CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk leaves the stage holding a chainsaw after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel and Convention Center on Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
There is an old saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It’s probably also true that if the only tool you have is a chainsaw, everything looks like it needs to be cut.
Many of us remember an image of Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw, celebrating the many triumphs of the Department of Government Efficiency. Yet, often the actions taken by DOGE proved to be less than triumphant and only rarely led to efficiency.
Unless you’re one of those people who knows how to use a chainsaw to carve a bear statue out of a tree trunk, the chainsaw isn’t known for its precision. In the case of DOGE, its accomplishments didn’t lead to efficiency so much as they often led to court where many of its actions were overturned.
Despite the department’s dubious history, according to two candidates for the Republican nomination for governor of South Dakota, a DOGE-like entity is just what’s needed to cut the fat in state government.
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“One thing that we’re focusing on is doing a South Dakota DOGE, actually cutting state expenditures and then passing that savings on to property taxpayers,” Speaker of the House Jon Hansen told KELO.
Not to be outdone, Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden told KELO, “There is abuse. I guarantee it. And my DOGE is going to find it.”
Let’s just take a moment to consider this. Both candidates believe there is waste in government. Both believe he is the guy to root it out. Both seem to think that they can cut enough fat out of state government to offer some relief to property taxpayers.
So they have both chosen to cut the state bureaucracy by … wait for it … adding to the bureaucracy with a new Department of Government Efficiency. Unless they repurpose a state department that already exists, these candidates will be adding to the state’s expenses before they can start whittling away at any fat in the budget.
The state departments that would appear in the crosshairs of Doeden or Hansen already get a pretty good going-over by the Legislature. During the legislative session, each department is quizzed twice — once in the House and once in the Senate — about its intentions for the coming year.
Then the Appropriations Committee weighs in, ultimately deciding how much money the department needs. Calling for the creation of a DOGE clone is an insult to legislative oversight.
It’s notable that the other two candidates for the Republican nomination, Gov. Larry Rhoden and U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, have yet to get on the DOGE-for-South Dakota bandwagon. Too often in Republican primaries, voters are given a choice of candidates who agree with each other on major issues. Finding a way to cut property taxes, through a DOGE-like entity or some other way, will give voters a distinct choice in the primary.
If, to fulfill some campaign promise, Doeden or Hansen must create their own version of DOGE, the new governor would do well not to follow the Musk/Trump model. If we learned anything from watching the slash and burn techniques employed by DOGE, it’s that chainsaws are best left to lumberjacks. Government waste should be cleared away with a scalpel.
Too often, South Dakota’s GOP candidates for governor act as if following the example set by President Donald Trump marks the sure path to victory. Maybe that’s true in heavily red South Dakota. However, following the example the president set with DOGE is just a sure path to chaos.