With the success of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at rooting out government waste, many have wondered if someone could do the same thing at the state level in Alabama.
This was the impetus for the Alabama Policy Institute (API) to create the Alabama Department of Government Efficiency, or ALDOGE.
In a recent announcement, the Birmingham-based think tank said it has served as the unofficial state DOGE for 35 years, advocating for conservative principles of smaller government and fiscal responsibility.
API president and CEO Stephanie Smith explained on a recent episode of "1819 News: The Podcast" how the state has been too bullish on collecting taxes and passing record-high budgets.
"[M]y perspective is that government should be run on a bare-bones budget. And that hasn't been the case for almost, for about 16 years," Smith said. "The budget shifted around. We've been in budget surplus, which means basically they've been taxing us too much since 2016. Both of the budgets have been in surplus. If you'll recall, the state of Alabama citizens, our taxpayers have only gotten a return on that money in a rebate fashion, about 300 bucks apiece during the COVID situation or just after the COVID situation. So my perspective is maybe a little bit different than the reality of what's happening in Montgomery right now, which is that there is a lot of supplemental spending."
Smith said that after meeting Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the original leaders of DOGE alongside Elon Musk, she realized that DOGE was doing what API had been doing all along.
"This is what API has done since I was in elementary school. API has served basically as ALDOGE just without the star power for a lot of years. We created the actual structure of ALDOGE in December and launched it in December. We have been taking calls, emails, having private conversations with lawmakers, with statewide elected officials, with members of the general public, of people giving us information about where they think that efficiency could be increased and cuts can be made. And…our staff is using our expertise and our historical knowledge of the budgets and also finding things that we think that need to be cut and need to be made more efficient as well."
Smith mentioned the state's overtime tax exemption, which is due to expire this year, and how odd it seemed for a Democrat to push for less taxes in a Republican-super majority. House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (R-Huntsville) sponsored the bill that passed in 2023. House Speaker Nathanial Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) recently said he was uncertain if the provision would be extended.
"[T]hat is interesting to me, it's such a weird juxtaposition with Anthony Daniels, but it's also one of those things that Donald Trump pushed in the election process," she said. "He said no taxes on tips and eliminate the overtime tax. We were the first state to eliminate the overtime tax. He adopted that as a mantra, used it in the campaign and is still talking about that as federal tax policy. So we have this Republican supermajority who's going to go against Donald Trump right now. That's going to be interesting."
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