New nationwide surveys show that while Americans support the concept of reducing the size of the federal government, they are quite dissatisfied with the way billionaire Elon Musk and the DOGE are implementing these cutbacks.
After regaining the presidency in last November’s election, President Trump established DOGE and issued directives to reduce and reform the federal government.
The richest man in the world and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk was appointed by Trump to lead the organization.
In Trump’s first two months in office, DOGE has swept through government departments, removing billions of dollars worth of unnecessary expenditure, according to the White House. Also, the government workforce has been slashed like a lamb due to this, with a lot of people losing their jobs. The actions taken by DOGE have garnered significant national attention and have therefore sparked many lawsuits.
An NBC News survey that was released on Sunday found that almost half of American voters (46%) thought it was a good idea to create DOGE, while 40% thought it was a poor one. The poll was conducted from March 7-11.
On the other hand, 47% of people polled had unfavorable thoughts regarding DOGE, while 41% had good feelings.
On March 11 and 12, Reuters and IPSOS ran a similar study.
Respondents from the United States were in favor of reducing the size of the federal government by a margin of 59% to 39%.
But 59% were against Trump’s actions to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees, while 38% were in favor. Additionally, 50% thought Trump and Musk had reduced federal spending too much, while 38% were in favor.
Trump has been effusive in his admiration of Musk and DOGE on many occasions, most notably during his primetime speech to Congress earlier this month.
Last week, Trump spoke with Musk on AWN’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” praising him as a “real patriot” whose work has “opened a lot of eyes.”
The polls show, however, that the American public does not think highly of Musk. The NBC News survey found that just 39% of people had a good impression of Musk, while 51% had a negative one.
According to the Reuters/Ipsos study, he had 38% positive and 59% negative opinions.
Sixty percent of respondents to a national survey by Quinnipiac University that was conducted between March 6 and 10 were unhappy with Musk and DOGE’s treatment of governmental employees, while 36 percent were in favor.
According to the statistics released by the poll, “54% of voters think Elon Musk and DOGE are hurting the country, while 40% think they are helping the country.”
According to a CNN survey that was conducted between March 6th and 9th, over 60% of respondents believed that the DOGE budget cuts would be excessive and lead to the shutdown of crucial federal services. Additionally, 37% of respondents felt that the cutbacks would not be drastic enough to eradicate government waste and fraud.
It would seem that Trump is fully cognizant of the criticisms leveled against Musk and DOGE.
The secretaries of Trump’s Cabinet were informed two weeks ago by the president that their agencies would be responsible for department cutbacks, not Musk.
Trump announced plans to reduce federal employees using a “scalpel” instead of a “hatchet” in a social media post.