Two weeks after President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican party won the 2024 U.S. election, the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is already hard at work recruiting staff and calling for the federal tax code to be dramatically simplified. Given that DOGE currently consists, so far as anybody knows, of two tech bros and an X account, that’s a promising start. In truth, DOGE will have no enforcement authority and looks like a Hail-Mary pass of a reform effort. But maybe — hopefully — it can succeed in tackling the bloated U.S. government where others failed.