The Texas DOGE isn’t doing it for us.
Some of the TX House DOGE Committee members have good intentions, but as the saying goes, “The way to hell is paved with good intentions.”
While we support bills like HB 3770 that change Legislative Budget Board reviews of state agencies from “periodically may review” to “shall review,” this doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of BIG State Government.
For starters, the Republican officials heading up the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) already have the power to DOGE state government – but don’t appear to be the least bit interested.
The LBB is a permanent joint committee of the Texas Legislature, co-chaired by the Lt. Governor and the Speaker of the House. The remaining board members are specified by statute – Chair of the Senate Finance Committee; Chair of the House Appropriations Committee; Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee; three members of the state senate appointed by the Lt. Governor; and two members of the House appointed by the Speaker.
Nobody should believe that the same people who routinely grow Texas government through wild spending sprees are actually going to go after fraud, waste, and taxpayer abuse.
The LBB itself must be reformed. How do we know? If they were serious about an Elon-like “search and destroy” mission to find fraud, waste, needless regulations, and taxpayer abuse, the LBB would have already rolled out an aggressive, innovative DOGE plan for ALL of state government. They would have made it public and asked the Legislature to codify it.
If you are tired of the fakery, fiction, and good intentions leading to taxpayer hell, lean on Texas Republican officials to take a page out of Florida’s DOGE playbook. How about an aggressive plan to put Texans First – a plan to eliminate redundant state departments, agencies, programs, boards, and commissions? How about DOGE-ing state university and college operations and spending? Utilizing AI to examine state agencies to uncover hidden waste? Auditing the spending habits of local governments to shine light on waste and bloat?
As it stands now, there’s just no visible “business urgency” from statewide Republican leaders to do anything more than spend as much as possible. Want proof? How about almost $50 Billion in new spending?
Once again, the TX Senate (and soon the House) will show us that their big spending plans to grow state government are far more important than tax relief for people. Example #1 of many vulgar instances of Republican spending abuse – SB 22 will give $500 MILLION in sales tax revenue every 2 years to a Hollywood-style slush fund for film and media companies.
Nobody in power is serious about matching money, mission, and results for every part of state government. If they were, there’d be a hiring freeze in place along with modernization of state government to use AI and new technologies to identify more waste and noncompliance.
Opportunities to put Texans first abound. A genuine Texas DOGE should work in conjunction with the Comptroller’s Office to audit local governments, taking a close look at local government spending by simply utilizing publicly available county, school district, municipal and special taxing district spending records to expose bloat within local governance.
Trouble is – nobody with the power is interested in the heavy lift. It’s too much trouble to put Texans first.
Texans want to stop government sprawl. Their politicians don’t.
Texans need a real Texas DOGE – not a fake one.