The list includes Georgia, Kansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, Missouri, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has announced the creation of a task force to look for and eliminate government waste to save taxpayers money.
"Florida has set the standard for fiscally conservative governance, and our new Florida DOGE task force will do even more to serve the people of Florida," DeSantis said in a press release. "It will eliminate redundant boards and commissions, review state university and college operations and spending, utilize artificial intelligence to further examine state agencies to uncover hidden waste, and even audit the spending habits of local entities to shine the light on waste and bloat."
Doug Wheeler, director of the George Gibbs Center for Economic Prosperity at the Tallahassee-based James Madison Institute welcomes the idea and encourages other states to consider similar action.
"It's worth a discussion," he tells AFN. "Any time that your government decides to take a look at itself and find out where there may be opportunities to correct wasteful spending or become more efficient in the spending of taxpayer dollars. I think that's always good exercise."
He points out that Florida already has a Government Efficiency Task Force that is "charged with some of these aspects," but it only meets every few years.
Critics of federal DOGE efforts have claimed that neither Elon Musk nor President Trump has authority to make cuts, but in Florida's case, the governor does have the authority, especially as it relates to boards, commissions, and bureaucracies within state agencies. The audits of local governments is one area where Wheeler says DeSantis might have some legal issues.
"If he wants to utilize what's available publicly, that would be one thing," Wheeler notes. "But if he's really hoping to get them to comply with this task force and truly turn over certain information, that could be a little tricky; I'm not sure he has the power to compel them."
He suggests the legislature could do that through some sort of legislative act, but otherwise, Gov. DeSantis is well within his authority to create this task force and have it conduct this type of work.
