by Adam Pack
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s plans to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government’s nearly $7 trillion budget through President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are starting to gain support from a significant group: Democratic lawmakers.
Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz is the first Democratic lawmaker to join the House DOGE Caucus controlled As of Tuesday by Republicans Aaron Bean of Florida and Pete Sessions of Texas press release.
“Today. I will join the Congressional DOGE Caucus because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing inefficient government spending should not be a partisan issue,” Moskowitz wrote. “I have made clear that there are ways to reorganize our government to make it work better for the American people “.
The Florida Democrat is asking DOGE to study the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget and has suggested that the commission recommend creating the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – currently controlled by DHS – as independent agencies, according to a press release from Moskowitz.
“According to the folks at DOGE, if Vivek and Elon are listening, they should look at Homeland [Security Department]“Moskowitz he said during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency on November 19, during which the Florida Democrat advocated for DHS reform.
Moskowitz’s Democratic Party colleague, California Republican Ro Khanna, also expressed support for DOGE, particularly regarding the commission’s potential to cut the nearly $900 billion Department of Defense (DoD) budget.
“Let me present an area where bilateral cooperation could exist. I mean, the defense budget is almost a trillion dollars,” Khanna he said CNN’s Jim Acosta, November 25, clearly expressing support for DOGE. “There have been a huge number of reports of waste, fraud and abuse in this budget. The Pentagon has failed an audit – it has not passed the last six or seven audits.”
“If they find areas of really wasteful spending across the government, they will be supported,” Khanna added.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders echoed Khanna’s support for DOGE reforming the Department of Defense budget.
“Elon Musk is right” – Sanders he wrote in the post on X on Sunday. “The Pentagon, with an $886 billion budget, just failed its seventh audit in a row. He lost count of the billions. Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget riddled with waste and fraud. This has to change.”
Republicans who joined Voting against Sanders’s fiscal year 2024 national defense authorization bill were Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Mike Braun of Indiana. Most Republican lawmakers, including Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the future chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spokesman to raise military spending.
DOGE Senate Club, led GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, currently includes no Democratic members.
DOGE has no statutory authority to reform the government’s budget and plans to do so cooperate with the White House Office of Management and Budget to provide cost-cutting recommendations, according to an article published by Vivek and Ramaswamy in the Wall Street Journal on November 20. Given that Congress appropriates money that constitutes the president’s budget, DOGE will likely need congressional support to implement the commission’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal government and eliminate wasteful spending.
Sanders and Khanna’s offices did not immediately respond to inquiries from the Daily Caller News Foundation about whether the two planned to join the House and Senate DOGE caucuses.
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Adam Pack is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Donald Trump congratulates Elon Musk” by Donald Trump.
