US govt. can 'tighten the belt on contracts': Frmr. FDIC official

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to lead President-elect Donald Trump's proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chief innovation officer Sultan Meghji joins Seana Smith and Madison Mills on Catalysts to discuss his expectations for DOGE and government efficiency under Trump.

"Fundamentally, getting the people in the government on their toes is going to be the biggest thing. Everything from procurement to standard operating processes all predate the existence of the fax machine, so, just getting people to wake up and realize that we don't have to do things the same way they were done before," Meghji says.

Despite the former official saying there are opportunities to cut spending and improve efficiency, he notes, "I'm not sure how much he's going to be able to get done because it's not a government agency, and to create a government agency, you have to get Congress to sign off on it and then has to follow the rules that the US government has and that's a lot of work."

Meghji highlights artificial intelligence as "a tremendous opportunity" that is "one that doesn't require a lot of legal change" to implement and improve efficiency.

He notes, "Less than 50% of the federal budget is discretionary in any way, and so there is a bunch of stuff that's just preloaded," adding that spending on outside contractors could likely be managed to improve efficiency. "Those contracts are much more easily managed than an act of Congress and so the ability for the US government to tighten the belt on contracts is very high."

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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.