DOGE’s Musk and Ramaswamy try to sell Congress on big spending cuts

WASHINGTON — Entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have an ambitious plan to cut federal spending with help from an outside advisory panel, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But during their first joint visit to Congress on Thursday, they also likely recognized to some extent the limits of outside influence over the workings of the Legislature.

On a marathon day of meetings with lawmakers, Musk and Ramaswamy received a warm welcome from Republicans as they crisscrossed the Capitol together.

Their overall message was also popular. A small federal government, relaxed regulation, and a private sector approach to the public sector have long been the cornerstones of conservative governance.

But there was also an elephant in the room they visited. It’s a tacit understanding that Mr. Musk’s stated goal of cutting federal spending by $2 trillion is already DOA.

The reason lies in mathematics.

in 2023for example, the federal government spent a total of $6.1 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Of this $6.1 trillion, about $3.8 trillion was already exempt from cuts on day one and will go toward mandatory spending programs such as Social Security benefits for retired workers, Medicare, and veterans benefits. is legally required.

Then roughly $650 billion It was set aside to pay interest on national debt.

This left $1.7 trillion in all other funds, known as discretionary funds. Of this, $805 billion was spent on national defense, money that was largely untouchable. lastly, I divided the rest These include agencies such as FEMA, NASA, and Customs and Border Protection, the federal departments that perform many of the visible day-to-day operations of the government.

While Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy went from meeting to meeting, Republicans close to the government funding process, such as Representative Steve Womack (R-Arkansas) on the House Appropriations Committee, said some cuts were possible. , said the $2 trillion that Musk talks about will likely be massive. The bridge is too far.

“If you’re going to leave social safety net programs alone and not touch them, that means you’re going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from discretionary spending.” If you want to achieve massive DOGE-style cuts. said in an interview with CNBC.

“It’s going to be very difficult to do that without sacrificing national security,” Womack said.

Even proposing small cuts or changes to mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid could prove politically risky for lawmakers who must run for re-election every few years. There is.

Nevertheless, some Republican lawmakers are willing to consider limited reforms to these programs. For example, House Minority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana said he is open to considering potential work requirements for Medicaid recipients and requiring stricter checks on Social Security benefits.

“Those are things we’re going to look at,” Scalise told reporters after his meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) kept expectations low, saying Thursday’s meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy was a “brainstorming” session, an opportunity to float some ideas without pressure to reach an agreement. He said that.

Plans can only begin to move forward in earnest once Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January and Senate Republicans take control of the chamber.

Cutting spending isn’t easy. Johnson’s wide margin of victory means he can allow only a few people to leave the chamber on certain bills and still pass them on a party-line vote.

Some Republicans are beginning to rally around another way to reduce government costs: requiring federal workers to come to work in person five days a week.

“One of the things I’m most excited about is requiring people to come to work,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. “If not, they can voluntarily leave and we can save a lot of money.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Senate’s top appropriators, also embraced the idea of ​​bringing federal workers back to their offices. “It’s amazing to walk through federal buildings. There are empty offices everywhere you go,” she said.

“If the federal government really wanted to change the way people work, here’s what we would do.” [to address the] It’s an excess of buildings and space,” Collins said.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who heads the newly created Senate DOGE Caucus, also highlighted the issue of underutilizing federal office space due to employees working remotely. with new report She made the announcement Thursday at the first Senate DOGE caucus.

“More than $81 million is wasted each year on underutilized government office space alone,” the report states.

But the findings also serve to highlight how changes in federal office space will have limited impact on the massive spending cuts that Musk is calling for.

Nevertheless, the idea is gaining traction within the Republican Party. Republican lawmakers who spoke with CNBC on Capitol Hill this week cited the federal government’s return-to-work policy most frequently as an example of potential cost savings.

It’s not yet clear whether federal workers will retire en masse if they are forced to return to the office five days a week, thereby freeing up their current salaries for other purposes.

But what is clear is that the unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country are prepared to fight any effort to change the working conditions of their members.

For the DOGE team, these battles could present a whole new set of challenges.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the name of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.