Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) just keeps digging, and boy howdy, are they ever drawing some attention, both positive and negative. One person who is looking at DOGE's efforts with a smile is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), who sang the DOGE's praises on Fox News' "Life, Liberty & Levin" show with host Mark Levin on Saturday.

'TRULY REVOLUTIONARY’: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) praises Elon Musk’s impact in an interview with @marklevinshow saying Democrats will be “afraid of the final result.” pic.twitter.com/uD8V9vSMdd

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 16, 2025

The Speaker said:

Now Elon, he has cracked the code. He is on the inside of the belly of the beast, Mark, and he is unveiling, he is revealing, all of these things that we knew intuitively were happening, but we didn't have the evidence. This is a game-changer. It is truly revolutionary. And we're going to restore, ultimately, through this process, the federal government to the original intent of the Founders, and that's what has the big governments, (sic) socialist liberals, the Democrat Party, apoplectic, because they're afraid of what the final result of this is going to be. It's very exciting for the people.

It's exciting, all right; this second Trump administration, if this plays out as we hope, may accomplish what Barack Obama claimed to want but was unable to do - to fundamentally transform the federal government. Of course, Obama would have transformed it for the worse; Trump is making things better. If he achieves nothing more than swinging a war-axe at wasteful government spending, he will be able to claim success for his second term.

See Related: Protesters Come Out Against Elon at Tesla Stores, but They Have a 'Small' Problem

WINNING: DOGE Recovers $1.9 BILLION That Housing and Urban Development 'Misplaced' During Biden Admin

But let's focus for a moment on the Speaker's remark that the administration and Congress are going to "...restore, ultimately, through this process, the federal government to the original intent of the Founders..."

What does that mean? Well, a few things come to mind:

- Repeal the 16th Amendment, eliminating the income tax.

- Repeal the 17th Amendment, which required the direct election of senators. Return to senators being appointed by the state legislatures.

- Eliminate, permanently, any federal agency, department, or office that is not specifically authorized by the Constitution.

That would be a good place to start.

While Speaker Johnson makes some good points in discussing DOGE's efforts, it's a safe bet that by "the intent of the Founders," he didn't mean all this. While it would be wonderful, from the viewpoint of a staunch minarchist (me) to return the federal government to what it was in 1800, that's not on the menu. Politics is the art of the possible, and that's just not happening. 

But there's no reason we can't take it back to say, pre-WW2. As I've written before, before 1941 the only contact most Americans had with the federal government was when they went to the post office. With some major reforms to our system of taxation and the size and scope of the federal government, there's no reason we couldn't get back to that point.

Reducing a couple of trillion dollars in stupidly wasteful spending is still worth doing, though, and DOGE may well be able to hit that goal.