Asked about president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to have Elon Musk draw up plans to radically overhaul the government and “send shockwaves” through Washington, key Republicans on the Hill had a slightly more muted message: Sure, we’ll take a look.
“I mean, they might make recommendations that we go ‘nah, not going to do that’,” Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who leads the panel that funds the Department of Interior and environmental agencies, said Wednesday. “But there’s nothing wrong with having an outside group of people looking at how you’re doing things and how you might be able to do them better.”
Trump announced a new “Department of Government Efficiency” Tuesday night, a non-governmental office with Musk and MAGA investor Vivek Ramaswamy at the helm. He promised “large scale structural reform,” and Musk has said it’s possible to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal budget by eradicating waste. (Whether in a year or over a decade, it’s not clear.) Ramaswamy’s vision includes crowdsourcing ideas from X users.
But importantly for any planned cuts, Congress still holds the purse strings. Any spending reductions need to run through appropriators on Capitol Hill, and lawmakers — even budget hawks friendly to the idea — are waiting to see the office’s actual recommendations.
“I’d be very interested in whatever they had to say,” House Appropriations Chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters. But he poured water on the prospect of the commission quickly taking out $2 trillion in discretionary spending — the levels his committee sets every year.
“Two trillion when you spend roughly six trillion a year — that’s hard to find,” he added. “That would actually push you into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, so I don’t know how real these figures are.”
“I don’t think they’re walking in with any preconceived notion that this needs to be cut,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who is running to lead the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We’ll have to see what they come up with.”
Musk has a fan in House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who said he was “excited” about the billionaire’s plans and even has some ideas of his own. “Of course, I’m going to try to meet with him. I got a plan I’d like to share with him,” he said.
Democrats were much more skeptical. “Tell me what you’re going to do. You’ve got a dollar amount, but where the hell are you going to find it and from whom?,” asked Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “There are a whole lot of people who want to deal with the appropriations process and don’t know anything about the appropriations process.”
Reporters Jennifer Scholtes and David Lim contributed to this report.
