Herbert Hoover’s Quest to Roll Back the Federal Government: A Lesson for the DOGE

H erbert Hoover described the federal government as having “the instincts of a vegetable” that keeps spreading and growing. In the aftermath of the New Deal, the former president warned against the continual rise of “big government” and the economic threats of deficit spending, high taxes, and inflation. By creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Donald Trump is taking up some of the same issues. The DOGE should study and learn from Hoover’s experience crusading against government waste if it wants to succeed.

During the administrations of Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hoover was selected to chair what became the two bi-partisan Hoover Commissions (formally the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch), which were tasked with reducing waste in government. The first Hoover Commission was a result of the Republican victory in the 1946 midterm elections, which won them control of Congress for the first time since 1928.

By 1949 the commission released several reports to Congress. The commission advised a massive realignment and consolidation of the bureaucracy. This included eliminating two-thirds of 65 government agencies of the bureaucracy. Hoover had hoped that Republicans would build upon their victory in the 1946 elections by winning the White House in 1948, but President Truman and the Democrats’ victory in 1948 limited the implementation of Hoover’s recommendations.

In 1953, President Eisenhower signed legislation creating a second Hoover Commission. Hoover was more optimistic about this commission, because the Republicans not only occupied the White House, but he would have “far wider powers” in making “recommendations for surgery on everything except for Congress and the Judiciary.” It started work shortly thereafter and filed its report and recommendations in 1955.

In 1953, historian Gary Dean Best wrote that Hoover viewed this second commission “as an opportunity to wage renewed warfare on the remnants of the New Deal and Fair Deal.” Since the New Deal, Hoover was concerned not only about the growth of government as a matter of constitutional principle but also about the policies this enlarged government was pursuing, policies that he believed were undermining the free enterprise system. This also included a massive increase in bureaucrats who were staffing the various agencies. “The whole Civil Service has been surrounded with a mass of red tape that makes it extremely difficult to discharge anybody for sheer inefficiency,” remarked Hoover in 1949.

Hoover argued that one consequence of both the New Deal and World War II was the growth of the federal government. As an example, the commission recommended a reorganization of the Defense Department, which grew as a result of World War II and the ongoing Cold War military buildup. Further, the Budget and Accounting Task Force of the commission had recommended a series of reforms to the budget process.

In an off-the-record speech at the Bohemian Club in 1953, Hoover argued that the commission “can at least serve to expose certain overall growths in the Federal Government during the past 20 years which cry for remedies.” He outlined three policy areas.

The first was to restore federalism. Hoover described the growth of the federal bureaucracy as an “invasion” upon state and local governments. The second was to restore fiscal stability by reducing spending with the goal of balancing the budget and reducing taxes. The third goal was to prevent what Hoover referred to as the “creeping socialism” of the federal government. For example, “the federal government has today more than 500 activities in economic competition with private citizens,” stated Hoover. He was critical of the federal government being involved in public power or flood control, which he thought should be the responsibility of state governments.

Hoover estimated that if Congress had approved all of the recommendations of the commission, it would save an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion per year. Although Congress never fully adopted the full recommendations of either Hoover Commission, many reforms were approved. Upon reflection, Hoover stated that close to 70 percent of the first commission’s recommendations had been adopted, which he estimated saved $4 billion to $5 billion. The second commission was less successful, and he estimated that only 30 or 40 percent of the recommendations were approved by Congress.

The massive $36 trillion national debt symbolizes how far the federal leviathan has gone in abandoning  both fiscal prudence and the Founders’ intent. President-elect Trump has selected entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-direct the DOGE, which will have the objective of recommending how the size and scope of the federal government can be reduced. As the president-elect put it, they would “pave the way for [his] Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”

Ramaswamy and Musk argue that the administration will be able to adopt many of DOGE’s recommendations 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 Trump’s “decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.”

The DOGE seeks to roll back 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.” Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), who chairs the Senate DOGE caucus, has recommended $2 trillion worth of wasteful government spending to Musk and Ramaswamy. Musk and Ramaswamy have also set an ambitious goal of meeting their objectives by July 4, 2026.

Reducing government or cutting spending is never easy. Hoover argued that Congress “has always been the stumbling block.” That is in part due to special interests that, according to Hoover, “occupy themselves pressuring the government for more spending or in opposing any reductions.” Hoover remarked that “practically every single item has met with opposition from some vested official,” or it has “disturbed some vested” interest.

Going forward, the DOGE will be confronted with similar roadblocks to those that challenged the implementation of Hoover’s recommendations. 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 the DOGE may have could be a Supreme Court less wedded to big government than its postwar counterparts.

In 1954, Hoover stated that “our Republic is beset by many dangers. But here is one which we can control if we have the will to do it. That is, waste, unnecessary spending and unbalanced budgets, and thus continued inflation.”

President Trump and the Republican Congress have an opportunity to address our national debt crisis, and the DOGE may serve as a good first step to tackling this problem.