DeSantis’ Musk Envy

In rote copycat style, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has overseen state government since 2019, has now announced his own version of Elon Musk’s DOGE effort to cut jobs and audit state institutions, including its universities. Maybe he wants his own mini chain saw too.

Over the next year, he wants to target 70 state boards and commissions, cut 900 jobs and require that universities undergo independent reviews and audits. He wants to look at local government expenditures as well, relying heavily on artificial intelligence to do so, just like Musk, to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”

More likely, he wants to root out more programs that he and the Republican state legislature find do not match his views on diversity, equity and inclusion, the teaching of “critical thinking,” or programs that touch in gender, race identity, and the culture wars he wages.

Or maybe DeSantis, who wants his wife, Casey, to replace him when term limits end his governorship this year rather than Donald Trump-endorsed congressman Byron Donalds, is simply jealous of depictions of Musk running around conservative stages with a chain saw.

But here’s an issue: DeSantis has been governor for eight years. What’s he been doing all this time, if not being a steward of what services he thinks his government should be providing? And, to boot, DeSantis already has a Government Efficiency Task Force approved by statewide voters in 2006 as part of a state constitutional amendment and “is required to meet every four years for the purpose of developing recommendations to improve governmental operations and reduce costs.”

Should we assume that DeSantis doesn’t manage his state government or that he has ill intentions now towards state workers and university faculty members based on raw politics? Hasn’t he overseen eight state budgets? Don’t the universities, like other institutions, have audits already?

‘Me Too!’

While DeSantis admires the Musk effort, he apparently is overlooking the multiple lawsuits that Musk’s actions have drawn, the confusion that his prove-your-worth survey of federal workers has engendered, and the rising criticism in Republican town halls around the country to Musk’s brusque ways. Musk repeated his disdain for federal workers yesterday, with Donald Trump adding that he is ready to dismiss up to a million employees.

It is useful to remember that the first group dismissed were all inspectors general of the various agencies — the very people whose job it is to seek out waste and fraud.

‘I’m excited about this effort to take some of what we’ve seen in Washington that they’re doing with Elon Musk and apply it to Florida,’ DeSantis said. But then he added, “You see what they need to do in Washington to try to right the ship. If they just make America operate like Florida, we will be OK.”

If Florida is OK, why does it need its own mini-DOGE?

In overly hasty, sloppy ways, Musk and the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency have made drastic cuts and fired thousands of newer, more vulnerable federal employees across multiple federal agencies. Musk/Trump identified those touching on DEI issues but have broadened their targeting to include consumer and regulatory agencies, as well as such areas as medical research contracts and non-combat Department of Defense employees.

DeSantis’ real aim may be the “DOGE-ing of the state university system. DeSantis said the state wants a deep dive of university operations and spending, including debt and financial management practices. It will also include examining course catalogues and staff to “ensure that Florida students are receiving an education that will best equip them to gain meaningful employment after graduation.”

Just as an aside, higher education folks would argue that the job of universities is to prepare minds for learning, not to run a job-training program. But the contempt from DeSantis, a Yale grad, for the universities he oversees is evident: “Look, if you want to do some of this, go to Cal Berkeley, go to some of these other places,” DeSantis said. “We don’t really want to be doing some of this stuff in Florida.”

Dealing with Expectations

While no one favors government “waste, fraud and abuse,” a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 58 percent of Americans worry that Musk’s slashing of the federal government could harm services they expect.

Not to advise the governor, but the close budget vote in Congress this week suggests that the state might want to be paying more attention overall to the shifting of costs altogether from the federal government to the states.

By a two-vote majority, congressional Republicans decided to slash its Medicaid payments to spend the money instead on tax cuts for the wealthy. Even in Florida, where DeSantis has elected not to expand Medicaid eligibility, unlike most other states, this will pressure the state to cover costs for the most vulnerable.

Maybe DeSantis should be spending his effort on real problems rather than inventing new ones.

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