In its proposed form, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seemed both intriguing and a little dodgy. As a fiscal conservative, I found its establishment long overdue. I’ve always wanted improved fiscal responsibility at every level of government, from small towns here in Maine all the way to the top.

Trump’s proposal to create DOGE wasn’t quite as bold, nor as serious, as Paul Ryan’s budget proposal was — but it was something. One of Trump’s major flaws has been his abandonment of fiscal conservatism as a whole. Sure, he cut taxes in his first term, but he never seriously considered any major spending cuts.

Even with his continued insistence that he’d never touch Social Security or Medicaid, DOGE seemed to be at least a slight nod to fiscal conservatism, promising to restore some fiscal sanity to the federal government. It’s certainly unconventional to give broad authority over the effort to the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk. However, bringing in smart people from outside government to rethink how things are done isn’t a bad idea in and of itself.

So far, though, it’s fallen far short of Musk’s grandiose goal of a trillion dollars in cuts. Just as there’s a lot more to fiscal responsibility than simply cutting taxes, there’s a lot more to fiscal responsibility than simply cutting spending. We need to go through the federal budget and determine exactly where there is real waste that can be eliminated, rather than simply looking for spending that can be cut anywhere.

Some agencies, like the National Weather Service, serve a vital purpose that saves lives. It might be wise to increase that agency’s funding, rather than cut it. There are other agencies that may be doing important work, but don’t need to be an agency of their own, while there are others again that are entirely unnecessary. The difficult task is to sort every agency — and, indeed, individual positions — of our vast federal government into those categories.

DOGE, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be doing that work. Instead, it seems to be issuing blanket edicts and dismissals without a thorough consideration of the consequences of its actions. The concept of DOGE is a good one, but as things stand, it’s not being implemented in a wise way. We’ve already seen it backtrack on a number of actions, implying that perhaps they weren’t carefully thought out to begin with; others are being held up as they’re challenged in the courts.

All is not lost with DOGE, however. There’s still a chance for it to be effective and a real vehicle for true cost-saving. First and foremost, it has to start making sure that any information it shares with the public is correct; that hasn’t always been the case thus far.

There are, no doubt, plenty of people fraudulently receiving Social Security benefits — but it’s simply not on the grand scale DOGE has claimed in its releases. So, find the real fraud, get the numbers and claims right, then share accurate information with the public.

Next, DOGE and Musk need to stop antagonizing members of both the House and Senate from both parties and start working with them. There are people on Capitol Hill in both parties with good ideas to cut spending, ranging from sweeping and revolutionary proposals to individual contracts, positions and agencies. Develop a real plan with them to find ways that taxpayer dollars can be used more effectively. This doesn’t mean yet another pointless commission whose recommendations are never adopted; instead it means unearthing the ideas that have already been there for years.

So far, DOGE has been going in dozens of different directions across the federal government simultaneously trying to uncover “waste, fraud and abuse.” It has made some real progress, but it has also unnecessarily antagonized people, undermining its own efforts.

Hopefully, after a bumpy start, it can do a course correction; thoughtless spending cuts are just as bad — and, at times, worse — than thoughtless spending itself.

Finding the middle ground is difficult, but vitally important. Musk and Trump are absolutely right that federal spending is out of control and needs to be reined in. That needs to be done in a responsible and legal way.