DOGE push spurs state copycats with governors eyeing cost cuts

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crusade is trickling down to U.S. statehouses.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is launching Florida’s own version of the Department of Government Efficiency — known as DOGE. Already, he wants to cut $3 billion and more than 700 state government jobs as part of the upcoming budget. Kansas and Missouri lawmakers are soliciting input from their residents for ideas on how to slash costs.

Since January, states have launched at least eight task forces or legislative efforts aimed at boosting government efficiency. And lawmakers in nearly a dozen other states have proposed bills that would create their own DOGE-like divisions.

The efforts, mostly from Republican governors and lawmakers, show how state officials are eager to capitalize on the Trump administration’s rhetoric around cost-cutting. Typically, the mundane work of government budgets doesn’t garner very much attention.

State spending has surged recently, driven in part by a massive infusion of $195 billion in federal pandemic aid directly to their coffers. States spent more than $3 trillion in fiscal 2024, the most since records began more than 30 years ago, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. Meanwhile, U.S. state government employment stands at a record 5.5 million as of February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To be sure, states’ versions of DOGE are unlikely to usher in the same kind of dramatic fallout that is taking place at the federal level where Musk has said he wants to eliminate as much as $2 trillion in federal spending.

And unlike the federal government, most states have some kind of balanced budget requirement, and Republican officials regularly push for cost cutting given their preference for smaller government.

“It’s probably more of a branding effort than a real, substantive effort” to reduce spending, said Stephen Slivinski, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He said some states may have pursued budget cuts regardless of DOGE because of less optimistic financial forecasts.

States usually already have efforts in place to review spending and encourage efficiencies, he added. Many state programs have provisions to sunset after seven to 10 years, for example.

And big Democratic-led states aren’t following the DOGE trend. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to lure federal workers who were fired and has proposed a budget that increases spending by nearly 4%, and Massachusetts’ governor has also proposed a larger budget.

DeSantis announced in late February that he wants the task force to use AI to review Florida agencies to find ways to cut further. He said the state will abolish an additional 70 boards and commissions this year.

The Republican official has long been focused on culling costs, and his proposed budget for fiscal 2026 would slash spending by $3 billion, or 2.5%. Florida already has a government efficiency task force that meets every four years to develop such recommendations.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced in February that he was launching “DOGE-OK,” appointing a volunteer who will submit a report by March 31 with cost-cutting recommendations. DOGE-OK has an account on the Musk-owned X to share its progress, similar to the one for the federal DOGE. Stitt, who told lawmakers that he talked to Trump at Mar-a-Lago about DOGE at the state level, has promised to have fewer employees on state payroll than when he took office in 2019.

Stitt has previously pushed for cutting unnecessary regulations in the state. “I’ve been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since before it was cool,” Stitt said in a statement on Feb. 14.

In Illinois, Rep. John Cabello, a Republican, proposed a bill to create a state DOGE. He wants to end what he described as “wasteful” state spending, reduce the burden on taxpayers and get rid of non-essential jobs.

“The government is not supposed to be a jobs factory,” Cabello said. “We should be creating an environment for private business to flourish, not creating government jobs.”

Some state officials have used the attention around DOGE to tout long-standing efforts to rein in costs.

“Iowa was doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a congressional hearing about DOGE last month.

Since 2022, the state has cut 21 state agencies and removed 1,200 regulations, helping save $217 million in 18 months. Still, she signed an executive order creating an Iowa DOGE task force.

(Erin Hudson contributed to this report.)