DOGE Should Protect Rights, Not ‘Democracy’
by Tom Malone
Donald Trump ran on a platform that promised major cost-cutting initiatives spearheaded by a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The head of DOGE, Elon Musk, is now under fire from Democrats for allegedly overstepping his authority, and the creation of DOGE by executive order is being challenged as unconstitutional.1 Republicans argue that Musk has statutory authority, pointing out that DOGE is not a Cabinet agency and does not have to be approved by Congress (and will only last until July 4, 2026). Historian Victor Davis Hanson makes the point that “it’s not a permanent agency, but he has the same power, or lack of such, as the national security adviser, who does not have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.”2 Legal wrangling aside, the most fundamental question is whether the government should even be engaged in the spending DOGE is now investigating.
Granted, questions about DOGE’s legitimacy as a government agency are valid, given that it was created by executive order. In a truly free society, the president should not and would not have the power to unilaterally create such an agency but for an emergency; checks and balances within the American government were created for important, rights-protecting reasons. But we find ourselves in a situation in which politicians have lost sight of those reasons, resulting in a government that has grown massively beyond its proper, rights-protecting function. That growth and its economic consequences have arguably created an emergency in which Americans are faced with unsustainable rises in cost of living, a debt burden that exceeds annual economic output, and increasing restrictions on their freedom. In that context, DOGE’s efforts to curtail those activities are legitimate.
Government Power in General Is the Issue, Not Only DOGE’s
The federal government has long abandoned the constitutional limits that the founders set to prevent it from violating Americans’ rights to life, liberty, and property. Rather, it has engaged in massive redistribution of wealth, reckless spending, and programs that have no basis in the enumerated powers outlined in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A wise and frugal government . . . shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”3 Yet today politicians openly disregard this principle, taking from productive citizens and spending so recklessly that our debt burden is now $36 trillion.
DOGE says that it has already uncovered numerous instances of wasteful and rights-violating spending within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Among the most controversial findings is the revelation that USAID unknowingly funded the college tuition of Anwar al-Awlaki, a future al-Qaeda recruiter linked to the 9/11 hijackers.4 The audit also exposed funds allocated to controversial cultural projects, such as a $47,000 grant for a Colombian opera about transgenderism. Other expenditures included $1.5 million to promote “diversity and inclusion” initiatives in Serbia and $70,000 for a DEI-themed musical in Ireland.5
Perhaps most alarming, the report found that millions of taxpayer dollars were directed to public international organizations (PIOs) with ties to terrorist groups, even after an inspector general launched an investigation into those organizations’ activities.6 In addition, DOGE revealed that USAID has funded a vast media network, including payments to more than six thousand journalists and support for more than seven hundred media organizations globally.7 The report also pointed to millions in funding granted to EcoHealth Alliance, an organization tied to gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.8
These revelations have sparked intense debate over the role and oversight of USAID and other agencies, fueling calls for budget cuts and restructuring efforts. Musk and his team at DOGE argue that such wasteful, rights-violating spending highlights the broader issue of government overreach and inefficiency. As the administration moves to slash funding and increase oversight, it is already facing intense backlash and legal challenges from Democrats.
Musk and Trump should seize the opportunity to reframe the conversation: The real issue is not whether DOGE has the right to curb spending but whether the government should be able to take money from individuals by force and use it in ways that violate their liberty and property.
Individual Rights: The Moral Foundation of Government
If one recognizes the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness outlined in the Declaration of Independence, then the role of government becomes clear: to secure those rights and nothing more. The philosopher Ayn Rand articulated this beautifully when she wrote, “The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.”9 By this standard, the federal government should be restricted to its only proper functions: national defense, the courts, and policing.
The vast majority of federal spending is immoral and unconstitutional. Government programs that forcibly redistribute wealth through welfare, corporate subsidies, foreign aid, federal grants, or toward any other purpose outside the proper role of government—violate individuals’ rights to their earnings.
The Danger of Appealing to Democracy
Musk has attempted to counter criticism by stating that the goal of DOGE is to “restore democracy.”10 But this is a fatal error—one that plays directly into the hands of his critics. The concept of “democracy” is widely misunderstood today. Most people take it to mean something along the lines of “a broadly free society in which leaders are elected by popular vote.” But the literal and historical meaning of “democracy” is mob rule. If we accept actual “democracy” as a value, we implicitly accept that majority opinion justifies any and all government action—including the very overreach DOGE is working to correct. If democracy is good, then what happens when the majority elects outright socialists or communists who decide that wealth confiscation should be even more aggressive?
This is precisely why the founding fathers were skeptical of democracy. James Madison wrote, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”11 The Constitution was designed not as a tool of majority rule but as a bulwark against the violation of individual rights. America is not—and was never meant to be—a democracy; it is a constitutional republic where laws are meant to protect against mob rule.
The Founders’ Vision versus Mob Rule
The founding fathers deliberately structured the government to prevent the tyranny of the majority. Instead, they established a system in which individual rights were never to be violated, even if the majority wished otherwise. The Bill of Rights exists to prevent the government from infringing upon freedom of speech, property, and commerce, no matter how many voters support such violations.
Anyone who wants to defend DOGE’s cost-cutting mission effectively should reject the false moral premise that spending cuts are only justified if they have democratic backing. Instead, we must champion the objective principle of individual rights and argue that the government has no moral right to confiscate and redistribute wealth.
Rather than appealing to democracy, Musk should make the case for a government limited solely to the protection of individual rights. With this kind of system, there would be no need for initiatives such as DOGE because the rights-violating spending it seeks to eliminate would not exist in the first place.
Trump, too, should frame the fight against wasteful spending in moral terms. It’s not just about finding “waste, fraud, and abuse” in a corrupt system—it’s about rejecting the immoral premise that the government has a right to spend taxpayer dollars however it pleases. The goal should not be to enable the government to violate rights more efficiently—the goal should be to make it properly delimited and stop rights-violating government spending.
Musk and Trump are right to challenge the bloated federal budget and should be commended for doing so—but they must go further; they must challenge any and all rights-violating government spending. The proper defense of DOGE is not that it serves “the will of the people” but that it aligns (or at least that it should align) with the foundational principles of America—individual rights and limited government.
As Jefferson put it, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”12 To reverse this trend, Trump and Musk must make a principled stand: The size and scope of government should be dictated not by democracy but by individual rights.
This article appears in the Spring 2025 issue of The Objective Standard.
Morgan Lee, “More than a Dozen State Attorneys General Challenge Musk and DOGE’s Authority,” The Associated Press, February 13, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/doge-musk-trump-lawsuit-states-fbb9695bcffaa96470752d56da20da57.
Victor Davis Hanson, “Sorry, Liberals. DOGE Is 100% Legal. Here’s Why,” The Daily Signal, February 10, 2025, https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/02/10/sorry-liberals-doge-is-100-legal-heres-why.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801.
Alex Oliveira, “USAID Reportedly Bankrolled Al Qaeda Terrorist’s College Tuition, Unearthed Records Show,” New York Post, Feb 11, 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/usaid-reportedly-bankrolled-al-qaeda-terrorists-college-tuition-unearthed-records-show.
John Michael Rasch, “Trump Strips Millions from DEI Foreign Aid Programs Funding Irish Musicals, LGBTQ Programs in Serbia and More,” Daily Mail, January 31, 2025, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14344255/trump-millions-dei-foreign-aid-programs-funding.html.
“Public International Organizations: USAID Did Not Consistently Perform Expected Due Diligence,” August 22, 2024, Office of the Inspector General, https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2024-08/OIG%20Final%20Report%20-%20PIO%20Due%20Diligence%20%28E-000-24-002-M%29.pdf.
“USA: Trump’s Foreign Aid Freeze Throws Journalism around the World into Chaos,” Reporters Without Borders, February 3, 2025, https://rsf.org/en/usa-trump-s-foreign-aid-freeze-throws-journalism-around-world-chaos.
“At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep,” White House, February 3, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/at-usaid-waste-and-abuse-runs-deep.
Ayn Rand, “The Nature of Government,” in The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (Signet, 1964), 107.
Elon Musk, “Elon Musk on Doge and Restoring Democracy,” YouTube, February 11, 2025.
James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 22, 1787.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, May 27, 1788,
https://founders.archives.gov.