S.C. DOGE bill very different from Musk’s effort

Despite national polls showing growing voter skepticism about billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative to slash federal spending, South Carolina GOP leaders have made it clear they’re all in, with public statements of support and a high-profile legislative effort to bring the concept to the Palmetto State.

“Washington needs to remove wasteful spending and balance its budget to achieve long-term fiscal stability, promote economic growth, and protect our national security,” Gov. Henry McMaster wrote in a Jan. 10 letter signed by 26 Republican governors. “We applaud President Trump for prioritizing government efficiency and stand ready to help DOGE—and Congress—be successful.”

S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, a likely contender to replace the term-limited McMaster in 2026, has gone even further, joining 19 Republican AGs in filing a federal court brief defending the initiative.

“It was the Biden administration that estimated there’s between $233 billion and $521 billion in federal government waste, fraud, and abuse, and President Trump is combating that and saving taxpayers’ money,” Wilson said in a Feb. 15 release announcing the legal filing. “While that should be a bipartisan effort, the other side has filed a lawsuit to undermine the President’s authority to manage the executive branch.”

But experts say a new DOGE proposal tailored by state legislators for South Carolina differs significantly from the federal initiative that GOP leaders support. In fact, they say, the Palmetto State plan seems more about borrowing the DOGE branding than similar substance.

“Appropriating the name is really an ‘emulate your heroes’ kind of thing, as well as a way to give [the proposal] recognizability,” Winthrop political scientist Scott Huffmon told Statehouse Report on Feb. 18. “Especially for partisans, if Trump is doing this and South Carolina is doing it too, then [they think] I like it, even if it’s not really the same thing.”

And to understand why it’s not the same, it helps to stand back and look at each DOGE separately.

Musk’s DOGE

The DOGE initiative, formally dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency in a Jan. 20 executive order, aims to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget by slashing programs and radically reducing the federal workforce.

Crucially, those cuts and job reductions are all currently being made by Musk and his team solely at the direction of the president, without congressional approval. Or as Musk put it in a post-election Wall Street Journal op-ed, DOGE works “through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.”

To date, Musk claims to have saved taxpayers $55 billion, though budget watchdogs have questioned the math. For instance, DOGE officials recently claimed to have cancelled a federal contract worth $8 billion, but were forced to backtrack when a federal database showed the contract was only valued at $8 million.

But with more than a dozen lawsuits already filed by DOGE opponents and several injunctions already in place, experts say it’s impossible to know how many of Musk’s cuts and job reductions will ultimately survive judicial scrutiny.

The S.C. Senate’s DOGE

S.C. Senate Bill 318, dubbed “the DOGE bill” by primary sponsor Sen. Stephen Goldfinch (R-Georgetown), may have the same goals as Musk’s DOGE, but experts say it actually looks like something far more familiar to S.C. voters — a blue-ribbon commission with the power to review government procedures and write a report, not to make actual cuts.

But that hasn’t stopped Senate Democrats from opposing the bill — or from mocking GOP legislators for hunting waste, fraud and abuse in a state they’ve run for a generation.

“The Republicans have held the House, Senate and Governor’s Mansion for twenty-plus years,” S.C. Sen. Ed Sutton (D-Charleston) said in a Feb. 17 statement. “If there’s any waste in the state, it’s because they put it there.”

And at a Feb. 18 S.C. Senate Finance Committee hearing, Colleton County Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews questioned the whole point of the exercise.

“If we’re just doing this to look good for the rest of the nation, then let’s call it what it is and not waste our time on this,” Matthews said.

Still, Republicans say the bill has merit, particularly in a state where the state budget has doubled from $6 billion to $12 billion over the past decade.

“A lot of times, we hear from our constituents, but we’re insulated, and we don’t always know what the problems are out there,” Goldfinch told his colleagues. “This is a great way to find out what the actual problems are.”

Meanwhile, Winthrop’s Huffmon noted the fundamental difference between the S.C. DOGE process and the one playing out in Washington, regardless of the branding similarities.

“With [S.C. DOGE], you can be seen as doing something serious, the same way Donald Trump is,” Huffmon said. “But the legislature doesn’t actually have to take the recommendations, so it may be something where they pick and choose or it may just be an extremely symbolic action.”

S. 318 passed 18-3 in the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 18 and is now awaiting action on the floor of the Senate.