SC Legislators Seek To Establish State Version of DOGE

Following the Trump administration’s creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, South Carolina legislators seek to establish a version of DOGE at the state level.

DOGE, which is headed by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, was created by Trump to cut government jobs and spending as well as only limiting hiring for “essential jobs.”

The department has been controversial since its founding, shutting down important government offices like USAID with Musk labeling it a “criminal organization” and accessing sensitive data from the Treasury Department and the IRS.

Now, some South Carolina state legislators want to create a similar organization to operate at the state level.

State Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, a Republican who represents Murrells Inlet, is one of the primary sponsors of the resolution along with State Rep. Davey Hiott. Goldfinch said he drafted the legislation because there is “100 percent” a problem at the state level.

"I'm ready to fix some things. So if the question is, 'is it an admission of guilt that we haven't done what we should have done?' Yeah, the answer is 'yes.' But I'm ready to fix it,” Goldfinch said to The Post and Courier.

Goldfinch was quick to clarify during a Senate committee meeting that the state version of DOGE would not be the same as the federal version of DOGE, noting that the state budget is notably smaller than the federal budget.

He said the South Carolina version of DOGE would focus more on the issue of the state government “over-promising and under-delivering.”

If the nine-person non-member commission were to be created, its primary responsibility would be to survey the current structure and funding of the state government and its organizations and create a report with suggestions for making the systems more modern and more efficient.

In addition to the bill being debated in the Senate, the State House is currently collecting public feedback on some government agencies including the Department of Insurance and the State Department of Education, to work on making the departments more efficient.

State House Speaker Murrell Smith spoke in favor of the resolution to reporters.

"I think the beauty of a 'DOGE' is that you're bringing people from outside government and having them to take a look at what's going on in agencies, whether there are efficiencies to be had and whether there are savings to be had," Smith told The Post and Courier. "That is what you need. You need an outsider approach because that's a different analysis than an insider approach from legislators."

Democrats were quick to point out that Republicans have had a trifecta in the state government for close to 30 years so any inefficiencies or overspending were a result of their policies.

The state Democratic party said that the commission would be a “redundant bureaucracy in a GOP-controlled state,” and that it would “waste taxpayer dollars on yet another government entity.”

“Don’t be fooled. This is political theater at taxpayers’ expense,” the party wrote in a post on Twitter (X).

The legislation is currently being debated in the Senate Finance Committee.