WASHINGTON: It’s DOGE time at the US Capitol. Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are expected on Capitol Hill on Thursday, meeting with legislators behind closed doors about President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to “dismantle” the federal government.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with firing federal workers, cutting government programmes and slashing federal regulations — all part of what he calls his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
“I think that’ll be a great start to the whole process,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who will chair a House Oversight subcommittee in the new year as part of “building the bridge between Congress and DOGE.” Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that historically have run into resistance when the public is confronted with cuts to trusted programmes that millions of Americans depend on for jobs, health care, military security and everyday needs.
But this time Trump is staffing his administration with battle-tested architects of sweeping proposals, some outlined in Project 2025, to severely reduce and reshape the government. Musk and Ramaswamy said they plan to work alongside the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Trump’s nominee Russ Vought, a mastermind of past cuts.
“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the onslaught.” The duo were invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson to visit Capitol Hill and face a first test in private with House and Senate lawmakers — some eager to hear what they have in mind.
“I am fired up to go out and do something,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who joined with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, in launching what they are calling the DOGE caucus in the House, with more than 50 Republicans and two Democratic members.
Bean said the DOGE caucus will unveil an email tip line where people can report wasteful spending. He also envisions a scoreboard of sorts that people can view on a website showing “how many positions we’ve cut, agencies we’ve cut, what the actual number is.” In the Senate, Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa and Rick Scott, R-Fla., have launched a similar caucus.
While neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have much public service experience, they bring track records in private business — Musk’s operations have vast government contracts — and enthusiasm for Trump’s agenda, having campaigned alongside him in the final stretch of the election. The world’s richest man, Musk poured millions into a get-out-the-vote effort to help the former president return to the White House. He is known politically for having transformed the popular social media site formerly known as Twitter into X, a platform embraced by Trump’s MAGA enthusiasts.
Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor part of the government, which frees Musk and Ramaswamy from having to go through the typical ethics and background checks required for federal employment. They said they will not be paid for their work. One good-government group has said that DOGE, as a presidential advisory panel, should be expected to adhere to traditional practices of transparency, equal representation and public input — as happened with similar advisory entities from the Reagan to the Obama administrations.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act “is designed expressly for situations like this,” wrote Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, the co-chairs of Public Citizen in a letter to the Trump transition team. “If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable persons to make recommendations as grand as USD 2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure those recommendations come from a balanced and transparent process not rigged to benefit insiders.” The nation’s USD 6 trillion federal budget routinely runs a deficit, which this year ran USD 1.8 trillion, a historic high, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than two decades ago.
Republicans generally blame what they see as exorbitant spending for the deficit, while Democrats point to tax cuts enacted under Republican presidents Trump and George W. Bush as the major driver. Receipts last year as a percentage of gross domestic product came in just below the average for the past 50 years, while outlays were equal to 23.4 per cent of GDP, compared to the 50-year average of 21.1 per cent.
Some of the biggest increases in spending last year occurred with politically popular programmes that lawmakers will be reticent to touch. For example, spending on Social Security benefits went up 8 per cent, Medicare outlays increased 9 per cent, spending on defence went up 7 per cent and spending on veterans health care rose 14 per cent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he would like to see Musk testify before the House Armed Services Committee on the “bloated defence budget.” “I’d like to see Elon recommend some cuts. Let’s have him testify,” Khanna said. He said he’s open to hearing proposals on non-defence spending, but was sceptical.
“If they find waste, maybe, but in terms of big numbers, I mean, no one is going to allow for cutting education funding for special needs kids and for low-income schools, or for cutting Social Security and Medicare,” Khanna said.
