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On the Ballot Episode 166 NPR 90s lessons for DOGE

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On The Ballot is a podcast presented by Ballotpedia that connects people to politics.

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Episode #166

What DOGE can learn from Clinton's effort to 'reinvent government' in the '90s

On this episode: Dr. Elaine Kamarck helped lead the National Performance Review in the 90s as part of the Clinton administration. It was nicknamed REGO for “reinventing government,” and focused on cutting wasteful spending and inefficiencies in federal programs, workforce reductions, and decentralizing authority…sound familiar?

The National Performance Review represents one of the most recent ventures by the federal government similar to what President Donald Trump and Elon Musk hopes to do with the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE. With the administration’s agenda starting to take shape, we thought it’d be a great time to talk with someone like Elaine to explore her perspective on DOGE and hear about her experience spearheading one of the last major federal efforts to make the government more efficient. Her advice: "Cut the government with a scalpel,not an axe."

Our guest:

  • Dr. Elaine Kamarck – A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former leader of the National Performance Review. Kamarck provides a firsthand account of past reform efforts and discusses the feasibility of DOGE’s agenda.

Learn more about:
On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.

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