President Donald Trump’s Department Of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, began dominating the deep state before dominating the headlines.
To rein in the administrative state, DOGE has taken over the offices of what was formerly the U.S. Digital Service. The U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal agencies have come under scrutiny from the White House, which called these agencies “pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”
Ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, the president said in a Fox News interview that he would “very soon” be giving Musk the go-ahead to similarly investigate and reform the Department of Education and the Pentagon.
But DOGE is more than just a project of the executive branch. Its ambitious goals are now being pushed by caucuses in both houses of Congress, as well as by a House oversight subcommittee.
On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., will convene for its first hearing, “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., seen here at the Capitol on May 8, 2024, is set to chair a hearing Wednesday of the new House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
A number of members of the subcommittee told The Daily Signal how the hearing is meant to run parallel to Musk’s efforts.
The hearing will be focused on alleged “fraudulent and improper payments” by the Biden administration related to Medicaid and pandemic-era spending, Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., told The Daily Signal.
Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, said in a written statement that the subcommittee would identify excessive spending and practices that it deems wasteful or corrupt.
“This hearing and committee will work to highlight the spending secrets that Washington is desperately working to keep hidden from the American people,” Cloud said.
Subcommittee member Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, likewise said that he would focus on “slashing waste and returning [Americans’] tax dollars where they belong—back in their own pockets.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., another member of the panel, told The Daily Signal that he is encouraged by Trump’s apparent intentions to expand such audits across the federal government, even into the Pentagon.
“Now, you have federal employees complaining that they have to come back to work, to show up [for the first time] in years,” said Burchett. “And they don’t even live in the same towns that they once did, but they’re still working through the same offices—as if that’s the fault of the taxpayers. And I think that’s a great thing. I’d like to see that expanded throughout all of the federal workforce.”
The next big test of whether congressional Republicans mean business with regard to reining in spending is the budget reconciliation process, in which Congress will make key decisions on spending and taxation, and funding Trump’s ambitious campaign promises.
Burchett said that while he was disappointed that congressional leadership had not consulted him and his fiscally conservative allies as of Friday, the Republicans’ slim House majority means that leadership would eventually have to hear his case for deeper cuts on spending.
“The problem with [the draft version of the reconciliation bill] right now, there’s four of us that have really consistently held the line on this type of thing and across-the-board spending excesses, and yet the four of us have not been contacted officially on any of the plans, so I would like to see that change. They’re going to have to get with us. The margins are too thin.”
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