People Are Talking About ALDOGE—Now Let’s DO Something!
I kicked an anthill a couple of days ago here and in The Alabama Gazette with my article “An Alabama DOGE? YES!” Shortly after it appeared, my phone started blowing up with people supporting it. Several of them said they’d had the same idea, and every one had an example of waste, fraud, abuse or just plain stupid spending that could be cut.
On Thursday, I even heard Alabama Policy Institute’s Stephanie Smith talking on the radio about their ALDOGE project, which she said they started back in December.
Apparently API is still A Thing. Who knew? I learn something every day…
Full disclosure: the first I heard about API’s ALDOGE thingy was a few hours after my article dropped. One of the people I’d asked for examples of wasteful spending for a follow up article told me about it. When I checked the API site, lo and behold, there it was. I did reach out to them on Wednesday, and left a message (nobody picked up the phone). As of late Thursday night (as this was being written) I hadn't heard back from them yet.
Kudos to API for starting this effort to collect examples of government waste in an organized way! It’s definitely worth doing. It’s also not surprising that both API and I (and a bunch of other people) came up with the ALDOGE name—it’s so blatantly obvious I’d be surprised if it WASN’T the first choice for our own home-grown version of what Elon Musk and Team DOGE are doing in DC.
Yes, giving people a place to sign in, then collect their information about wasteful spending is a great idea! It’s wonderful! Spiffy! Fine and dandy, even!
You know what’d be even better? Actually doing something about it.
So, here’s what I’m going to do: after this follow up goes live, I’m going to send it, and a link to my first piece, to my State Representative and Senator. I’m going to send it to several more people in Montgomery. I’m going to send it to a few current and former office holders, and a few potential candidates for office in 2026. Finally, I’m going to send it to the Governor’s Office, because if MeeMaw gets behind it (we love our MeeMaw!) it’s much more likely to happen this session.
And if it takes a special session to get us ALDOGE? Well, we know who’d be calling it, don’t we?
Is ALDOGE worth a special session? I think so, yes. I hope it won’t be necessary. Ideally, Governor Ivey will send a bill over, get sponsors in both the House and Senate, and get ‘er done. If I were doing it, I’d look at the Kentucky bills (I’ll link one below) that have been introduced to form their own KOGE and use them as a starting point.
Not to knock the State that sent Glitch Mitch McConnell to the Senate SEVEN times, but if they can do it we certainly can. And ALDOGE is infinitely better than KOGE. Sorry, not sorry, Kentucky.
Governor Ivey has sent over a $3.7 billion General Fund Budget and a $9.9 billion Education Trust Fund Budget. Both are the largest in our State’s history. We’d all like to think there’s no waste, fraud and abuse in there, but judging by what I’ve heard the last couple of days, well…there is. And if ALDOGE only found 1% of the budget that could be saved, that’d be $136 million.
Let that sink in. $136 million. $136,000,000 that could be used to fix potholes, build bridges, or resurface roads. $136 million that could fund healthcare or education.
I’d even say it might be returned to the taxpayers, but we all know THAT’S never going to happen.
I think the 1% figure is probably low, but until we get ALDOGE up and running, we’ll never know. I’ve got at least 136 million reasons to want ALDOGE, and I don't much care who gets credit for it, so long as it gets done.
I’ve told you what I’m going to do to try to make it happen.
Now, what are you going to do?
Read “An Alabama DOGE? YES!”: https://www.alabamagazette.com/story/2025/02/07/opinion/an-alabama-doge-yes/5577.html (on Substack it’s HERE)
Read Kentucky’s SB257: https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/recorddocuments/bill/25RS/sb257/orig_bill.pdf
Follow Doc Contrarian everywhere or contact him by email from his AllMyLinks page, where you can also find his Amazon #1 book Beyond MAGA.