Mega-billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are coming to Capitol Hill today to talk about their much-hyped effort to cut government spending and streamline the federal bureaucracy.
The meeting is at 3 p.m., after the Senate leaves town for the week. (The rhythms of Congress are hard. It takes everyone time to learn.)
President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” — also known as DOGE, named for the memecoin backed by Musk — is best thought of as a mercenary-like effort.
Unlike previous spending-reduction initiatives, DOGE has no statutory authority or fast-track floor process, and Hill leaders have no idea how they’ll handle any of the proposed spending cuts offered by Musk and Ramaswamy.
We’d also note the idea of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse is hardly a novel idea. Just ask Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul!
Yet it’d be foolish to underestimate this effort. After spending roughly $200 million to help Trump win, Musk is very close to the president-elect. And much like when they took over the House in 2011, Republicans have a newfound “zeal,” as Speaker Mike Johnson put it, for shrinking the federal government.
Yet there are massive hurdles here for Musk, Ramaswamy and congressional Republicans. Not the least of which is that spending cuts are great until they impact one’s own constituents. Then it gets hard.
Let’s talk about the hurdles:
– Musk claimed he could cut “at least $2 trillion,” although without saying how or over what time period. Trump has shown no interest in overhauling entitlement programs. In fact, Trump has proposed cutting taxes on Social Security benefits.
But Medicaid funding is one likely target. Slashing discretionary spending, which amounts to roughly one-fourth of overall federal spending ($1.7 trillion out of $6.8 trillion overall) can’t yield enough savings to eliminate the deficit without enormous political fallout for Republican members and senators.
– Will Musk and Ramaswamy want to cut Pentagon spending? GOP defense hawks vigorously defend every last penny sent to the Pentagon — and have done so for years.
– Lastly, Musk and Ramaswamy have to deal with a very closely divided House. Johnson can’t lose a single vote on any bill during the first few months of 2025.
The GOP leadership’s view. There’s a bull view and a bear view on the Musk-Ramaswamy initiative.
We spoke to Johnson Wednesday afternoon and got an optimistic view of the effort.
Johnson said he’s been in close contact with Musk and Ramaswamy and will bring in committee chairs so they can be “directly involved” in any proposed spending cuts (Good luck getting lawmakers to downsize programs that, in many cases, they created).
Johnson also conceded that he has no idea how Congress will process any spending cuts that DOGE suggests. Johnson said he hasn’t thought about whether he’d try to pass a bill to give DOGE-backed proposals guaranteed floor consideration without amendments in the House and a filibuster-proof vote in the Senate, as Congress did with the so-called super committee in 2011.
Johnson added that he wouldn’t “say now what’s on or off … the table” when asked if Pentagon cuts are in the cards.
Here’s the bear case, as described by a senior Republican aide:
GOP rank and file. Rank-and-file Republicans, for the most part, are throwing themselves at Musk and Ramaswamy — meaning Trump. Both the House and Senate have already formed DOGE caucuses. Johnson OK’d the creation of a DOGE subcommittee on the House Oversight panel to amplify Musk and Ramaswamy’s efforts.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the leader of the Senate group, will host a meeting with Ramaswamy this morning prior to the broader afternoon session. Ernst said she sent the DOGE team “a lot of materials” they can use for Trump executive orders before Congress acts.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), co-chair of the House’s DOGE caucus, has already launched a tipline — doge@mail.house.gov — to get public input about their effort. Bean also wants to roll out a website to track any savings.
“What I worry about is, the iron is hot, we know it’s the time to strike, but I don’t want it to cool off, and we forget about it,” Bean told us.
So far, at least 40 members have joined the caucus, including some Democrats.
The heaviest lift. The biggest skeptics of this effort are, naturally, appropriators. And some of them are already warning Musk and Ramaswamy to operate with a scalpel — not a hatchet.
Veteran Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), an appropriations cardinal, said he has “no problem with outside eyes looking at how we do things.”
But Simpson said the “challenge” is going to come if “they come in and say, ‘Government shouldn’t be doing this, so we’re going to eliminate this.’ That’s a policy decision that Congress needs to make.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, had an even blunter view on the DOGE project: “Zero authority. It’s a gang of two. … It’s the Congress that makes these determinations.”
