President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which will be led by tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, appears to be inspired by the popular Silicon Valley motto “Move fast to lead.” When it comes to the federal government, however, this is a recipe for disaster.

The incoming president is right that the public deserves a more efficient government. That is why the Partnership for Public Service, where I am chairman and chief executive, has spent more than 20 years advocating for reforms to build a more modern and dynamic government. But proposals to arbitrarily lay off huge numbers of the workforce or eliminate vital agencies like the FBI would endanger essential public services and national security.

DOGE will not be the first attempt to bring a “business perspective” to government reform. For decades, presidents have created similar groups, made up of corporate and government chiefs, to streamline federal agencies and fight waste, fraud and abuse. The results were mixed.

Business authorities have an important place in government reform. But running government like a business—especially a tech startup—simply won’t work.

The fundamental purpose of government is to ensure public safety and represent the public interest when dealing with social, economic and political problems. Efficiency is important, but reliability and accountability are even more so. If hospitals treated more patients, for example, but rushed critical diagnoses, the consequences would be severe.

When a private company dissolves, customers lose access to its goods and products. But the market, the theory goes, will eventually provide alternatives. In government, a total restart would create gaps in critical services and could lead to a loss of social security benefits, unsanitary food and water, or inadequate responses to natural disasters.

Calls for government efficiency have real value. The government should indeed use its resources wisely, and it already has a central oversight agency as well as inspectors general in nearly every federal agency. Instead of “breaking” the government, the DOGE should start by implementing many of the good ideas these organizations have identified.

Here are three additional suggestions for how the DOGE could pursue a more accountable and effective government.

First, the new administration should choose leaders who are capable managers of large organizations and who will prioritize defining current government functions, not just announcing new policies.

All political appointees should have performance plans, as career civil servants currently do, and those plans should be made public and used to hold agency heads accountable. These plans should also ensure that service programs deliver concrete results and that the high-level workforce is equipped to respond. They should also have high expectations in hiring qualified staff and evaluating how employees respond in the workplace to improve performance.

Second, Congress should reform the appropriations process so that agencies receive predictable funding.

Lawmakers haven’t approved funds on time in nearly three decades, instead relying on threats of shutdowns and funding cuts or continuing resolutions to keep the government running. This forces organizations to waste time and money planning shutdowns, disrupt critical services, and halt investment in long-term innovation.

First, Congress should prioritize bipartisan legislation that would automatically continue government funding for agencies when Congress and the president miss budget deadlines.

Third, instead of resorting to cuts in federal services, agencies and Congress should prioritize a full menu of options to make them more up-to-date and workable for citizens.

This should include updating the government’s antiquated IT systems, investing in the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence, making it easier for companies to share customer data, and enacting recruitment reform that will allow government to better match the private sector. sector in talent recruitment.

At DOGE, Musk and Ramaswamy have a real opportunity to make the US government work better. Our federal government definitely needs improvement. But there are better alternatives to move the plan forward.

Max Stier is president and CEO of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.