First, it was just a joke. Now everybody wants to DOGE.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who steadily guided the nation for years during the pandemic while leadership in DC most resembled a rabid chipmunk, is not exactly easing gently into his lame-duck term. With less than two years to go, he’s swinging for the political fences. The Tallahassee Democrat ran the story under the headline, “Gov. DeSantis establishes Florida version of DOGE, will cut positions, audit universities.” (Some sources are calling it FLOGE, which in my view is too close to floogie. “Florida DOGE” will be fine, thank you.)
CLIP: DeSantis announces one-year state DOGE task force (1:40).
The Governor’s one-year task force will apply DOGE therapy to over 70 state “boards” now targeted for fiscal destruction. DeSantis also mentioned 170,000+ state regulations that were either outdated or plain harmful. He announced plans to cut 900 positions — a potential 9 million dollar annual savings (Portland readers: that’s 90 million every ten years).
The Task Force will DOGE state universities and colleges, by diving deeply into “university operations and spending.” Far beyond finances, DeSantis said the task force would examine college course catalogs and staffing to “ensure that Florida students receive an education that will best equip them to gain meaningful employment after graduation.”
In other words, say ‘adiós’ to majors in marxist theory of transgendered indigenous swamp ecology. (I.e., reptiles.)
Perhaps best of all, DeSantis said his new DOGE task force will investigate local government spending, publishing city and county public spending records “in a digestible way for the taxpayers.” An AI-powered, searchable database of local spending would inject rocket fuel into the engine of citizen-led clean government, which in blue holdout areas like mine are frankly disgusting, clogged with nontransparent grease and loony social spending gunk.
Second, at the same press event, DeSantis teased another crowd favorite idea, which was reported in the Florida Phoenix headlined, “At DOGE presser, DeSantis again floats concept of ending property taxes in Florida.”
It was just as the headline described; DeSantis has been arguing lately that local property taxes should be abolished, for all the usual reasons. Florida Democrats are outraged, since Florida’s blue cities are terrifically overfunded, providing local progressives with miniature but generous USAID-style slush funds. Yesterday, Lee County Republican Senator Jonathan Martin filed a bill that would require the State’s office of economic research to study how the property tax change could work, which would require amending the Florida Constitution. So far, the bill has no co-sponsors, and was given a high bill number— for now, it looks unlikely to go anywhere. But the conversation has