History proves NBC is terribly wrong to claim DOGE is ‘unprecedented’

Democrats and mainstream media such as NBC have thrown tantrums that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk under President Donald Trump is unprecedented. But what is actually unprecedented is that liberals are being told ‘no’ to receiving millions of dollars to further their progressive agendas at the expense of American taxpayers.

DOGE DOES DC: What’s the big deal? with @HvonSpakovsky https://t.co/UOipEXiojI

— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) February 14, 2025

NBC News called the waste cuts “an unprecedented effort to shrink the federal workforce and slash federal programs.” However, the Times Leader reports “the idea of cutting waste and inefficiency out of the federal bureaucracy is nothing new. Nor is the idea of looking to civilian business practices as models for improving administrative processes.”

The notion is so not unprecedented, in fact, as both were first not only proposed but also implemented, by President Dwight Eisenhower. In the 1952 elections, Republicans ran on a platform charging that the Democrats had “arrogantly deprived our citizens of precious liberties by seizing powers never granted” and “work(ing) unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism” notes the Times Leader.

The general who led the Allies in Europe to victory over the Nazi regime also successfully balanced the federal budget twice in his first term.

The publication reports Eisenhower targeted growing problems with waste and inefficiency with a three-pronged strategy:

First, drawing from his military background, he sought to implement a military-like efficiency in the Executive Office itself.

Second, he successfully achieved both spending cuts and reductions in agency personnel. Of course, this led agencies to complain (sound familiar?) that they were being forced to do more with less.

Third, in a move foreshadowing DOGE, Eisenhower announced that he had created a three-man committee named the President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization. Eisenhower’s DOGE was composed of Eisenhower’s brother Milton, Nelson Rockefeller, and Arthur Flemming. Rockefeller, as we all know, was a very rich, successful businessman (sound familiar?), while Flemming was then serving as the Civil Service Commissioner.

In conclusion, the columnists ascertain that DOGE isn’t ‘unprecedented’ but that Donald Trump is simply doing it better than Eisenhower: “DOGE’s goals are far from a historical anomaly. But DOGE is novel in a different respect. For perhaps the first time in the administrative state’s history, America is looking to dismantle an until-now unquestioned and unchecked bureaucracy.”