instincts of a vegetable” which keep spreading and growing. Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the growth of the federal government has accelerated unchecked. In the aftermath of the New Deal, Hoover warned against the continual rise of “big government” and the economic threats of deficit spending, high taxes, and inflation.

During the administrations of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hoover was selected to chair what became the two bipartisan Hoover Commissions, which were tasked with reorganizing the executive branch and reducing waste in government to bring about more efficiency and economy. Hoover’s quest to limit the federal government is a lesson for President-elect Donald Trump.

The massive $36 trillion national debt symbolizes how the federal leviathan has exceeded the bounds of constitutional government as the Founders intended. In an effort to address this crisis, President-elect Trump has selected entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with the arduous task of rooting out waste and eliminating bureaucracy. Musk and Ramaswamy will codirect the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will have the objective of reducing the size and scope of the federal government. Specifically focusing on the “rapid repeal of regulations and a massive reduction in the size of the federal bureaucracy.”

Ramaswamy and Musk argue that they can accomplish many of their objectives without the approval of Congress based on precedents established by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA and Loper Bright. “Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law,” wrote Musk and Ramaswamy. Both maintain that they will be successful where past commissions have failed because of President Donald Trump’s “decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.”

Through executive authority DOGE seeks to rollback regulations and root out government waste, specifically focusing on “the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended.” Sen. Joni Ernst, who chairs the Senate DOGE caucus, has recommended $2 trillion worth of cuts to wasteful government spending to Musk and Ramaswamy. Musk and Ramaswamy have also set an ambitious goal of meeting their objectives by July 4, 2026.

DOGE and the Hoover Commissions do share some of the same common goals. Both seek to eliminate waste and to restore limits to the federal government. Hoover saw an opportunity with both Commissions to not only reduce bureaucracy but restore federalism by returning many programs back to state and local governments. He argued that “the original idea of this republic was a federal government of limited powers.”

Reducing government or cutting spending is never easy because politics and human nature create plenty of roadblocks. Hoover argued that Congress “has always been the stumbling block.” Associated with this was the power of special interest or “pressure groups” that lobbied Congress usually to protect and enlarge government activity. Hoover remarked that “practically every single item has met with opposition from some vested official, or it has “disturbed some vested” interest.

Whether it was Democrats wanting to preserve the New Deal, demands for greater defense spending as a result of the Cold War, or pressure groups fighting to protect their interests, all were forces that limited the enactment of the full recommendations of both Hoover Commissions.

Going forward DOGE will be confronted with the same roadblocks that challenged Hoover. Even with a Republican majority in Congress politics and special interests will be a factor and the pressure to continue to spend will not be easy to overcome. One advantage DOGE may have could be the conservative Supreme Court.

What DOGE should learn from Hoover is that eliminating waste and reducing the administrative state are noble policy goals, but even more important is the restoration of constitutional principles back to government.

Hoover described his quest as a “crusade against collectivism” to stop the “creeping socialism” that began with the New Deal. Musk and Ramaswamy are embarking on a similar quest in their battle against the federal leviathan.

John Hendrickson serves as policy director for Iowans for Tax Relief Foundation.