This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Thaddez McCotter,

writing an American greatness about Doge, DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency.

Great deal of attention in these last weeks because Doge is advanced by two popular charismatic figures in the Republican camp.

Elon Musk, the richest man in the solar system, and he means to die on Mars,

and Vivek Ramoswamy, the outspoken candidate for the presidency early in the campaign,

who is now a colorful surrogate for the Trump administration

anywhere he goes. However, Doge is a completely new entity, except I learned from Thaddeus,

it's not so new, and it's not complete. That is, a very good evening to you. The Golden Oldie. What is, was the Grace

Commission and what was its job? Good evening to you. Good evening to you, John. It was a

commission set up to define and determine what would be the most efficient way to provide

government services to eliminate wasteful, duplicitous, fraudulent spending and protect the taxpayer's purse.

It was under the Reagan administration. It was a non-governmental advisory committee in the sense that it was not statutorily created, but it was a presidential commission that was supposed to look

into those matters. It provided recommendations. And in the end, most people don't remember it

because a lot of the policies and proposals that were put forward simply were not acted upon.

You had a largely, those were years

when you had a Democratic House, and every now and again, the Senate would flip a little bit,

but it was very difficult to get anything through. The hope is that the Department of Government

Efficiency, the Doge, if you will, will be far more effective. And yet even within its initial incarnation, we're seeing there's some questions about what type of policies will it pursue.

We know that they're talking about reductions, which are very important to eliminate the redundancies within government.

But the question is, where is there authority coming from? Is it simply because Donald Trump? to eliminate the redundancies within government.

But the question is, where is there authority coming from?

Is it simply because Donald Trump, it has Donald Trump's ear,

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