DOGE sprouts in red states, as governors embrace the cost-cutter brand
and make it their own
[July 12, 2025]
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The brash and chaotic first days of President
Donald Trump 's Department of Government Efficiency, once led by the
world's richest man Elon Musk, spawned state-level DOGE mimicry as
Republican governors and lawmakers aim to show they are in step with
their party's leader.
Governors have always made political hay out of slashing waste or taming
bureaucracy, but DOGE has, in some ways, raised the stakes for them to
show that they are zealously committed to cutting costs. Many drive home
the point that they have always been focused on cutting government, even
if they're not conducting mass layoffs.
“I like to say we were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,” Iowa Gov.
Kim Reynolds said in announcing her own task force in January.
Critics agree that some of these initiatives are nothing new and suggest
they are wasteful, essentially duplicating built-in processes that are
normally the domain of legislative committees or independent state
auditors.
At the same time, some governors are using their DOGE vehicles to take
aim at GOP targets of the moment, such as welfare programs or diversity,
equity and inclusion programs. And some governors who might be eyeing a
White House run in 2028 are rebranding their cost-cutting initiatives as
DOGE, perhaps eager to claim the mantle of the most DOGE of them all.
No chainsaws in the states
At least 26 states have initiated DOGE-style efforts of varying kinds,
according to the Economic Policy Institute based in Washington, D.C.
Most DOGE efforts were carried out through a governor’s order —
including by governors in Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New
Hampshire and Oklahoma — or by lawmakers introducing legislation or
creating a legislative committee.
The state initiatives have a markedly different character than Trump’s
slash-and-burn approach, symbolized by Musk’s chainsaw-brandishing
appearance at a Conservative Political Action Committee appearance in
February.
Governors are tending to entrust their DOGE bureaus to loyalists, rather
than independent auditors, and are often employing what could be
yearslong processes to consolidate procurement, modernize information
technology systems, introduce AI tools, repeal regulations or reduce car
fleets, office leases or worker headcounts through attrition.
Steve Slivinski, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who
researches state government regulatory structures, said that a lot of
what he has seen from state-level DOGE initiatives are the “same stuff
you do on a pretty regular basis anyway” in state governments.
States typically have routine auditing procedures and the ways states
have of saving money are “relatively unsexy," Slivinski said.
And while the state-level DOGE vehicles might be useful over time in
finding marginal improvements, "branding it DOGE is more of a press op
rather than anything new or substantially different than what they
usually do,” Slivinski said.
Analysts at the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute say that governors
and lawmakers, primarily in the South and Midwest, are using DOGE to
breathe new life into long-term agendas to consolidate power away from
state agencies and civil servants, dismantle public services and benefit
insiders and privatization advocates.
“It's not actually about cutting costs because of some fiscal
responsibility,” EPI analyst Nina Mast said.
Governors promoting spending cuts
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry rebranded his “Fiscal Responsibility Program”
as Louisiana DOGE, and promoted it as the first to team up with the
federal government to scrub illegitimate enrollees from welfare
programs. It has already netted $70 million in savings in the Medicaid
program in an “unprecedented” coordination, Landry said in June.
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Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks at the Annual Meeting of
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2025. (AP
Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt — who says in a blurb on the Oklahoma
DOGE website that “I’ve been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since before it
was cool" — made a DOGE splash with the first report by his Division
of Government Efficiency by declaring that the state would refuse
some $157 million in federal public health grants.
The biggest chunk of that was $132 million intended to support
epidemiology and laboratory capacity to control infectious disease
outbreaks.
The Stitt administration said that funding — about one-third of the
total over an eight-year period — exceeded the amount needed.
The left-leaning Oklahoma Policy Institute questioned the wisdom of
that, pointing to rising numbers of measles and whooping cough cases
and the rocky transition under Stitt of the state's public health
lab from Oklahoma City to Stillwater.
Oklahoma Democrats issued rebukes, citing Oklahoma's lousy public
health rankings.
“This isn’t leadership,” state Sen. Carri Hicks said. ”It’s
negligence."
Stitt's Oklahoma DOGE has otherwise recommended changes in federal
law to save money, opened up the suggestion box to state employees
and members of the general public and posted a spreadsheet online
with cost savings initiatives in his administration.
Those include things as mundane as agencies going paperless,
refinancing bonds, buying automated lawn mowers for the Capitol
grounds or eliminating a fax machine line in the State Board of
Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order in February
creating a task force of DOGE teams in each state agency.
In the order, DeSantis recited 10 points on what he described as his
and Florida’s “history of prudent fiscal management” even before
DOGE.
Among other things, DeSantis vowed to scrutinize spending by state
universities and municipal and county governments — including on DEI
initiatives — at a time when DeSantis is pushing to abolish the
property taxes that predominantly fund local governments.
His administration has since issued letters to universities and
governments requesting reams of information and received a blessing
from lawmakers, who passed legislation authorizing the inquiry and
imposing fines for entities that don’t respond.
After the June 30 signing ceremony, DeSantis declared on social
media: “We now have full authority to DOGE local governments.”
In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched her cost-cutting
Arkansas Forward last year, before DOGE, and later said the state
had done the “same thing” as DOGE.
Her administration spent much of 2024 compiling a 97-page report
that listed hundreds of ways to possibly save $300 million inside a
$6.5 billion budget.
Achieving that savings — largely by standardizing information
technology and purchasing — would sometimes require up-front
spending and take years to realize savings.
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