In all of those scenarios you still have to deal with the impact of shutting down agencies like USAID.
Elon says things like USAID is a ball of worms, it needs to be scrapped, and if they cut too much they'll roll it back. How? The people getting fired aren't going to stick around waiting for a roll back and, if they're wrong about it being 100% waste, the people that die because they're reliant on those outreach programs can't be brought back to life. It's not software. You can't roll back mistakes that have an immediate human impact.
The risk and fallout of being wrong are so significant that they way they're going about it is reckless. There's also a risk they'll simply claim they were 100% right and no one has any way of verifying it. It's like Bush standing in front of the Mission Accomplished banner. What was the mission and how was it determined to be a success?
And that's the main issue. There's no objective measure for success. That makes debunking false claims of success extremely difficult and time consuming. It takes 5 minutes for Musk to do an interview saying they cut $4 billion of waste by shutting down USAID and an extraordinary amount of work for anyone trying to prove the worth of what they're doing.
That's even more true for anything that's subjective like the value of good will or for anything that seems so obviously beneficial that you never thought you'd need to justify, so didn't keep data proving the value. It's like being accused of being a criminal and having the burden of proof fall on you to prove you've never committed a crime. How do you account for your entire life?
I could be swayed by the argument that security clearances and controlled access to information could be abused to prevent scrutiny, so there's probably some merit in trying to short circuit that stuff, but the way it's done matters. For example, issue an executive order to expedite security clearances for the outsiders you want on the team or create a new class of security clearance where those people get blanket access but have to adhere to controls that prevent data exfiltration.
We have the technology to make sure data isn't tampered with. The DOGE team could be working on-site, creating and digitally signing reports on waste they want to see cut, sending those reports to congress, and auditing to make sure congress sees every report they've signed.
I can see the value in outsider access to data with the intent of bypassing entrenched interests, but unilaterally shutting things down without any oversight or debate is a step too far. At a minimum, those shutdowns should be accompanied by transparent reports detailing the waste, especially when the determination that something is wasteful is subjective.