▶ 0:18:27e e
▶ 0:19:35the committee on oversight and government reform will come to order I want to welcome everyone here today without objection the chair May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for the purpose of delivering an statement this morning we'll explore how we can make the federal government work better for all Americans president Trump promised he would eliminate Washington waste and reform the unchecked federal bureaucracy and he is delivering on his promise made to the American people
▶ 0:20:06president Trump created the department of government efficiency or Doge to conduct a government-wide audit to root out waste fraud abuse and ensure we would protect taxpayer dollars at the helm of President Trump's effort is Eli musk one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever for decades and on a bipartisan basis members of this committee have lamented the inefficiency of the federal bureaucracy we fought never-ending battles against the waste Fraud and Abuse the bureaucracy
▶ 0:20:37generates during both Republican and administrations one byproduct of this inefficiency according to GAO is the near quarter trillion dollars in annual improper payments the government issues but now that President Trump is taking action to drain the swamp and expose how the federal government is spending taxpayer money which he was elected to do Democrats are hyperventilating and sensationalizing it
▶ 0:21:07over the past few days we've heard wild claims from Democrats that we are quote at the beginning of a dictatorship end quote and we are in a constitutional crisis this kind of theatrical rhetoric is exactly what the American people rejected in November Americans know that Washington needs form and doge is taking inventory to bring about change in Steward taxpayer dollars entrusted to the federal government real Innovation is not
▶ 0:21:37clean and tidy it's necessarily disruptive and messy but that's exactly what Washington needs right now and it's what the American people voted for in November a departure from the broken quo this committee intends to work in partnership with Doge we want to reinforce its efforts and not blunt the momentum it's generating for needed change to the federal bureaucracy at the oversight committee our core Mission remains
▶ 0:22:08unchanged identifying waste Fraud and Abuse in the federal government and proposing solutions to make it more efficient and effective for the American people for this Congress we created a subcommittee chaired by margorie terer Green that is dedicated to working with do but I expect all of our sub committees will participating in this effort to make Washington more accountable I'm hopeful that we can find some common ground with our Democrat colleagues to ensure the federal government
▶ 0:22:38uh more efficiently and effectively serves the American people I ask all my colleagues here today who Among Us believes that the federal government operates at Peak efficiency the federal government has expanded dramatically since the early years of our Republic there are today more than 4 100 executive branch agencies and sub agencies and roughly 1,000 Federal commissions most of these entities are relatively new commission New Creations
▶ 0:23:09they did not exist for most of our nation's history not only has the government grown in size and complexity but it has also taken on many functions once handled by the states or even the private sector how did we get here Tom shatz the president of the citizens againsts government government ways and one of our Witnesses today notes that Congress tends to respond to each new problem that arises by creating a new programmer agency and even if the problem goes away the programmer agency
▶ 0:23:40remains Congressional authorizing committees tend to generate these new programs and entities all too often without sufficient regard to similar Federal activities occurring outside of their jurisdiction over time the expansion of entities and programs has yielded an increasingly complex bureaucracy with a massive amount of of overlap and duplication for instance the government accountability office the GAO recently found 43 job training programs scattered across nine different federal
▶ 0:24:11agencies that's just one of dozens of areas of wasteful duplication the GAO has identified across a range of federal activities I hope we can learn today from Governor Kim Reynolds who proposed her own wide- ranging reorganization in Iowa which the state leg legislature enacted for example she will detail how Iowa Consolidated a host of state level job training programs I was reorganization also eliminated or Consolidated a slew of state agencies commissions and
▶ 0:24:41vacant positions I was example shows that the chief executive of any unit of Government Federal state or local is well positioned to propose ways to streamline that Government after all they're the ones who run it on a day-to-day basis at the federal level the president president has considerable Authority within existing law to reorganize certain government offices and functions that's the case for instance with respect to us aid but some reorganizations
▶ 0:25:11do require changes in law throughout our nation's history such reorganization legislation typically originated from the White House that's in part because for much of the 20th century presidential reorganization proposals requiring changes in law were granted special consideration by Congress I think renewing that special Authority requiring Congress to take an up or down vote on reorganizations proposed by the president would help facilitate needed improvements in government operations in
▶ 0:25:41the meantime I look forward to learning more about keys to successful reforms from our Witnesses during today's hearing I now yield to ranking member Conley for his opening statement thank you Mr chairman our government was designed to be by of and for the American people it's made up of civil servants who take an oath to serve the American people and to support and defend the Constitution more than one in three federal workers is employed by either the Postal Service
▶ 0:26:12ensuring every American can get mail or the Department of Veterans Affairs providing care to our veterans in VA hospitals clinics and nursing homes almost one in three federal workers is a veteran and more than 85% live outside side the DC metropolitan area across every state and serving every community in America one in three Americans and half of All American children are enrolled in a government
▶ 0:26:42program our government provides the support these Americans are counting on including Social Security Medicare Medicaid snap Head Start the national school lunch program we depend on our government to safeguard our food supply and to ensure life-saving medication is safe to consume we depend on our government to provide alerts about extreme weather through the National Weather Service which you know all too well from the tornado
▶ 0:27:12that devastated your community Mr chairman a few years ago and to provide disaster relief to communities where it's needed such as in Los Angeles ever devastating fires of the last few weeks this is the so-called deep state that President Trump and his acolytes continued to demonize and these are the programs and services sitting on Elon musk's chopping block right now their efforts to quote right-sized
▶ 0:27:42government serve no one but themselves and fellow oligarchs who want to destroy deregulate and privatize leaving everyday Americans to foot the bill with not only their paychecks but even potentially their well-being in their lives just last week the country watched in horror as a commercial aircraft and a US Army Blackhawk helicopter collided over the pomac river killing 67 people including several of my constituents
▶ 0:28:13including young children we know that disasters are more likely to happen when the agencies that ensure our safety are unsupported and underresourced our nation's Air Traffic Control facilities were already operating below recommended Staffing levels but one day before the horrific crash the Trump Administration sent an email to more than two million federal employees offering them a purported financial incentive to
▶ 0:28:43immediately quit their jobs can you imagine what might yet happen if our air traffic controllers accept this offer to quit amas this is just the tip of the iceberg in its first two weeks the the Trump Administration has ordered a hiring freeze on all federal civilian positions ordered all federal employees back to the office full-time unless of course you take their early retirement offer and then you don't have to come to work for eight months
▶ 0:29:13um pave the way to purge more than a 100,000 nonpartisan Korea civil servants and replace them with political Loyalists and wage war on our nation's commitment to civil rights by eviscerating diversity equity and inclusion programs the new Administration also ordered the politicization of the senior executive service forced employees to surveil and report on colleagues and fired the Democratic commissioners of the National Labor Relations Board and the equal opportunity commission
▶ 0:29:44they administered loyalty tests to Career civil servants at the National Security Council granted security clearances to incoming White House officials without vetting reportedly violated cyber security procurement and privac laws by recklessly handing Federal systems and data and attempted a late night Purge of 17 nonpartisan Inspector General a brazenly illegal act that will only provide cover for the corruption that inevitably will
▶ 0:30:14ensue the Trump Administration also ordered a freeze of federal grants loans and other financial assistance programs immediately after the funding freeze was issued Medicaid and Head Start reported disruptions and some aa's online portals were cut off although the freeze was halted by a judge and then rescinded by the administration we saw in only 48 Hours how willing this Administration is to threaten the health Safety and Security of Americans in service of
▶ 0:30:44its unlawful and partisan agenda if these initiatives sound familiar it's because so many of them are ripped right out of the project 2025 Playbook remember that deeply unpopular tone that president Trump as candidate Trump desperately tried to distance himself from during the campaign many of these executive orders mirror project 2025 proposals and at least four prominent 2025 authors now have top positions in the
▶ 0:31:14administration Trump's disavow of project 2025 was just part of the con president Trump and Elon Musk are using a wrecking ball to systematically dismember the government piece by piece the American people deserve better and we and Congress have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws that we created we must protect the government workers programs and services that the future of this country depends on and stop an unconstitutional assault on the government
▶ 0:31:44Mr chairman you correctly cited the role of Elon Musk it's a puzzling role for many people certainly on this side of the aisle and I think for some on yours who is this unelected billion a that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies fire people uh transfer them uh offer them early retirement and have sweeping refor changes to agencies without any Congressional review oversight or
▶ 0:32:15concurrence therefore Mr chairman given his prominence and his importance I move that the committee subpoena Elon Musk to come before it as a witness at the earliest possible moment and I so move there's been a motion and second the motion is not debatable Mr chairman why is it not debatable point of order it is debatable
▶ 0:32:46Mr chair I strike the last word hold on Mr chairman we going to table the motion okay Mr chairman why don't we want to debate Elon Musk coming in and talking to us about his work and how he's enriched himself for 164 billion dollars there's uh Mr chairman Mr chairman chair recognizes Dr Fox thank you Mr chairman I move to table the motion there motion to table second second by Mr
▶ 0:33:17Higgins the motion is not debatable as many uh point of order M are in favor of tabling point of order State your point uh Mr chairman I think it's outrageous that this committee will not even entertain a motion St that's not a point order our federal AG we will not enter a motion
▶ 0:33:49to as are in favor of tabling sign let's have order in this country stb you're out of order you know you're out of order you know the rules this committee there's been a motion Mr El musk is out of order and dism I call the question there's been a motion and second motion by Dr Fox second by uh Mr Higgins to table all those in favor of tabling signify by saying I I all those opposed signify by saying no
▶ 0:34:20no in the opinion of the chair the eyes have it and the motion Mr chairman I ask for a recorded vote the recorded vote is ordered we will set up for the clerk to call the
▶ 0:35:24we'll stand at ease when we get the ready to go for this for those watching at home they don't have the votes in the room
▶ 0:35:55Mr chairman speaking of efficiency of our time since we're just sitting here I would love to hear from someone why we don't want to have Mr musk come testify gentleman's not recognized this is a Committee hearing about eliminating weights fraud abuse you've pulled a a parliamentary move which you have the right to do this isn't was it expected it wasn't in the in the uh agenda we're trying to print everything and get it ready to to have the roll call vote well speaking of abuse
▶ 0:36:25we have someone who Federal benefiting billions out of this is again can you control the other side they're out of contr I'm trying hash irony
▶ 0:37:10Mr chairman it appears the clerk is ready for a roll call Mr Jordan Mr Turner Mr goar Miss fox fox votes I to table Miss Fox I Mr
▶ 0:37:41growman Mr Cloud Mr Cloud votes I Mr Palmer Mr Higgins Mr Higgins votes I Mr sessions Mr Bigs Mr Bigs votes I miss
▶ 0:38:12mace Miss mace votes I Mr Fallon Mr Fallon votes I Mr Donald's Perry Mr Timmons
▶ 0:38:42Mr burett Mr burett votes I miss green Miss green vote VES I miss bobert Miss Luna Mr
▶ 0:39:13Langworthy Mr burles Mr Crane Mr Crane votes I Mr Jack Maguire Mr McGuire votes I Mr Gil Mr Gil votes I Mr Connelly
▶ 0:39:44nay Mr Connelly votes nay Miss no Miss Norton votes no Mr Lynch Mr Lynch votes no Mr Krishna morthy Mr Krishna morthy votes no Mr cona Mr
▶ 0:40:18mfum Miss brown brown votes no I'm sorry yes yeah you vable yes voting not to table Miss Brown votes no Miss Danbury I vote no to a motion that would table a subpoena for Elon Musk more demagog it's out it's out of order to discuss what the motion is okay guys it's out of order all right order order order all right let's go keep Miss stanbury votes
▶ 0:40:48no Mr Garcia Mr Garcia votes no Mr Frost Mr Frost votes no Miss Lee Miss Lee votes no Mr casar no on the motion to table our motion to have youan musket this committee Mr casar votes no Miss Crockett no on
▶ 0:41:18giving the American people the transparency that they deserve by bringing this again us nope Miss Crockett votes no Miss Randall Miss Randall votes no Mr subam no Mr subam votes no Miss andari no Miss andari votes no Mr Bell no
▶ 0:41:49Mr Bell votes no Miss Simon no Miss Simon votes no Mr Min Min is a hard no Mr Min votes no Miss Presley yeah Miss Presley votes no Miss TB I decided to put my residence before Elon Musk and I'm voting no Miss Talib
▶ 0:42:19votes no Mr chairman I vote Yes and Mr chairman votes yes Mr chairman how am I recorded yeah who recognized Mr chairman how am I recorded oh has Mr Timmons been recorded Mr Timmons is not recorded I Mr Timmons votes I Mr chairman how am I recorded representative Perry Mr Perry is not recorded representative Perry votes I Mr chairman how Mr Perry votes
▶ 0:42:49I Mr chairman how how is bobert recorded Miss Boer is not recorded Boer votes I Miss bobbert votes I Mr chairman how is Burleson recorded Mr Burleson is not recorded votes I Mr burles votes I how is Mr recorded Mr growman is not recorded I'll vote I Mr growman votes I Mr chairman how Mr goar
▶ 0:43:20recorded Mr goar is not recorded I Mr goar votes I Mr chairman how's Mr Donald's recorded Mr Donalds is not recorded uh I Mr Donald's votes I how has Mr has Mr uh Jack been recorded Mr Jack is not
▶ 0:43:50recorded Mr chairman vote I please Mr Jack votes I there any other members who have not been recorded any members who wish to change their votes
▶ 0:44:21do we have a member in route will the clerk please tally the report the roll call Mr chairman on this vote the eyes are 20 the Nays are 19 the eyes have it and the motion fails and I I add Mr rank member you all could have invited Mr musk to be your minority witness but you all chose to have a a college professor which is what you normally
▶ 0:44:51choose to have as a witness at at any hearing and that's fine but you all had an opportunity to invite Elon Musk and you chose not to so Mr chairman could I just respond thank you um you make a point but from our point of view given the prominence Mr musk has been given by President Trump in this Administration sweeping unprecedented powers from our point of view he is not a minority witness he ought to be a full committee witness because of the
▶ 0:45:21prominence and the role he's playing and subject to the oversight and scrutiny of this committee thank you uh I ask you D's consent that representative nun from Iowa be waved on to the committee for today's hearing for the purpose of asking questions without objection so ordered the next order of business is ratifying the subcommittee roster for the 119th Congress the clerks have distributed the roster electronically I ask unanimous consent that the committee approve the appointments and assignments as shown
▶ 0:45:51on the roster without objection so uh the subcommittee roster is approved I'm pleased to welcome an expert panel of witnesses who each bring experience and expertise that will be valuable to today's discussion uh I'd first like to welcome the 43rd governor of the great state of Iowa governor Kim Reynolds since assuming office in 2017 Governor Reynolds has instituted numerous reforms to reorganize state level operations to better
▶ 0:46:21Serve the People of Iowa I'd now like to recognize representative nun Iowa to welcome the governor here well thank you chairman and thank you very much for this committee for having the governor of Iowa join us today when President Trump was elected he asked for three things secure our community unleash our Natural Energy and make sure that we reform government to put money back in taxpayers Pocket they need look no further than what governor Reynolds has done with our state legislature when I served as a senator in Iowa during Governor Reynold's
▶ 0:46:52time she has helped out lead us out of a massive Democrat cause debt to be able to balance the state's budget to be able to provide fiscal responsibility that right-sized our community and to provide tax cuts that put more of Ian's hard earned tax dollars right back in their Brites so with this Iowa is now one of the most well-managed citizen L democracies Mr chairman in the world it has resulted in a balanced budget of over9 billion in our general fund as well as a billion doll
▶ 0:47:22rainy day fund with more Tax Returns on the way after she led the three largest tax cuts in State history Governor Reynolds we want to say thank you very much as a citizen of Iowa not only are you a great Governor but your examples help us lead to real solutions that could address a $36 trillion debt right here at the national level all it takes is one hero from the Heartland to be able to come here and show Washington how business can get done so with that Governor Reynolds thank you
▶ 0:47:52for making government efficient again in Iowa it's a best practice we can take in a play book right here in DC we welcome you to the committee very good uh next we have Tom chatz president of the citizens against government waste Tom spent over 36 years at citizens against government waste identifying areas of waste fraud abuse and mismanagement in government and has helped save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars finally we have William G rash who is an associate professor at the University of Southern California
▶ 0:48:23uh Saul price School of public policy has been a member of the USC faculty since 2014 I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here today and I look forward to your all's testimony pursuant to committee rule 9g the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand do you solemnly swear our affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative thank you all you may take a seat
▶ 0:48:53we appreciate you all being here today and look forward to your testimony let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written statement and it will appear in full in the hearing record please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green after 4 minutes the light will turn yellow when the red light comes on your five minutes have expired and we would ask that you please wrap up I now recognize Governor Reynolds for her
▶ 0:49:24statement first let me thank Congress and nun for your uh kind words and thank you for your service chairman comr ranking member Conley members of the committee thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today since his hearing is about government efficiency I'll get right to the point Iowa was doing Doge before Doge was a thing when I was elected to office in 2018 our tax structure was uncompetitive our top income tax rate was 8.98% one of the highest in the nation as was our 12%
▶ 0:49:54corporate rate Antiquated State policy made our tax code complex and hard to reform soon after president Trump signed tcja into law I signed legislation that eliminated Federal deductibility cut rates across the board provided for additional reductions in future years and reduced the number of income tax brackets after four more historic reforms Iowa taxpayers today pay a flat income tax rate of 3.8% our corporate rate is moving to a 5.5%
▶ 0:50:25and we've eliminated tax on retirement and inheritance income over 10 years Iowans will save an estimated $24 billion in a state with an annual budget of about 10 billion but it's not enough just to cut taxes you have to make sure that they're sustainable especially if you want to keep reducing them the growth they create helps but you also need to keep spending in government in check and I've worked closely with our general assembly to do just that in fact the KO Institute has ranked Iowa the most fiscally
▶ 0:50:55responsible state in the country country for 3 years running but that wasn't always the case when we started our alignment work in 2022 State operations had not been reviewed for 40 years and it showed layers of bureaucracy had accumulated over decades expanding government Beyond its core function we were too big too fragmented and too inefficient one example became clear during covid where the separation of our Public Health and Human Services departments resulted in both
▶ 0:51:25duplication and gaps in service we merged them into the Department of Health and Human Services in 2022 the first big step in our work to align state government it was a successful proof of concept and a road map as we saw similar misalignment across state government we had 11 separate state agencies operating Workforce programs 136 Professional Licensing functions were spread across 11 agencies our Administrative Code had ballooned to more than 20,000
▶ 0:51:55pages with 190,000 restrictive terms at one point I discovered that the state owned a cow CAF operation and to make matters worse it operated at a loss given our limited staff and scope of the initiative we partnered with an outside firm while bringing agency directors and their staff into the discussion early and we asked the hard questions that bring about accountability and change what is the core mission of each agency how is it funded how is it staffed and what does it
▶ 0:52:25own are the programs working how did the structure of the agency compare to other states is there duplication or misalignment next we benchmarked Iowa against our neighboring states as well as those with similar populations and budgets we found that my 37 member cabinet was the most by far while our expenditures on a per capita basis were the third highest in 2023 we eliminated 1300 uh we introduced excuse me a 1300 page bill that passed
▶ 0:52:56with only One technical Amendment and took effect less than a year after we began the process I also initiated a moratorium on new rule making and ordered a comprehensive review of all rules already on the books together these actions cut 21 agencies from my cabinet eliminated 600 open positions removed 12200 regulations in year 1 and identified 4700 Acres of State own Farmland to sell nearly all licensing functions are now in one agency
▶ 0:53:26and we're currently in the process of consolidating six separate licensing programs platforms into one one agency that operated out of 10 buildings now operates out of just one altogether we've saved taxpayers $217 million in just 18 months surpassing our initial projections for the first four years and our government isn't just smaller it's better getting your medical license recognized used to take 65 days now it takes three unemploy
▶ 0:53:56employment case rulings used to take 3 months now it takes 11 days moving our Motor Vehicle Enforcement unit into the Department of Public Safety put a 100 more state troopers on the road after aligning agencies we then streamlined our system of board and boards and commissions cutting 83 boards about a third of the boards and commissions we also brought it systems spread across 20 different agencies into one department and last year we Consolidated 32 substance use and
▶ 0:54:26Health regions into seven unified Behavioral Health regions regard uh resulting in Greater investment on the ground and treatment delivered to Iowans when and where they need it and now we're taking yet another step I recently announced my intention to launch an Iowa Doge to continue reducing the cost of government maximizing the return on taxpayers investment like most Americans I'm thrilled by the priority that President Trump is placing on shrinking government and making it work better not not only do
▶ 0:54:56I believe as Iowa as a model but I'm committed to doing everything I can to help in the months ahead and I look forward to working with you and the Trump Administration to do just that thank you thank you Governor uh I now recognize Mr chatz for his opening statement thank you Mr chairman and ranking member Connelly for the opportunity to testify today uh citizens against government ways was founded following the report of the grace commission under President Ronald Reagan the last time there was a comprehensive review of the federal
▶ 0:55:26government by the private sector uh the commission made 2,478 recommendations that would save trillion through the implementation of Grace commission and other cost-saving recommendations the taxpayers hard-earned money should be spent in the most effective manner possible following the objectives set forth in statutes enacted
▶ 0:55:57by Congress and carried out by the executive branch success should be measured by whether the intended results are being achieved if that does not occur the program should be re-evaluated to determine if it needs to be modified Consolidated or terminated the solution should not be to spend more money on that program create another program or duplicate what the private sector is already doing the proper size of government can be determined after those actions are taken but that is unfortunately not how it works now the despite the availability
▶ 0:56:27of recommendations from both within the government including the Congressional budget office government accountability office and inspectors General as well as non-governmental sources like CW's Prime Cuts which would save $5.1 trillion over five years not enough is being done there is no lack of ideas just a lack of action by Congress to determine which programs are most effective and efficient leading to the appropriate size and scope of the federal government president Trump campaigned on a platform of making the government more efficient
▶ 0:56:57including his promise to create a department of government efficiency the establ establishment of Doge along with the Doge subcommittee and House and Senate Doge caucuses should lead to the adoption of policies that will establish more effective use of taxpayer dollars and more efficient delivery of government services another method to drive efficiency would be to give the president greater reorganization Authority as the chairman has noted this was first provided in 1947 when Congress EST lished what became known as the Hoover Commission
▶ 0:57:28to develop recommendations to increase efficiency and improve the organizational structure of the government after World War II and comparing the debt to a GDP ratio then and now it's fairly close so it is certainly time to do this again according to a 2012 Congressional research service report presidents use this Authority regularly submitting more than 100 plans between 1932 and 1984 the last President to receive reorganization Authority was Ronald Reagan and the last one to use
▶ 0:57:58it was Jimmy Carter in May 2024 Gio released its annual report on ways to reduce duplication overlap and fragmentation of programs the report listed 112 new items and noted that 667 billion had been saved since the first report was issued in 2011 CWS long maintained that Congress should not only hold hearings in this committee but across committees that have multiple jurisdiction over a lot of the programs identified by G o and then vote on those recommendations
▶ 0:58:29and GAO reports about duplicative spending provide other opportunities to improve efficiencies a May 10th 2023 GAO report found 133 Federal programs across 15 agencies that have the goal of increasing Broadband access and Bridging the digital divide these programs should be assessed to determine which are inefficient and ineffective and funds should then be directed to those programs that can deploy Broadband to every remaining unserved and underserved business and household across
▶ 0:58:59the country that wishes to be connected to the internet and Broadband is one of many programs included in CW's critical waste issues for the 119th Congress which was released this morning the report contains 12 policy areas including greater accountability and transparency budget reform earmarks Health Care privacy technology and Telecommunications I want to also remind the committee of CW's concerns about the US Postal Service which we provided in testimony
▶ 0:59:29submitted for the record for the December 10th 2024 oversight hearing rightsizing government is an objective on which all members of Congress should agree it requires constant vigilance and oversight to determine if federal tax dollars are being spent in the most effective and efficient manner and achieving intended objectives increased efficiency will go along way to restore the Public's confidence in the ability of the federal government to avoid as much waste fraud fraud abuse and mismanagement as possible thank you again for the opportunity
▶ 1:00:00to appear before you today I look forward to answering your questions thank you chair recognize Dr R Mr chairman and and make sure your on okay sorry uh Mr chairman right and if you don't care pull it to you it's okay yeah now we're in business all right thank you I'm so sorry so uh Mr chairman thank you for having me ranking member Conley and committee members uh thanks for the opportunity to address you today on the critical
▶ 1:00:30issue of uh rightsizing government that takes place amongst recent administrative actions that I find uh somewhat troubling uh uh not just myself but according to the literature uh the scholarship and um um observations through history uh that show that these types of actions threaten Integrity Effectiveness and stability of our federal Workforce for decades debates over the size of government have focused too narrowly on a headcount
▶ 1:01:00of Civilian employees which obscures a more pressing concern the growing misalignment between Federal responsibilities and the government's capacity to manage them while the number of civilian federal employees has remained stable at around 2.4 million uh not including postal workers federal spending has increased fivefold since 1960s more than 759 billion was spent on contracts in 2023 alone and this is relatively small in comparison to
▶ 1:01:30the last year of the first Trump Administration where estimates were as high as $1.2 trillion in contracts meaning that much of what government does today is carried through private firms rather than through career civil servants some estimate that there is as many as three to four contract employees for every federal civil servant and the shift is weakened oversight increased inefficiencies and created accountability gaps leaving tax payers footing the bill for cost overruns on contracts delays and policy failures
▶ 1:02:01they come not from incompetence of the civil service but from incapacity at the same time civil servants are underpaid relevant to their private sector counterparts earning on average 23% less than Sim similarly qualified Professionals in the in the private sector the salary Gap combined with mounting political pressures and the expanding scope of government responsibilities has made it increasingly difficult to attract and retain top talent this is particularly concerning given that 70% of federal employees
▶ 1:02:31work in National Security roles 80% serve outside of Washington providing vital services to the communities across the country and despite these challenges recent administrative actions threatened to destabilize the Civil Service further by increasing politicization and eroding the principles of professional nonpartisan Workforce the so-called policy career reclassification would strip job prote protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants allowing them to be be dismissed and replaced
▶ 1:03:01with political appointees at will and this risk creating a climate of fear and self-censorship where professionals hesitate to provide objective evidence-based advice for fear out of political retaliation history and research are clear governments that rely on merit-based civil service systems perform better they're less prone to uh corruption and deliver more effective Public Services by contrast increased politicization substituting experienced professionals with short-term political
▶ 1:03:31loyalists reduces efficiency complicates long-term planning and increases the risk of policy failures um Beyond inefficiency politic politicization weakens the very mechanisms that ensure accountability and integrity in government civil servants are often the last line of defense against waste Fraud and Abuse ensuring that government funds are spent wisely and an accord with the law when experienced professionals are replaced by individuals selected for political loyalty rather than
▶ 1:04:01expertise government oversight erods uh and leads to costly mismanagement and a decline in public trust this Dynamic is not theoretical it has played out in past administrations and has been extensively documented in research countries that move toward greater political control over bureaucracy see decline in Effectiveness increased regulatory capture and greater difficulty in responding to crises con uh conversely Nations that invest in independent professional Civil Service
▶ 1:04:32see better policy outcomes stronger economic growth and higher public confidence the US has long benefited from a stable merit-based Civil Service civil service that has helped sustain democracy through times of War economic upheaval and National crisis attempts to weaken the system rather than whether it's through Mass firings loyalty-based appointments or the dismantling of institutional safeguards do not lead to a more Effective Government instead they result in
▶ 1:05:02Greater instability inefficiency and governance failures that harm all Americans in conclusion any discussion of rightsizing government must grapple with the structural transformation that has already been underway rather than reducing the number of career civil servants or subjecting them to politically motivated purges we should reinvest in the workforce to ensure that government functions effectively remains accountable and serves the public in interests the evidence overwhelmingly supports one clear lesson
▶ 1:05:32that it is strengthening not weakening the Civil Service as the shest path to effective and democratic government that works for all of us thank you very much thank you we'll now begin our questions the chair recognizes uh M Dr gosar from Arizona thank you Mr chairman we're here today to tame the Labyrinth of the federal bureaucracy that's why I was was elected and frankly that's why president Trump was reelected this past November more responsible government spending means less need for taxation on
▶ 1:06:02the American people my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have claimed cuts to waste Fraud and Abuse will include cuts to Social Security and Medicare however Pro promoting efficiency and cutting wasteful spending actually protects Social Security and Medicare by ensuring available and continued funding and if they have any more doubts I would invite them to sign on to my lasso act that actually puts these decisions out of the public har and into the Public's uh domain when Elon Musk acquired Twitter
▶ 1:06:33now X in 2022 he fired about 6,000 employees or nearly 80% of his Workforce but there was no lapses in ex's management well perhaps only less Community notes and less removal of unlawful spee or of lawful political speech El must trim the fat on X and we have the opportunity to do the same here in Washington governor Reynolds now not only did you lead a successful state level government reorganization but you did it twice congratulations my question to you is
▶ 1:07:03how did you identify waste and were members of the state legislature empowered to also identify those areas you well thank you for the question it was definitely a collaborative effort it started with the tax cut so we did comprehensive reform there and as a manner to sustain it then we needed to look at the overall government when you coupled covid on top of that and the inefficiencies that that I saw in our response to covid it at it it led us to start looking uh at processes in the state government and
▶ 1:07:33um so you know we brought um and and they were Common Sense changes too when we were looking at licensing when we were looking at uh uh it spread across 20 different agencies I mean the list went on and on it made sense to restructure it so what we did is we brought our uh first of all we brought our agencies in and their team and had them do an overall review of their um of their operation asking the tough questions that really leads to accountability and and change and then
▶ 1:08:03on top of that because we are a small team uh we also brought in an outside consultant to help us with the comparisons and help manage it and then we worked closely with the legislature uh for any ideas that they may have we spent a lot of time walking through the bill and its entirety we put uh we when we were working with our agencies that gave us an opportunity to understand where some of the push push back might be so we could also get in front of uh that with the answers to the
▶ 1:08:33questions that might be posed from realigning a state government but it's made us more efficient it's made us more effective it is common sense I think the data is proving out we're seeing it every day so we'll have data to actually point to on how we are more efficient and more effective and we're taking dollars from the administration and from the bureaucracy and we're actually putting it into programs getting it on the ground and putting it into people so it's been
▶ 1:09:04very efficient from that perspective as well well want to notice you sold state-owned land to eliminate waste and and generate revenue is that correct yeah we had about uh I think it was about 5,400 Acres that we were uh able to sell uh I had a cal CF operation with the Department of Corrections we were not aware of that uh then to come to find out we were operating at a loss that's you know we need to get back to the core function of government and as the bureaucracy continues to go grow the scope uh also grows with it and
▶ 1:09:34that's when we start to see the inefficiencies well I I tell you what that you know that is music to my soul because you know we've uh I've got a herd act because it mimics what Harry Reid did in southern Nevada he found out that Las Vegas was surrounded by BLM he couldn't grow it yeah and so what they did is they found out that the federal government has the propriety to look at what the Lands new used for does it have a purpose and if not it has to be sold so I think there's a great opportunity there uh Mr Shotz I want to
▶ 1:10:04touch base with you uh in regards to the the 2024 Prime Cuts report recommends that the National Park Service Forest Service and BLM suspend federal land purchases until they effectively manage their currently owned land I agree with you wholeheartedly do you generally agree that selling public land to States and local communities would eliminate unused assets generate revenue and provide an overall benefit to the federal government to local communities uh yes a congressman and it would generate about $15 billion do
▶ 1:10:34over five years um sorry three years so there there is a lot of land out there in fact the government probably doesn't even know what it owns and it needs to get done the one thing I really want to make note of and I get running out of time here is the national emergencies act we have spent 122 trillion over the last since Bill Clinton and it's about onethird of our nation debt I would love to work with you in regards to cleaning these up cleaning them out and getting some some uh aspects and assets back to the people thank you I yield back
▶ 1:11:05gentleman yields back chair now recogniz his ranking member for six minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you for your consideration Governor Reynolds welcome and your story is a very impressive one I was the chairman of a county of 1.2 million people onethird your population and what you talk about resonates with somebody like me hands on on trying to trying to make sure things work right Iowa has a population designed the standard of 3.24 million people
▶ 1:11:35and you've got a State Workforce of 16,700 full-time employees is that correct that's correct yes um now of course with respect to the federal government we're talking about 2.4 million so there it's not only a matter of scale I mean we're just talking about very different kinds of entities that doesn't mean we can't learn from a state like Iowa but I do think that the challenges we face at the federal level are you know formidably different than what we face in
▶ 1:12:05my county or your state as I said doesn't mean we can't learn from it at all and I listen carefully to uh to you uh are is my understanding correct that in order to effectuate the reforms you proudly uh uh Champion today uh you you uh put on the payroll your donor who came in and decided what agencies to abolish which cabinet
▶ 1:12:36uh members were to go how many people would it be fired uh and U and other kinds of decision making that was imbued with him or her is that how you did it in Iowa your wealthiest owner took that lead no that's a complete misstatement and first of all uh we did it without any layoffs whatsoever we made that commitment when we moved into our absolutely no layoffs uh I was able to eliminate 600 open positions that had been open for over a
▶ 1:13:06year but through the transition process and what we've been able to accomplish we did that right now without laying off any state excuse me because my time is limited Governor I don't mean to be um interrupting you but uh so the the idea that your wealthiest donor kind of shephered all of this is false that is false false that's false and you didn't lay off people you tried in fact to move people around or no we made that commitment at the beginning of made a commitment to that um because we it was first of all
▶ 1:13:36these were Common Sense changes it was a realignment it was highlighting the cabinet members that I shot I thought should be in the cabinet and making government operate more efficiently reducing the amount of time a very Ian concept to uh Common Sense yes and I I like it it's a non-ideological approach to governance uh Professor Rush um would it be fair to say that what you've heard from Governor Reynolds is distinctly different from what we are experiencing in the
▶ 1:14:06first 15 days of the Trump Administration uh with Elon Musk uh allegedly at the helm and please speak loudly into that microphone so we can hear you yes yes quite simply yes very different it seems different yes and would you say that it is uh unprecedented unusual and maybe even of dubious legality that so much Authority and power has been
▶ 1:14:36vested in one individual who is a outside billionaire with no government experience other than benefiting from government contracts uh to wield this kind of power and influence and be firing people laying off people uh threatening to dismantle whole agencies something that apparently Governor Reynolds actually actively tried to avoid to get political buyin and to try to create a spirit of cooperation it seems to me that uh
▶ 1:15:07the actions that are being promulgated by Doge uh lack legal Authority I am not a legal scol scholar I am a scholar of executive politics and U uh public management but from what I can tell um this violat uh several uh uh legal authorities that are granted by congress not unilaterally by the president governor Reynolds made a point of saying she worked
▶ 1:15:37with the legislature to effectuate the reforms um which always sounds to me like a pretty good idea you want to work with your legislators um here in uh Washington uh there are laws on the books you know for example you may want to dis metal the agency for International Development but Congress created Aid that agency in the foreign assistance Act of 1961 and it seems to me that if you want to dismantle it or fold it into another agency
▶ 1:16:07you got to come back to Congress and amend that act do you think that's a fair statement I think that's a fair statement and likewise when it comes to freezing funding for federal agencies uh you know the the empowerment Control Act of 1974 governs empowerment and and the Supreme Court ruling uh during the Nixon years made it very clear that uh the power of the press is exclusively vested in the legislative branch of Congress under the Constitution of the United States is
▶ 1:16:37that a fair statement it's a fair statement and it's the standing position of I'm sorry I said it's a fair statement and it's the standing position of the courts thank you uh I you back Mr chairman thank you gentleman yields back chair recognizes Miss mace from South Carolina for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman there's been a lot of Pearl clutching over the last several days from my colleagues across the aisle on Donald Trump secretary Rubio the department of government efficiencies plan to reorganize the US agency for International Development or as we all now know us
▶ 1:17:08Aid they're screaming about Elon Musk over there but hey George Soros and his boy are okay uh you know they scream that we're all a threat to democracy when they've been systematically dismantling democracy before our eyes they've been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and there's no going back so I would tell my colleagues across the other side of the aisle take your salty tears and sit right back down usaid has long strayed from its mission to effectively and efficiently administer
▶ 1:17:38Aid to advance American interests us Aid has become rotten to its core sacrificing The Prudent use of taxpayer dollars at the altar of advancing radical Sinister social and political agendas abroad from discri discriminatory Dei initiatives to extreme gender ideology to marginalize real Bonafide biological women for decades while homeless veterans sleep
▶ 1:18:09on our streets our communities rebuild from natural disasters and American families struggle to get by usaid has pillaged and plundered the American treasury essentially lighting American taxpayer dollars on fire funding some of the dumbest I mean stupidest just dumbest initiatives imaginable all supported by the left and that's why their party is crumbling today I'm going to expose some of the initiatives us a has funded over the years and ask each of you a yes or
▶ 1:18:39no question if you believe these expenditures of American taxpayer dollars put America first so it'll be yes or no us Aid awarded $2 million to strengthen transl organizations to deliver gender affirming Health Care in Guatemala so to each of you this morning does this Advance the interest of American citizens paying for in Guatemala to the tune of $2 million yes or no
▶ 1:19:09Governor I have no position of course you don't okay usaid awarded over $750,000 to fund alleviating loneliness among migrant garment workers in India does this Advance America's interest governor no no I have no position us Aid awarded $1.5 million for provide providing a gender sensitive response to migration at the Venezuelan border does this Advance
▶ 1:19:40America's interest governor no no I have no position does this Advance the interest okay so USA awarded 4.3 million on October 1st 2023 to a group to fund Comprehensive Health Services for men having sex with other men in South Africa does this Advance the interest of American citizens governor no no I have no position I bet you don't okay us Aid awarded 1.5 million to advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces
▶ 1:20:10and business communities by promoting economic empowerment and opportunity for lgbtqi plus people in Serbia does this Advance America's interests no no nope you have no idea right okay us Aid awarded over $70,000 to a group to deliver a live musical event to promote the US and Irish shared values of diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility does this Advance the interests of America no no
▶ 1:20:40no position no position or no clue okay us Aid awarded 1.5 million to fund strengthening Community Support structures to upscale LGBT rights advocacy in Jamaica does does this Advance our interest no no no position USA ID awarded $28 million to a group to facilitate the economic insertion of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Peru in Ecuador does this Advance our interest no no
▶ 1:21:11no position okay us Aid awarded $17.5 million to fund voluntary medical male circumcision overseas does this Advance America's interest no no position I don't know what circumcision overseas has to do with America first uh either uh USA ID awarded nearly $150,000 to fund uh HIV Prevention Services uh targeting men who have sex with men and transgender does this Advance America's interest
▶ 1:21:41no no no position yeah unfortunately um I'm listed I'm limited to five minutes but this is these are the programs Democrats are so desperate to save our foreign assistance system is badly broken and this ends now thank you Mr chairman and I yield back gentle lady yields back Mr chairman parliamentary inquiry yes sir um The Gentle lady has used a phrase that is considered a slur in the lgbtq community and the transgender community
▶ 1:22:12and let me please finish without interruption and I don't really care you want penises in women's bathrooms and I'm not going to have it no thank you let the uh gentleman stadi is parliamentary inquiry uh to me a slur is a slur and here in the committee a level of decorum requires us to try consciously to avoid slurs you just heard the general lady actually actively robustly re repeat it and I would just ask
▶ 1:22:42the chairman uh that uh she be counseled that we ought not to be engaged we can have debate and policy discussion without offending human beings who are fellow citizens um and so I would ask as a parliamentary Inquirer uh whether the use of that phrase is not in fact a violation of the the cor rules Mr chairman I'm not going to be Cel counseled by a man over uh men in women's spaces or
▶ 1:23:12men who have mental health issues dressing as women I'm not being count counseled by some guy my iny is to the chairman Okay order CH the inquiry is about decorum decorum is at the of the chair I will be honest with uh with the ranking member I I'm not up to up to date on my politically correct lgbtq Q term terminology uh we'll look into that and and get back with you on
▶ 1:23:42that I don't know what's offensive and what's not I I've not I don't know much about pronouns or I appreciate that offensive terms Mr chairman we don't have to anymore so I thank the chair for his uh willingness to uh further engage in this matter all right chair now recognize Miss Norton from Washington DC for five minutes thank you Mr chairman this is only the second oversight hearing this Congress the first one was about denigrating federal
▶ 1:24:13employees this one is about denigrating federal employees too the Trump Administration including the Trump Shadow government seems intent on dismantling much of the federal government in violation of the Constitution statutes and regulations the Administration has relentlessly attacked federal employees subjecting them to chaos and fear
▶ 1:24:44the Administration has imposed a freeze offered deferred res resignation fired employees put employees on leave effectively establish schedule F and ended Tork and remote work our two hearings so far are designed to lay the predicate to gut the nonpartisan federal civil
▶ 1:25:14service and to convert a significant portion of the remaining Civil Service into Political federal workers deserve praise for their expertise dedication and service not division thousands of civil Federal servants have given their lives in the line of duty for the country instead of attacking federal employees
▶ 1:25:44this committee should be considering bills to support the federal Workforce such as my bill to combat Federal pay compression or my bill to make permanent the free identity protection coverage that Congress required OPM to temporarily provide to individuals whose social service numbers were
▶ 1:26:14potentially compromised during the OPM data breaches as I said at our last hearing this Comm committe can do better for the American people and I yield back Mr chairman the gentle lady please yield to the ranking member we glad to chair recognize ranking member I thank the chair it was two minutes and 10 seconds I thank the gentle lady um so uh Dr
▶ 1:26:45rash um could you elaborate just a little bit more on your answer to the previous about uh sort of unelected superannuated appointees who are not subject to the advice and consent of the United States Senate and have arrogated apparently to themselves either with or without the acquiescence or consent of the president himself enormous Powers
▶ 1:27:15I mean could you elaborate a little bit on that and how unprecedented that is and what are the dangers what what could go wrong with that why why should we be concerned and please speak louder into that microphone yes sir so um the problems that can arise from uh a lack of accountability are many um uh particularly in the form of Doge uh we see um a person uh that is leading it that
▶ 1:27:45is entangled uh in billions upon dollars of federal contracts uh has an Empire that is regulated across uh various Industries uh across various agencies having a person that is uh potentially uh influencing uh where Workforce Cuts might take place uh without any transparency as to the decision making um uh
▶ 1:28:15potentiates U conflicts of interest particularly in those domains in which he is regulated or in which he has contracts with various agencies and interestingly enough you heard Governor Reynold's testimony about her process this is not how they did it in Iowa no I'm very impressed with her reforms but it had nothing to do with politically connected individuals deciding and one of the cautions I heard you say is we've got to also be concerned about conflicts of interest when that same individual
▶ 1:28:45imbued with all these Powers has government contracts I would say that across the contract State um there are laws but but they are very weak in terms of regulating the extent to which um political donations can be made by large contractors I than the gentle lady for yielding chair recognizes Mr grofman Wisconsin thank you much uh a lot of other people have waiting on Mr mus uh so I I thought I should wait him just as briefly
▶ 1:29:15uh in another committee we are waiting on um an opportunity to publicize a study showing that on this transgender Lifestyle the more you talk about it the more you get and if you don't talk about it like they don't in Europe they're not that many people going into it uh and therefore I'd like to thank Mr musk and Mr Trump when they found out that we were talking about this stuff or apparently promoting it in other countries they slam the brakes on that agency really quick
▶ 1:29:46which was I think the right and moral thing to do and it's unfortunate the United States government was uh apparently giv in engaging in activity that would increase the people choosing that lifestyle now I was in the state legislature for many years before I got here uh Governor Reynolds and quite frankly one of the reasons I ran for this job is again and again I wanted to do things at the state level and was told I couldn't because it was federal law I wonder if you can give us some
▶ 1:30:16examples of things uh and whether it be Health Care education welfare what have you or you wish you could do things in Iowa but can't do them because of mandates the list is long especially as we've aligned government and become more efficient um you know I would say the lack of accountability was what I saw in the in complete review that we did we reviewed over 800 agency programs in which there was not one kpi there was not one metric
▶ 1:30:46there was not one accountability measure tied to any of it whatsoever uh with the existing programs and so nothing comes before for me uh now from my agency my my cabinet without a kpi and a metric tied to it if they want to you know continue the program or if they want to add to it but I can talk about a couple different things uh snap would be one example um you know we we have an Antiquated system as does a lot of the governments especially the federal government and right now we have about 500 uh workers that are doing eligibility
▶ 1:31:17manually Val validating it from a dozen different uh points and uh we have of course have a fairly High error rate of which there are fines attached to a delay a timely delay a time timeliness and an error rate I have asked FNS for just the opportunity to issue an RFP so I can get a system that would allow me to use technology to collect all of the different
▶ 1:31:47data points reduce the timeline and the error rate and the fines that my state is being charged and I have been waiting for over a year to get an approval just on an RFP to go out and select a vendor to be able to offer that uh and then it has to go back to them for a sign off on that uh CMS is another just another nightmare we've been waiting we've waited up to three years to get um Managed Care rate approvals
▶ 1:32:17I have a Thrive platform that I'm trying to put in place which is a public private partnership which would allow faith-based organizations and nonprofits to help Iowans in need to partner with what we're doing at the government uh at the state level and we have again waited over a year uh just to Simply get them to sign off on the RFP so that I can Implement technology and and serve my constituents especially those
▶ 1:32:47in need uh in a better Manner and you know we see this time and time again especially with uh cm mess just the delay in getting the answers there's a cost of money in that and we're not able to effectively uh serve the citizens in our reflective States if you could are there ways you change these programs that you feel would reduce dependency reduce the number of people on the programs but can't because of federal law well because I can't even move forward I mean when I'm I'm getting fine because I can't aggregate the data we collect
▶ 1:33:17a lot of data at the state level but we can't aggregate it and I'm trying to stand up a system that would allow us to do and they're preventing us from doing that by simply signing off on an RFP so that we can move forward I'll give a block grant would be another example Department of Education is a great uh example of how we could do things differently with the estia funding formula every single uh there's 10 different streams they all have different funding formulas they all have different requirements they all have different outcomes
▶ 1:33:48and if we could streamline those into one formula with consistency across it and block grant that back to the States and give us the flexibility to be Innovative and to really meet the the various needs in our States they're all different do you think you get people out of the special education system quicker if you have more flexibility so so that's another example we could tie the two together and and it could be based on the state plan uh I had uh the aea area agency educators are what run the
▶ 1:34:18the uh special education program in our state uh it's about 530 million with state and federal funding not one person that I talk to not a school board not a teacher not anybody in the aea system could tell me the cost of providing a service you know I mean so when you continue to grow government those types of questions those types of analysis aren't even taking place they just need more money or they want to know if they've spent all of it there's never an evaluation
▶ 1:34:48that's done there's never an accountability there's no transparency and and that's why we're getting the results that we're getting our scores are horrible and when I tried to bring some accountability to the system shut down I mean so it's happening at the state and federal level but if I if we can work collectively together I think we can get the results that we're looking for thank you very much a big mistake whenever we do anything on a level chair now recogniz is Mr Lynch from Massachusetts thank
▶ 1:35:18you Mr chairman um as as former chairman of the subcommittee on National Security on on on this committee uh many years ago um and as a member for for many years as well uh we we had the opportunity to work extensively uh with members on both sides of the aisle uh Mr grman and others uh uh to conduct oversight of our federal uh security clearance process uh we had we had a very bad incidence
▶ 1:35:49uh in the uh in the 2018 time frame where uh our security clearance process that was conducted at OPM was hacked by the Chinese and so they were able to get the identities of anybody who had appear appeared to try to get security clearance it was a major intelligence failure so in 2020 uh members on this committee and others uh especially the intelligence
▶ 1:36:20committee made an agreement that we shifted that responsibility over to DOD and so since then since 2020 the Department of Defense uh it's called The Counter Intelligence and security agency dcsa has been conducting those uh those security clearance uh applications and it it's it's it's they've been doing very very well uh compared to what was going on before the problem is this that that on day one
▶ 1:36:50of his new term uh president Trump trump took an end run around an our entire National Security apparatus by allowing White House Council to Grant new White House officials immediate security clearance at the top secret and sensitive compartmental information level even though many of those individuals were not treated with the traditional vetting by the FBI so top secret FCI
▶ 1:37:20uh security clearance allows individuals to access classified intelligence sources and methods uh so these are some of our nation's most sensitive uh uh pieces of information which could cause exceptionally grave damage uh to US National Security and to our intelligence personnel and others who cooperate with them uh if it was exposed uh Dr rash uh to make where is worse Mr Trump has now given Elon Musk and
▶ 1:37:50his so-called Doge team unfed it access to Treasury Department and office of person management and other federal agencies and systems that manage Personnel files confidential payment systems and highly information what are the risks what are the risks of Sid stepping the existing security clearance process run by DOD that has worked very very well to protect our intelligence uh Personnel
▶ 1:38:20I think uh some of the risks are substantial uh particularly uh given the extent to which this data could be used uh in training uh foundational models uh that uh Mr musk and his team uh could use to do this data analysis I have no idea uh actually no one has any idea um exactly what servers are being used uh with the access to this data
▶ 1:38:51um there is privilege information uh that the Doge team could use to position um themselves or their private interest uh as players in government contracts for satellite deployment defense technology even orbital Logistics he could Le leverage his ties to Trump uh to position his own foundational model xai to have exclusive access to protected individual government data to train models that are
▶ 1:39:21really black booxed um could wield the advantage to undercut competition shape the AI landscape in Fairly frightening ways if this private individual information and government protected data is being used to train those models now this is speculation pure speculation because I don't know and neither do you and uh frankly no one does um but beyond creating better performing models uh exclusive access to government data would give
▶ 1:39:51uh significant Edge in securing long-term contract but Dr R beyond the the speculation why is it important that sensitive information is only handled by those who have been vetted and granted access to that information well for exactly these reasons so that it cannot be used for purposes um and uh yeah there are uh positions in place for our federal career employees uh to pass through um various uh
▶ 1:40:21ethics and conflicts of interest interest um U thresholds that SG just simply do not have okay Mr chairman my time is expired I yieldb back gentleman yields back chair recognizes Dr Fox from North Carolina uh thank you very much Mr chairman and I thank our Witnesses for being here today to talk about this important subject Governor Reynolds as you're aware our sprawling federal government has over 400 executive branch agencies and sub agencies
▶ 1:40:52and nearly 1,000 Federal boards and commissions we must reduce the burden and cost of the federal government with your government reorganization reforms in the state of Iowa you able to reduce the number of cabinet level departments and eliminate many state boards and commissions what was the impact of your reorganization effort well thank you for that question I appreciate it very much um actually just the efficiencies and just the culture in state government I now have a cabinet
▶ 1:41:23that uh that communicate that work together that that come up with innovative ideas um on their own and you know I would have with a 37 member cabinet I wouldn't know the people that were in the room and it's just not manageable 37 direct reports is not manageable and so to be able to streamline the cabinet and to lay out a vision and get them excited about the direction that we're taking the state and whether it's the time that it takes to get a physician's license it went from 65 days to one
▶ 1:41:53uh whether it talks about when you're getting a building permit you used to have to go to three different agencies now you go to one to be able to have it all in one Department uh when the Cyber when that Cyber attack hit with crowd strike because we had all of our it in one agency we were able to get the state of Iowa back up and going uh shortly after lunch and some of the states were out for for weeks in businesses so we're more responsive we're more effective uh we're
▶ 1:42:23serving citizens better and and again not only are we returning do uh taxpayer dollars back to our citizens and continuing to reduce the tax burden on them but we're also uh utilizing those dollars in a better manner we're reducing the administrative cost when you add federal administrative cost and then when you have three different agencies that you're running through each one of them are taking an administrative cost off of the top and so by consolidating and realigning that puts that money back into the programs back into into the ground
▶ 1:42:54and and and back into serving Ians and so and it also gives me the visibility now that I have into the various agencies because of the reduction we can continue to get better and we're continuing to make changes uh and we will and a lot of those are coming directly from the cabinet let me follow up a little bit given your successful reorganization what advice do you have for the Trump Administration to reduce the cost and size of the government and what advice do you have for Congress to work with the Trump Administration
▶ 1:43:24to do this well don't buy into the fact that you can't do it you can do it and it needs to be done there's you know there's just so much waste at all levels of government at the federal at the state and at the local levels and we're all serving the same constituency we need to do it better every time there's a duplication that's a cost to the taxpayer so we need to think about it holistically and we need to think about how we can streamline the way in which we're providing these Services I'm a big advocate for Block Grants back to the States again and I think that you know reduces
▶ 1:43:54a lot of the overhead a lot of the bureaucracy it streams line it takes an army of people to manage the federal programs that are coming in especially with the Department of Education and then the school districts also have to take people off uh they they what they're lying aside on really educating our students and they're doing compliance instead of working on instruction so it makes us all better thank you governor for um being a shining light for us uh Mr Shotz the grace
▶ 1:44:25commission created by President Reagan 1982 claimed that if its recommendations were followed the national debt would have been $1.9 trillion do by the year 2000 its recommendations were not followed instead the debt reached 5.6 trillion in 2000 and skyrocketed to over 36 trillion today how can president Trump Doge in Congress ensure that today's government reorganization and reform efforts actually get
▶ 1:44:55implemented and start reducing our massive debt U thank you representative Hawks uh the grace commission did save money President Reagan had 100 billion immediately by executive action in 10 years 240 billion and again over time 2.4 trillion from the grace commission and other cost saving recommendations by CW it takes Congress and the executive branch working together uh 400 agencies uh th000 commissions that's far too much uh the budget has only been balanced five
▶ 1:45:25times in the last 50 years think about that if you're a family and you only balanced your budget five times in 50 years you're pretty much broke and whatever and however it gets done something needs to be done and it may not be comfortable for a lot of people but it really is time to move forward quickly because if we don't it's our children and grandchildren that will suffer Social Security is already uh spending more than it takes in so a lot of examples of what needs to be fixed quickly thank thank you Mr Shotz thank you Mr chairman I yield back G
▶ 1:45:55lady yields back chair organizers Mr Christ morte from Illinois thank you Mr chair good morning Mr shatz on the campaign Trail Donald Trump said on August 15 2024 grocery prices have skyrocketed when I win I will immediately bring down prices starting on day one you don't dispute that right that was a statement yes unfortunately the price of groceries and eggs have only risen since Donald Trump took office according to the USDA the wholesale cost of a dozen eggs has increased from
▶ 1:46:26$659 on inauguration day until now it's $753 a 14% increase again you don't dispute that right no I assume you're not happy uh with this particular increase either right oh I wish the bird flu wasn't around but it is well I'm glad you brought that up according to PBS and axio some of the reasons for high grocery prices and high egg prices are Aven flu and recalls related to and leria you don't dispute that right correct
▶ 1:46:57my staff went back and checked the hundreds of executive orders that have been issued by Donald Trump and yet not a single one has mentioned the words Aven flu you don't dispute that right I as far as I know that's correct and not one has mentioned shutting down salmonella right I don't know you can shut down a salmonella but or or salmonella again if you and not one as mentioned ler again if you say so well I don't see a single executive
▶ 1:47:27order that will do anything to address High grocery prices or egg prices this hearing is about rightsizing the federal Workforce I think we should rightsize the cost of eggs Mr shatz Governor Reynolds in your testimony you said that the state of Iowa Iowa hired an quote outside firm to assist you with your efforts to modernize Iowa state government right of course at no time did you allow this outside firm to ever
▶ 1:47:57control Iowa's state Payment Systems right correct and of course you did not at any time give this outside firm access to the private personal information of all Ians in the state's Payment Systems did you no of course not let's talk about what has happened with Doge for a moment according to this letter which was sent by the treasury Department Jonathan Bloom of the Treasury Department
▶ 1:48:28a doge affiliate of Elon Musk is now quote a special government employee with access to the coded data of the fiscal Services payment system this is the most important Federal payment system in the nation responsible for making $6 trillion dollars in payments every year to hundreds of millions of Americans and just moments ago Politico just disclosed that Doge now has access access to all Medicare and Medicaid payments as well now Elon Musk is in charge
▶ 1:48:58of Doge Governor Reynolds he has not been confirmed by the Senate to any position in the federal government right no and he has not been elected by anybody to anything right correct he has not to your knowledge given a financial disclosure to Congress correct not that I'm aware of ma'am I want to uh bring your attention to something very disturbing that musk just recently tweeted out as we see at this visual he said the Doge
▶ 1:49:28team is rapidly shutting down illegal payments to Lutheran Family Services musk retweeted a post from Michael Flynn likening Lutheran Family Services to quote a money laundering operation Governor you don't believe that the Lutheran Church or Lutheran Family Services a money laundering operation correct look I can tell you that in Iowa the taxpayers of Iowa hold me personally responsible and accountable for state government just as they hold president Trump
▶ 1:49:58accountable church is not a money operation right and the election that we Mo Iowa is the home to the largest congregation in the United States over iow overwhelmingly is the Lutheran Church a money laundering operation listen of course not first of all every program should be looked at and that's what we're trying to do you have to some connection to money laundering is that what you're I'm not saying that but I said yes or no question is it a money money laundering operation
▶ 1:50:29I I can't speak to that you can't speak to that oh my god let's go to this us usaid issue the usaid purchase purchases crops from Iowa Farmers recently Elon Musk called it a criminal organization purchasing crops from Iowa Farmers is not a criminal activity correct I am the governor of iow is that a criminal activity I am the governor of Iowa and I don't work with usaid it is not a from Iowa Farmers
▶ 1:50:59Farmers a criminal operation in general purchasing crops from Ians is not thank you I yeld back chair now recognize it's Mr Bigs from Arizona thank you governor and Mr chess thanks for being here uh in 2021 Governor Reynold you led the state of Iowa in challenging OSHA's UNC constitutional private sector covid-19 vaccine mandate Mr chairman I ask unanimous consent that the filed
▶ 1:51:29lawsuit by uh Governor Reynolds and Governor Reynolds November 5th 2021 press release be entered into the record without objection a order thank you in that suit uh Iowa Arizona my state and nine other states argue that the federal government lacks the Constitutional Authority under its enumerated powers to issue this mandate and its attempt to do so unconstitutionally infringes on the state Powers expressly reserved by the 10th Amendment that's what the lawsuit said governor and I agree with that and and guess who else agreed
▶ 1:52:00with it the courts agreed with it and it was the same vaccine mandate that led me to introduce my legislation which is pending is called NOA which would return to the states the authority to regulate workplace health and safety and I noticed that Iowa and Arizona along with 20 other states currently operate under an OSHA state plan right is it correct that to approve a state plan OA certifies that the state's workplace health and safety plans exceed Federal requirements yes and Iowa like Arizona has maintained
▶ 1:52:30An approved state plan since 1985 yes do you believe that state officials and the people of Iowa are better positioned to set workplace health and safety standards than the federal government I do if the power to set these standards were returned fully to the states would you maintain Iowa's existing high standards for workplace safety or would you make you or would you make it your mission to put your constituents at risk of danger in the workplace I would keep it as the Exemplar as it is right now thank you let's let's go to a different topic uh kind of where where you've been
▶ 1:53:00uh when my colleague wouldn't let you answer questions but we'll we'll try to get we'll try to get there here um so our nation's $36 trillion in debt with a deficit that's a structural deficit not a cyclical deficit of $2 trillion each year and it's rising just last year for the first time payments on interest on our debt at loan eclipsed our our uh defense budget Meanwhile we're losing hundreds of billions of dollars annually to waste fraud abuse improper payments Etc
▶ 1:53:31Mr shett thanks for your testimony today if your task was stopping taxpayers from being defrauded in transfer payment programs could that be accomplished without a could that be accomplished without a thorough review of how the federal government actually sends money out the door absolutely not in order to determine how the money is being spent somebody has to see what it looks like and that's been a big problem for a long time is no one's looked at it they just make the payments and they don't prevent it from being wasted when it goes out of the door Governor rynolds uh you
▶ 1:54:01know you've done great work in Iowa I've watched it h your model for that that you've provided for the country uh is is is fantastic did your reorganization include reviews and improvements to State systems focused on stopping waste Fraud and Abuse as Mr shatz described abely it absolutely did and with the realignment and the visibility as I said earlier that I now have into each agency it gives us even more opportunities to continue to refine and make our systems better you know it's not a matter of there's there's money in the
▶ 1:54:31system we're just not using it efficiently and effectively and there's no accountability there's no transparency and this is allowed us to bring that to the Forefront right and and so I'm going to ask you Governor Reynolds and then you Mr chest to respond to this um when you get an opportunity to look at line by line budgeting where the expenses go that allows you to make adjustments to what is really critical on fraud waste duplic uh duplicative programs Etc yeah especially the duplicate and the fraud it allows
▶ 1:55:01us to review them line by line and make uh decisions accordingly yeah Mr shat that's correct in fact the federal government does not have anything online where taxpayers can see exactly how every penny is being spent Ohio has an Ohio checkbook you can look it up online there are so many things that are not done here the way they're done not just in the private sect seor but along the states and I know there have been efforts to modernize technology with 80% of the it being Legacy systems government is far behind in providing the transparency taxpayers
▶ 1:55:31need that's part of what they're trying to do yeah so I'm I'm actually baffled that instead of cheering the administration's efforts to conduct a thorough necessary review of the systems um they're receiving uh you know these these Dooms doomsday scenarios these statements that that they want to stop it and I don't know why you want to stop it and mean in my home state of Arizona we actually do the same thing you got you can go online and you can see a line by by line I asked for a line by line uh
▶ 1:56:01uh one single agency I just wanted one agency can you give me a line by line uh uh budget to look at they brought me two books like this and none of them were line by line they they didn't cover every program within that agency and they didn't describe everything that was there this is what we have to correct if we're going to get out of our structural deficit hole and yield back Mr chairman thank you Witnesses gentleman yields back chair recognize Mr kanana from California thank you Mr chair
▶ 1:56:32uh Mr shatz you have said that uh you believe that the Department of Education should not exist that you grew up without the Department of Education had a good education and you believe it should go to the states and local government is that an accurate representation of your position yes I just want to understand clearly where you stand so that would mean that you oppose any Title One funding that helps many public schools it's about $18 billion 2.8
▶ 1:57:03million American students are impacted yes or no would you be for cutting that 18 billion I didn't say to eliminate the programs within the Department of Education I said the department itself should be eliminated that money should be where would you stand on on the title one funding well that money should be assessed to determine whether it's being used effectively governor rold mentioned how many different ways that money's for right now would you want that money paused or do you do you think the money should be dispersed the 18 billion uh I think it's something that Congress needs to determine in the administration congress
▶ 1:57:33not not both both that look no but but it's a simple question do you think the 18 billion that Congress has appropriated and authorized should be dispersed at the moment it should be dispersed because that's been the law to disperse it and you're for you're for examining it and then possibly cutting it if there's a more effective way to Pro Ed look the spending has gone up test scores have gone like this or down do you understand the difference between correlation that theyve what's happened is that spending has gone higher
▶ 1:58:04education is not improved yeah but there also state budget because I don't want to get into the difference between correlation and causation but just a simple question on title one so you would be for examining it but possibly cutting it and that's that's your that's possible everything in the federal government needs to beel 7,39 95 if the neediest low-income students annually uh get these grants it helps about has helped about 6.7 million students would you be for cutting pel grants I think again it needs to be looked at and examined
▶ 1:58:34to determine possi cutting them it's anything is possible and that's but that's a different category that's an entitlement that's not discretionary so so you you do believe they should be dispersed today one of the problems with programs like uh pel grants are that they're not examined as much as they should if do you agree though that uh Elon M I've just been going back and forth with him on Twitter uh he said don't be a dick I said make sure you follow the Constitution but do do you agree that he has no
▶ 1:59:04authority to stop payments on anything that Congress has authorized and appropriated I think that's being tested but I think generally that should be correct if he were asking you would you advise him to to to not stop payments that have been authorized and appropriated by Congress well under this under my my statement said that Congress has appropriated money or provided money and there should be an examination of the results of how that money is being spent that's what I think should be done I I you know I missed the earlier procedural vote I just want to make
▶ 1:59:34clear I think that uh Mr musk should come and testify before this committee to explain that he is not going to stop payments at all uh for uh money that Congress has authorized and appropriated now the idea program do you that's about 14.2 billion uh dollar would you stop the funding or cut the funding for the idea program that helps kids with disabilities again something that Congress needs to review to determine if it's achieving its Mission
▶ 2:00:04that's the whole point of everything that we' now you realize that a lot of local and state governments complain because the idea program was supposed to be funded at 40% Jared Huffman my colleague is a bill to do that we only fund it at 15% the school districts complain that they have an unfunded mandate and you're saying maybe we should cut even more than the 15% I didn't say cut I said it should be examined to determine if it's being effective and whether the money should go stes entirely I I think the Department of Education has proven that it has not
▶ 2:00:35provided the results let me got one minut Prov just do you believe in these three things Title One funding pel grants and idea tell me uh if you think they've have been effective or have not been effective idea grants I I am honestly not familiar with that program as much as some of the others okay I mean that's that's also answer to but that's also an answer that pants pel grants have provided support but again everything needs to be re-examined Title One funding again the same thing we've got a $36 trillion
▶ 2:01:05debt we have2 trillion deficit very small per of the funding it's the defense department spending that is the the the big part but I it it's concern I appreciate your at least telling musk that he shouldn't stop these payments that have been authorized by Congress I hope Elon come in and and and explain that he won't do that but I uh am concerned that you would want to cut programs like the idea act possibly that are helping kids with disabilities Across America I didn't say that uh Congressman what I did
▶ 2:01:35say is that everything look every part of the problem is everybody says this is only a small percentage of spending and then you get a $36 trillion debt yeah because the big items are defense and and the tax uh breaks for the wealthy okay gentleman times expired chair recogniz Mr Higgins from Louisiana thank you Mr chairman I have a lot to cover and and not a lot of time to do it in I'd like to enter for the record please uh a letter from the associated builders and contractors
▶ 2:02:06of America regarding merit-based hiring Mr chairman with without objection to order thank you Mr chairman um my brothers and sisters across the the aisle on both sides of the aisle we have we have we have a a Trend in our nation we have an opportunity to address legitimately from from both liberal and conservative
▶ 2:02:36perspectives I I think it should be embraced because generally speaking we started losing our country about 40 years ago regarding the The Accelerated accumulation of debt and and this is this coincides of course with the massive growth of the federal government and this coincides of course with the with with the ongoing increasing infringement upon individual liberties rights and freedoms
▶ 2:03:06and movement away from the sovereignty of our states regarding their ability to to handle their business reflective of the 10th Amendment might I add which which reserves to the states all authorities not speciic specifically enumerated to the federal government or prohibited to the states by Congress or the Constitution so I mean ladies and gentlemen President Clinton when
▶ 2:03:36you have a Unified Government when you have a either party in majority control in the house the Senate and the White House it that's opportunity to really address the trajectory that want in our country President Clinton wasn't going to reduce the size and scope of the government the President Bush wasn't going to reduce the size and scope of the federal government President Obama wasn't going to do that you you have a you have a unique
▶ 2:04:07moment in in in history right now we have an obligation to address the the the trajectory that has been established over the last four decades this is a trajectory toward Doom for our country it's so we have an executive branch that's pumping the brakes and this is something that this town is
▶ 2:04:37very uncomfortable with and quite frankly it's it's it's it's new territory it's a new exercise for our country in modern history so there there's going to be maybe some wild steering shall we say when you're applying to breaks for the first time in modern history but I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the AE to grasp what's going on here we're trying to save our Republic from itself
▶ 2:05:08Governor Reynolds I would like to you about your role your beautiful work reducing your own Executive Branch from 37 cabinet level departments to 16 it's exactly the kind of thing we're trying to do you saved your state a lot of money you Chang your trajectory of spending you you reestablished Financial stability and economic Prosperity because of your your your conservative approach it's what we're trying
▶ 2:05:38to do and the the president Trump and and and Mr musk is as a as an ambassador of of common sense for president Trump to look to look hard at our at the practices of our executive branches and to reduce their size and scope Governor Reynolds it I have a a formula essentially that transitions Federal service back to to the sovereign states
▶ 2:06:08we can save a lot of money doing this what are your thoughts on on on shifting Federal responsibilities away from the massive federal government to the sovereign states generally speaking agencies like EPA FEMA Bureau of Prisons how would that work in your state ma'am would well we would welcome that uh again and especially with the alignment I think we're positioned very well to do that so I appreciate what I see
▶ 2:06:38happening with Doge uh I as I indicated in my remarks I'm standing up Iowa Doge so we can continue to bring the private sector in to examine the way that we're doing business government has to operate more like a business it had been 40 years 40 years since we even looked at the structure of government in Iowa it was ripe for reform you know they never eliminate a program they never do away with one once it started it stays if it's not working they think more money is the answer to it so we keep it if it doesn't work there's really no metrics
▶ 2:07:08every tied to anything but the the ongoing thought is if we put a little bit more money into it eventually it's going to work so I believe that states are well suited to implement block grants with a accountability with transparency with metrics with kpis so that we can report back to the federal government the results that we're seeing from the opportunity to take those streamlined dollars and be Innovative and be effective whether it's the Department of Education FEMA
▶ 2:07:38we had I had three presidential disaster declarations in two months this last spring thank you my time has expired Governor thank you for the work that you're doing Mr chairman iel chair recognizes Mr Brown from Ohio thank you Mr chairman at this very moment an unelected unaccountable billionaire is raiding our government and instead of raising the alarm the oversight committee let me repeat that the oversight committee
▶ 2:08:09is running cover as their president strips the government for parts two weeks in here's where we're at president Trump attempted to freeze funding for Vital programs tried to make it easier to fight tens and thousands of federal workers pressured more to resign and has attempted to bust Union contracts meanwhile Elon Musk who has been tasked with running a fake governmental department now has access to the federal payment system and apparently the personal information
▶ 2:08:39of every American and none of this is happening with Congressional approval and apparently my colleagues the Republicans on this committee also wanted to happen without any congressional oversight this is no way to govern but they know that instead they want to bully and intimidate federal workers into submission they want to replace experienced workers who are loyal to the country with lackies loyal to one man the truth is that the civil service is filled
▶ 2:09:09with loyal dependable and knowledgeable folks they are people who sacrifice for our country and keep the government ticking for the American people they ensure social secur payments arrive on time inspect our food and water to keep it safe care for our veterans crack down on corporate fraud and track deadly outbreaks like the bird flu cutting these jobs doesn't make government leaner it makes America weaker and it makes life harder for
▶ 2:09:39everyday people look at what happens when the government is stripped down to the bone in Ohio Social Security field offices are on the verge of collapse recently a field office in my district had to close its doors due to severe Staffing shortages the Social Security Workforce has shrunk in the last two decades but at the same time its workload has increased by 25% we have asked Social Security workers to do more with less
▶ 2:10:10and they have somehow managed because public servants aren't the enemy they're the people keeping this country running and this assault on them is an assault on all of us so governor Reynolds thank you for joining us today I want to ask you a series of yes or no questions in 2023 did you sign a bill to gut the state Auditor's ability to hold you and the state government accountable yes or no bill a bill was signed to restrict the uh to address that as
▶ 2:10:40a yes yes Iowa law has a provision to hold law Breakers in government accountable for sexual harassment but your Administration has paid out millions of dollars in settlement for harassment this has cost the taxpayers in your state is that rightsize government yes or no changes have been made to address that but previous UHA my time Mr chair I seek to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this Iowa Public Radio article entitled Iowa will pay
▶ 2:11:104 $415 million in Finance Authority sex harassment settlements into the record without objection to order now during my colleague's question line you stated that every program should be looked at however you signed a school voucher bill that sends $100 million of taxpayer dollars intended for public schools to private schools without any independent oversight of how this money is spent yes or no is this protecting against waste Fraud and Abuse
▶ 2:11:41they are held accountable they are accountable Iowa has 10,000 federal workers which federal jobs do you think are redundant is it the staff providing care to to Veterans at the VA facilities in De Moine and Iowa City the USDA experts supporting your State's Farmers or the social security staff ensuring payments reach seniors let's be clear about what's happening here this isn't about rightsizing the federal government it's about gutting it and it's
▶ 2:12:11about weakening our government's ability to serve the American people you want shorter wait times for Social Security faster Disaster Response safer food and Medicine then why attack the very workers who make it happen the house Democrats are fighting to protect and modernize the federal Workforce hire and retain talent and give federal workers the resources they need to serve the American people that's what we are doing
▶ 2:12:42and with that Mr chairman I thank you and I yield back chair recognize Mr Palmer from Alabama thank you Mr chairman and thank the witnesses for being here and I want to get to a more constructive dialogue uh first of all in regard to Doge uh as I've pointed out to some of my colleagues this is not the first time that the federal government has engaged in an effort like this um one time in particular was during the Clinton Administration was called the National Partnership for Reinventing government uh and it was led by Al
▶ 2:13:12Gore uh I ran a think tank at the time was invited to come to Washington to meet with some of the folks working on this but after seven years of this this effort uh they reduced the civilian uh employee population by over 426,000 they closed 250 federal Offices they reduced the federal registry by 700,000 pages and about 16,000 pages of regulations and I understand Governor Reynolds that U Iowa has launched a reorganization effort is uh the objective
▶ 2:13:42there to make government more efficient more effective and and and more responsive to the to the people of Iowa more efficient more effective more responsive more accountable uh it's brought transparency to the process we're better at what we're doing I would say that you know the employees appreciate the environment that we're working in today they appreciate the culture of innovation that we're creating uh at this in the state and they love being a part of it yeah did you bring it in any outside experts as the Clint Administration did in that effort for Reinventing government
▶ 2:14:12back in the 90s I brought in one consultant to help really do the comparisons in other states so we could see where we were an outliner where did we align what had may be missed so we used the consultant from that perspective and just to help us with some of the administration but otherwise we did it all internally when I worked I worked for a couple of international engineering companies and one of the companies I worked for went through a process like this and they brought in outside Consultants because people on the outside can see things those of us on the inside Miss so it's important that you bring in um
▶ 2:14:43really the the best that you that you can in that regard I really think that we're in another Reinventing government phase and and in particular with education uh there's a big debate right now going on about the number of H1 H1B visas that that we need to have because we're having to import so many technically trained workers I don't know if Iowa is experiencing some of this but you probably have some uh folks who are educated overseas that are now working in engineering technically trained jobs would that be correct yes I think the fact that we're having
▶ 2:15:13Mr chairman to to bring so many people in who are engineers and scientists is an indictment of the current education system um we're not able to produce the number of of technically trained people that we need to be competitive in our economy but also in regard to our national security because we're in a arms race yeah for in artificial intelligence with China and we're going to have to have a technically trained Workforce so one of the things that that I've suggested in this effort in regard to the Department of Education is that we not
▶ 2:15:44completely dismantle it uh Governor Reynolds but maybe reimagine it as the Department of Workforce Development and block grant the money into the states with a heavy emphasis on stem would you like to respond to that I I would be very much in favor of that in fact I've uh we put a proposal together that will be submitting to the Department of Education uh it gives States the flexibility we already have a waiver process in place that we could utilize until they could actually get some of that realignment done but uh like I said hold us accountable uh we'll we'll uh meet those expectations
▶ 2:16:14and we can do it at a lower cost uh we're going through I think an phase there's an historic opportunity here and I I think about um disruptive innovation and I I was talking to some folks today about this and and some of you may not be old enough to remember this when Toyota introduced the Corolla into the automobile Market in the United States in the 70s it forced us automobile manufacturers not only to rethink their what they were producing but
▶ 2:16:44they literally retooled to do that I think we're in that phase now where we're rethinking how government is run and a lot of the Innovation is coming from the state level such as from Iowa but I I think that that we're going to have to go through this phase and it's disruptive there's no question about it but it's for our own good long term and we need to be thinking 25 30 40 years down the road about how how we do this because we are at a point
▶ 2:17:15in competition with China that if we don't do this right we're going to be in a really bad place Mr shatz you you uh you you've been very involved in in evaluating the complexity and size of government how would you respond to that that we're in this disruptive innovation phase well I think it I think it's essential what has been going on has not been working it's why we have a$ 36 trillion debt haven't balanced the budget more than five times in 50 years so uh the changes that need to be made need to be made quickly
▶ 2:17:45uh before it gets worse and thoughtfully yeah and thoughtfully and the impact by the way all the discussion about indiv idual agencies what about the impact on taxpayers of this massive debt and the future of this country when the debt goes up deficit goes up $2 trillion a year every year for the next 10 years and that interest on the debt doubles and it's already bigger than the defense budget and everything else except Social Security no organization can survive like that so each discussion really should be T discussed with with that overall view well I thank
▶ 2:18:15the witnesses for the questions Mr chairman I'll yield back gentleman yields back chair no rec na is Miss stanbury from New Mexico thank you Mr chairman ranking member Governor Welcome to our Witnesses thank you for being here today I've really appreciated your commentary it's been real it's been substantive and I support much of the efficiency work that's being done at the states but I have to say once again welcome to the latest episode of The GOP oversight committee where my colleagues at
▶ 2:18:46the beginning of this hearing once again voted to block a good government motion to carry out our most basic constitutional Duty they voted against a motion this morning just a few moments ago to bring Elon Musk in front of this committee to discuss what he is doing to supposedly rightsize the government as they are claiming in this hearing and I have to say to my colleagues with all due respect why are you shielding Elon Musk from coming in front of this committee
▶ 2:19:16if that is what your intent is with this hearing and the work that you want to do why is the GOP in the White House shielding an unelected unvetted unqualified private citizen and billionaire who is literally dismantling our agencies while we sit here and is literally breaking the law maybe it's because while we're sitting here he and his team are working across town here in Washington DC entering federal agencies
▶ 2:19:47and federal buildings hacking their Data Systems Hing federal employees intimidating them trying to force them to leave shutting down vital programs closing the Department of Education the CIA the doj and threatening our domestic and international security and downloading the private and sensitive data of Americans at the Department of Treasury so what the hell is going on how can you sit here and defend this they are
▶ 2:20:17literally breaking the law the Constitution Appropriations law federal labor laws and dozens of statutory laws that congress has passed and Meanwhile my friends across the aisle are sitting here today saying that we're hyperventilating that we're just clutching our pearls are you serious are you that out of touch with the American people I mean I guess that's what happens when you elect billionaires and put billionaires in charge of the federal government just let them eat cake
▶ 2:20:47is that your message to the American people because last week while you were at Trump's private Resort in Florida and partying it up after the inauguration telling the media that funding freezes wouldn't hurt Real Americans well millions of Real Americans were sent into total chaos and our states had to go to the courts to shut down your federal funding free while Trump was gulfing the Medicaid
▶ 2:21:18systems were shut down and locked out Hospitals and Clinics were wondering if they were going to be able to keep their doors open food assistance and homeless programs across New Mexico were shut out of their Grant programs that keep families literally fed and off the streets Head Starts preschools and children's programs were wondering if they were going to be able to make payroll the next day or by the end of the week and while Elon Musk and a group of teenage software Engineers were hacking your
▶ 2:21:48personal data at the treasury Department shutting down doj the CIA usaid and ending diversity initiatives in the military saying that the United States military could not honor Dr Martin Luther King our proud military personnel and Veterans who put their lives on the line every day for this country were wondering if they were going to get their paychecks and veterans benefits so colleagues we are not clutching our pearls or
▶ 2:22:18hyperventilating we are defending the millions of Americans who are under attack the federal employees the mothers the fathers the grandfathers being put out on leave advocating for the people of color the women the members of our lgbtq plus and yes our trans Community who are Under Fire right now under the guise of cancelling Dei programs under the guise of so-called undoing social engineering after years of progress in this country
▶ 2:22:49we are defending the proud Federal service members who defend our national security who serve our communities and keep our economy running because I want to tell you something the American people are terrified and if you are that out of touch with your people then you should talk to your constituents we had a town hall two days ago and 12,000 New Mexicans got on our call because the people are terrified in this country and that is why we are fighting back
▶ 2:23:19that is why we are trying to bring Elon Musk to this committee and that is why we are fighting against this agenda and with that I yield back G lady yields the chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas Mr Cloud for five minutes thank you chairman and thank you Witnesses for being here and I apologize that you have to sit here and listen to the uh same sort of ideological rants that lost our friends across the aisle the election in a public survey just a couple months ago where the Hearts and minds of the American people spoke very loud
▶ 2:23:49and clearly for what they wanted one of the things that's been puzzling about this uh whole conversation is the obsession on Elon Musk uh when President Trump campaign he was very clear in what he wanted to do uh and and the talking is like this Doge idea was some secret thing that just popped up on the radar in in the last week when and the actuality is it's something that President Trump uh said he was going to do he said Elon Musk would be involved with it and the American people spoke loud and clearly that this is what they want and
▶ 2:24:19so the only thing that's really surprising about what we've seen over the last two weeks is the fact that we have a president doing exactly what he said he would do and uh you know us the need to bring in uh and to reign in our federal agencies could not be clearer than it has been we've always known and have known quite for some time that the federal bureaucracy has a tendency to grow Ronald Reagan once said the closest thing to eternal life we have on Earth uh is a federal agency um and we've seen time and time
▶ 2:24:49again throughout our oversight capacities the attitude among much of our federal agencies that they're here permanently and we as elected officials are here temporarily and that uh they will do whatever they feel and if they don't like the policies handed down by the elected executive that they will ignore it obfuscate do everything they can even to Shield data from us uh and so uh it's been refreshing that many of the suspicions we've seen uh have become quite transparent as we brought transparency tools
▶ 2:25:19to the table over the last uh several weeks but um you know there's this idea in Washington that anytime we have an agency who's underperforming they'll come before us and the thing that they'll always ask for uh is more money more power to fix the problem often times that they created this is a paradigm that we have to change uh it's been said that you can't solve problems with the same kind of thinking you used when you created them and so this is a really what doge is about and
▶ 2:25:49to name a couple points we can point to the CDC which uh has tremendous Mission creep since it was started it was originally purposed to help control malaria uh kind of to be a center for data and and a hub of information to help people tackle those sort of things it ended up expanding to the communicable disease Center and eventually became the center for dis Disease Control and now the Center for Disease Control and prevention uh which it has not done a good job at as we've seen over the last few years through Co and now it's trying to embrace
▶ 2:26:20such things as climate change and uh leged gun violence and systemic racism as as uh Centers for Disease Control U meanwhile their basic core function of being able to collect and share data to help the American people they epically failed that during covid when a firste PhD student from John Hopkins created a better tool than the CDC could provide we could also look at uh the Department of Education which has gotten a lot of in uh a lot of uh discussion lately uh and interest in looking
▶ 2:26:50at what's going on because our our schools are failing our kids that's just the status quo of where we're at in America and what we can see here is this education funding from the federal government has gone up student performance has been flat and compared to other nations has actually gone down meanwhile employment of the uh education Workforce has gone up so we end up having less people actually teaching uh among teaching in the classroom and more people administrating and so we've created an education Bureau
▶ 2:27:20Ry uh now Mr shatz did I pronounce that right uh you you talked about the importance of understanding uh and looking at the intended results are they happening uh and that's one of the things that I I think we're addressing in Doge could you speak to the importance of making sure that we're addressing the intended results as opposed to just sending money at it the example of the difference between helping students perhaps and helping school systems uh well the test scores and the higher costs are exactly what I was discussing
▶ 2:27:50earlier if price if something if you're spending more on something you're supposed to get results that match what you're spending the money on otherwise you shouldn't be spending it whether it's in the government or the private sector and again as a congressman contero I did grow up without a Department of Education as did my whole generation it's a little office uh health education and welfare state spent the money we think they could do a great job they're competitive with each other uh and some programs obviously should be retained and some should be turned back uh down to where they can do a much better job and be closer to the people and Governor
▶ 2:28:20Reynolds you talked about uh I'm curious because you've done a good job of streamlining uh the government and I'm curious about your ideas on how you hold uh government employees accountable how you hold agencies accountable uh what are the tools necessary to do so one of the big challenges here is getting the information necessary uh in order to do that you can think about the grants that are going out we've seen USA over the last I mean the stuff that they were spending money on is crazy we're finding out that our federal government is actually a money laundering scheme to help support leftist ideologies
▶ 2:28:51across the world and here at home it's it's crazy uh but yet finding that accountability piece we able to hold the individuals who are sending these checks out for example uh how do you bring that kind of accountability well we have our state expenditures online too so our checkbook is online so taxpayers in Iowa can check and see what is going out from the state but in addition to that remember I talked about uh we reviewed 800 programs across my cabinet and not one of them had a kpi any type of a metri break any type of expectation
▶ 2:29:21for outcomes zero so my cabinet knows now that if they want to stand up a new program or they want to extend an existing program then it needs to have first of all a kpi they need to have data that they're going to be reviewing uh they needed a review of what the program had done what were the metrics what were the uh outcomes from the existing program to justify putting additional money into it I also had them they had never put all the programs together they themselves had not even taken a look at it so
▶ 2:29:51that's how it just continues to grow and bloat and and just be unmanageable so I had them rank the programs that they have now to their defense sometimes the the legislature um hangs a program on them but we're working with the legislature too to just say you know this is this is not something that that we believe can really move the needle and go in the direction that we would we believe the the state can head it's but it's a conversation uh with our legislators so it's holding them accountable uh making them report back uh to the
▶ 2:30:22chief executive on uh what they currently are doing and what they're doing uh going forward but just simply putting key performance indicators as part of a program and then monitoring the outcome and basing decisions on data which is never happening and it takes the emotion out of the equation and that's what we need to do we need to look at programs we need to look at the outcomes and if they're not working then we have to let them go and figure out an an Innovative and better way that we can get the results
▶ 2:30:52that we believe um are that we can accomplish very good gentlemen times expired chair recognizing Mr Garcia from California thank you Mr chairman and I wanted to start by thanking our Witnesses uh for uh for being here thank you for uh hosting this hearing as well and I want to just start um by just starting with Dr rash a very simple question you can see here uh an article from The Washington Post um can you just quickly so we can take one step back just mentioned how much did Elon
▶ 2:31:22Musk donate to Republicans in the 2024 election to Republicans to to Republicans in the last election to Republicans overall I do not know uh well over 250 million to the Trump campaign right almost almost $300 million and in fact uh Mr musk was his single largest donor in the last cycle not sure if you knew that or not in this last in this last election and here's actually the the article on the headline from The Washington Post Elon Musk puts 277
▶ 2:31:53million into the election he's 200 billion richer this year 200 billion richer this year now we also know that just in the month in the month after the election Elon Elon musk's wealth increased by $170 billion should also not be a surprise to anyone that Elon Musk himself holds $20 billion do in contracts with the federal government now the truth is that Doge isn't really about efficiency or reform
▶ 2:32:24what Donald Trump and Elon Musk were actually engineering is the single largest wealth transfer in history and to pay for the enormous tax cut that's about to come to this Congress in the months ahead they need to slash spending by trillions of dollars in fact Elon Musk himself has said that he wants to slash $2 trillion $1 trillion from the actual budget now in Trump's first term we know that he already had a huge tax cut for the richest Americans and corporations
▶ 2:32:54now he wants to slash it by onethird more but here here's the truth in order to actually get more funds for their tax cut program they need to slash trillions and where are they going to do that well they've started the Department of Education the Department of Labor veterans benefits us Aid and eventually Social Security Medicare and Medicaid right now as we know Elon Musk the richest man on
▶ 2:33:24the planet is trying to destroy us Aid with his doge team now this is the agency we know that distributes foreign aid but that's just step one of their plan now of course we know they are going after the Department Education and here's an article from The Washington Post as well Trump prep's order to dismantle the Department of Education as Doge probes data now let me just Begin by saying that their mission is to destroy federal agencies like
▶ 2:33:54the department of Ed to then save money and then transfer that wealth to Elon Musk his companies and their billionaire friends through a massive tax cut eliminating the department of V would be catastrophic for children all over this country I'm a longtime educator I spent 10 years in the classroom teaching and as an administrator the funding provided by the department of vet is critical to children with disabilities stud student loans for colleges and ensuring that students are protected across this country the department
▶ 2:34:24of Ed has 160 billion to help kids pay for college 18 billion for low-income kids at K12 schools 15 billion for kids with disabilities and in most cases most schools are reliant on the department of aded to ensure that students with disabilities or that have additional needs get the education that they deserve and now all of that is on the line because billionaires and corpor ations in this country need and want a larger tax cut
▶ 2:34:54so let's be crystal clear about what Elon Musk is actually doing right now it's a wealth transfer to himself and his billionaire friends I also just want to note that just recently and yesterday in fact the New York Times have reported that now they are accessing the control centers for Medicare and Medicaid services this can be catastrophic to people across this country and so this committee rightly so has asked and that Elon must testify under oath in front of this committee we know that the law is
▶ 2:35:24on the side we know that what he's doing is unconstitutional and we demand that he come here and provide answers not just to us but to the American public and with that I yield back thank you gentleman yields back chair recognizes Mr Crane from Arizona thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman would it be possible to get some therapy dogs in here for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle we we could ask Mr Rin shrink I'm worried about their mental stability you know I
▶ 2:35:54think it's funny Mr chairman when I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle whining and complaining those are insults to be Elon Musk excuse me it's my time thanks um Elon Musk and you know how much money he donated to president Trump yet I don't recall the same outrage when you know billionaires on their side of the aisle like Mark Zuckerberg George Soros you know or any of the other ones they were donating massive sums of money to their side of the aisle Mr R I want to start with
▶ 2:36:24you real quick I read uh something you stated in your testimony you said rather than a bloated bureaucracy we Face a Workforce stretched too thin forced to oversee an increasingly complex web of outsourced operation with limited person personnel and resources is that correct did you say that in your testimony sir yes sir I'd like to read you a list of priorities over at USA right now one of the agencies that Elon Musk who's triggered my
▶ 2:36:54colleagues on the left so much the agency for International Development which had a budget of over 40 billion in fiscal year 2023 this is this is not a uh exhaustive list it's a very small list but 1.5 million to advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities 2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam 2 million for changes in LGBT activism in Guatemala 6 million to fund tourism
▶ 2:37:25in Egypt hundreds of thousands of dollars for a nonprofit linked to designated Terror organizations even after An Inspector General launched an investigation do you still stand by your uh comments sir yes my comments were in regards to the ability of Administrators to adequately oversee the funds the Congress has um appropriated to them for these programs yeah so you don't think this is a bloated
▶ 2:37:55Workforce when we're spending money overseas like that sir are you aware that we're over $36 trillion in debt Mr Rush yes I certainly am okay so you still stand by your comments that this isn't a bloated the federal Workforce the federal Workforce represents 4% of the budget uh for every uh sir do you know how do you know what the annual deficit is every year please it's over2 trillion doll
▶ 2:38:25I understand that okay so you still stand by your comments that it's not a bloated Workforce $2 trillion is not reflective of the workforce that is the federal employee oh it's not we don't SP we we're not spending money on the workforce your entire your entire of your entire budget 4% if you cut the entire Workforce 4% would be reflected do you know why often we use private companies and contractors in the federal government sir because you can actually
▶ 2:38:56fire them it's a lot easier to fire them if they're not performing sir have you ever own have you ever ran a a large organization or a small business no I have not I just find it interesting that we bring in a governor of one of of one of the United States who has actually run a state to talk about all the cuts the elimination of fraud waste and abuse and how she's got her State high performing
▶ 2:39:26and made a bunch of changes so that they actually have a surplus and my Democrat colleagues bring in a professor who's never run a large organization never run a small business and therefore has really no idea what it's like to deal with the consequences of out ofcontrol spending and inefficiencies does that strike anybody else in the room as odd what about you Mr shatz
▶ 2:39:57who who are you going to take advice for from on efficiency somebody who's actually run a large organization or business or maybe a state and I'm not trying to throw shade at Dr rash and his profession there's been a lot of professors in my life that have brought me a lot of value but when we're talking about trying to add efficiencies to the largest government in the history history of the world that's operating at $36 trillion national debt 2 trillion annual deficit
▶ 2:40:27Mr sha Mr shatz who are you going to who are you going to take counsel and advice from well I think anyone who has an idea about how to cut spending should be welcome and that could include academics it include nonprofit groups Governors so the point is to get the job done not to keep talking about it that's right and the last thing I'll say is because my Democrat colleagues are losing their mind with Elon Musk um don't forget that Elon Musk campaigned with a president the American people were very excited about Elon Musk using
▶ 2:40:57all of the tools and experience that he has and that he's used in the private sector to come in and streamline this federal government thank you Mr chairman I yelled back thank you chair recognize Mr Frost from Florida thank you Governor Reynolds thank you so much for being here today I've been to Iowa I've spent a lot of time in Iowa it's a beautiful state um so thank you for being here Medicaid covers almost 700,000 Iowans over a third of Iowa's children in uh 2013 I believe
▶ 2:41:28Iowa um expanded medicaid I have a few questions for you if Medicaid funding were to disappear what would that mean for the people of Iowa yeah well I don't think it will disappear simply looking at a system and seeing if we can enhance it and make it better doesn't does my question though Governor my question is if it were to disappear what would that mean for your I don't think that's the intent of anybody but we need to do it better and we need to help these if it were to disappear Governor what would that mean for the well I can't speculate on that because I don't believe that that would happen so you as the governor of your state can't say what it would mean to lose Medicaid for
▶ 2:41:58your people I okay we'll move on how would people across Iowa react to Rural and community health centers having to suddenly close well we're we're as I talked about in my opening remarks we're actually working on maternal health and working on uh healthc care in rural Iowa and that means again looking at regions I took you know 32 fragmented substance abuse Substance Abuse and Mental Health regions and unified
▶ 2:42:28them into seven Behavioral Health regions and we're putting in place a a hub and spoke model which they will be a part of I'm sure you're doing great work I just I want to focus on the questions I have I have limited time I'm sorry Governor I'm sure you're doing great work on this my question is about Ru and community health centers community health centers that receive a huge amount of federal funding in including programs that help Iowans afford medication and prescription drugs what would that mean for and they're they're a part of our solution and we're taking that to account but we don't want
▶ 2:42:58duplication of services good I'm going to move on Governor I'm going to move on that's good to hear um some Republicans on this committee are calling Trump's careless assault on the cenal federal services including his freezing of Medicaid payment system right sizing what is the right size for healthcare well that's going to vary from state to state so you know I mean my would you be okay with uh Elon Musk or Trump rightsizing Medicaid in Iowa I don't think we should be afraid of having the private sector
▶ 2:43:28step in and take a look at how we're providing these Services we can learn from them Tak a look Governor decisions are being made well they're they're looking at the system and making recommendations Med payment system we shouldn't be afraid of that I so I think that no governor no one is afraid Governor sorry I'm going to reclaim my time no one is afraid of opening you know taking taking a look at what's going on but what we are afraid of is our services the things that people depend
▶ 2:43:59on being ripped away from us I'm worried about Iowans losing the Medicaid that they voted to expand that 700,000 Ians are on Medicaid but that's why we made the changes that we made that's why we realigned we eliminated the duplication and by doing that it put more money into the program to actually meet the needs let talk about what you did because we were just talking about what you did you came to the office you made some changes to help with efficiency I respect that but there's something that was brought up even
▶ 2:44:29by the chair that I want to bring up that uh shows the difference between what you did and what's happening right now at the federal government you worked with the legislature and passed legislation in your state legislature to make the broadest changes you wanted to make and that is not what's going on right now when we talk about Doge and everything else you even mentioned at the the beginning of this hearing you were so proud to say that you did this all
▶ 2:44:59without massive layoffs without forcing a large percentage of your Workforce to leave because you saw them as valuable I respect that Governor I respect you for that that's not what's going on here at the federal level but let's move on to FEMA really quickly Trump has said that he wants FEMA to go away he would like to see the states take care of the disasters on the own I come from Florida we use we work a very closely with FEMA do you think most Ians would agree with President Trump that FEMA should suddenly stop the existing I don't think
▶ 2:45:29he's eliminating and I think what I had understood was he was thinking that maybe it should go back to the states which that's I should take a look sorry Governor a reclaim the president was very clear in this he believes that the agency FEMA should be completely eliminated do you agree with that or do you not agree with that I mean it's okay to disagree sometimes with you know well I'm not afraid to disagree uh I'm just thinking dise with Fe with assessment of FEMA it's it's bureaucratic it's a nightmare to work with they can only do one thing at a time I
▶ 2:45:59have impact are huge whole hearing govern reclaim account do you agree with him that we should eliminate FEMA yes or no I think we need to take a we need to take a look at it and how those services are delivered but you don't think we should eliminate it I think we should take a look at it and see how those services are delivered okay but it sounds like you don't think we should take take you know we shouldn't get rid of it which I agree with in the past 10 years your state has been granted FEMA support 10 times president Trump in 2018 denied you a claim after flooding and uh uh horrible weather patterns that
▶ 2:46:29happen in Iowa you said you were extremely disappointed and that the people of Iowa needed FEMA's help that was your quote and so um thank you I'm glad you're here to talk about the things you did in Iowa I hope president Trump can look at the way you did things and working with your legislature the way it's supposed to work to make the changes instead of letting a wealthy billionaire donor go in and make the changes himself I yield back chair recognize is chairwoman Green from the state of Georgia Thank you Mr chairman my Democrat colleagues are reacting with manufactured
▶ 2:47:00outrage over Elon Musk and the Doge team going in and cleaning up the Federal Government they're saying the American people did not vote for this but I would like to correct that record on July 13th when President Trump was shot in Butler Pennsylvania Elon Musk got behind president Trump and he endorsed him and then on August 19th of 2024 this is this is before the election Elon
▶ 2:47:30Musk posted on his own account I am willing to serve and that right there says Doge this was not something that was created after the election it is no surprise to the American people as a matter of fact the department of government efficiency was a key part of President Trump's campaign and president Trump campaigned over and over again on Doge and Elon Musk helping him as a matter of fact here right here on Rolling Stones
▶ 2:48:01which is very far left by the way Trump says he would give Elon Musk a top role in his administration again this was on August 20th 2024 well before the election this was no surprise to the American people the American people love Doge so much they love the concept of saving the federal government saving Americans and putting America First cutting the waste in the spending cutting down the size of the federal federal government they love it so
▶ 2:48:31much they voted for President Trump and elected him with an overwhelming Victory he won the popular vote 312 Electoral College votes it's the Democrats that are the ones that are still lost on their message and their message is a failure and the American people spoke out about it as the national debt approaches $ 36.5 trillion our children and our grandchildren's futures are being sacrificed at the altar of wasteful
▶ 2:49:02government spending and corruption with my new subcommittee on Doge this Congress we are going to dig deep on the wasteful spending and corrupt bureaucracies that have plagued our nation for far too long we will make recommendations to address these problems and we will make sure the American people know exactly what is being done with their hard-earned tax dollars after all this is what they for governor Reynolds
▶ 2:49:32in Iowa the state legislature passed a bill in 2023 that lowered the number of cabinet level departments from 37 down to just 16 so I'd like to ask you did this make the Iowa government more efficient or less efficient more efficient not surprised is the Iowa government still able to provide all the services your constituents require of you we're actually doing a better job of it and putting more money into the programs or
▶ 2:50:02returning it back to the taxpayers amazing it sounds like Doge has already worked in Iowa has your State lost money or saved money since reorganizing its government $217 million surpassing our four-year projection uh in the first 18 months and it's that's conservative we're going to continue to see savings and that's how I'm going to continue to reduce the tax burden on our taxpayers that is incredible that's what all of America wants so how do you think the federal government can translate what Iowa
▶ 2:50:33has done to the National level you've already achieved it on in your state how can we replicate that you're doing it by bringing the F private sector in having them take a look at the inefficiencies in government look at the systems look at the duplication look at the unaccountability there's no transparency there's no metrics there's no data that they can point to we've we're standing up Iowa Doge we want to be a partner in that because I think it's really important that the federal government and the state government and the local governments work together
▶ 2:51:03to really Implement transformational change this is an incredible opportunity I have so much respect for president Trump to to put this initiative forward uh he received an an undeniable mandate in this last election as did we we now have super majorities in both the house and the Senate the governor's office and an entire Republican delegation that we've sent out to Washington DC we did just what president Trump does we told Iowans what we were going to do and we followed through with it and that is what
▶ 2:51:33Americans expect and that is why 77 million people said that President Trump is who we want to restore America's greatness I absolutely agree with you Governor Reynolds thank you Mr shatz in all your years at your organization can you give some of the most egregious examples of government spending you've seen and I know that's hard to come up with a few because there's a lot uh I talked earlier about Broadband programs it's not necessarily A wasteful expenditure meaning something isn't trying to be they
▶ 2:52:03just there were 133 Broadband programs and 15 agencies there are people that are still not connected I am sure also in Iowa $42 billion for the bead program not a penny has been spent uh we want people to be connected to the internet it's critical for our future but unless those programs are Consolidated and someone figures out which ones are working best we're not going to achieve that objective it seems simple but again the problem here has been as it usually is something isn't working spend more money create another program
▶ 2:52:34don't take the time to look at how it's working and that's what Doge and your subcommittee is going to do we're happy to help any way we can by the way thank you Mr shadz and you're right uh under the Biden Administration they actually canell contracts with starlink which are far less expensive um and then never build out the infrastructure for Broadband true failure for the American people Giant waste of money thank you Mr chairman I back GLE lady yields back chair recogniz Miss Lee from Pennsylvania thank you
▶ 2:53:04Mr chair I am afraid that we are witnessing the biggest Con in real time our federal government is being fleeced by a handful of billionaires at the expense of Everyday People they're what we call unelected Bill billionaire oligarchs and they are not trying to rightsize the government they're not trying to make things more efficient or improveed Services they want to eliminate their competition and grow their private coffers the collective net worth
▶ 2:53:34of the president's cabinet is over $460 billion do that is unprecedented in our country's history even cting the days of the robber barons or when the only folks who could serve in government were landowning well wealthy white men this isn't just government by the top 1% It is government by the top 0.001% and these aren't just disinterested Outsiders who are benevolent volunteers coming in to help
▶ 2:54:04us situate our government right these are people who have conflict of interests they have Financial Stakes they are even tied to litigation against the very agencies that they have been tasked to lead musk alone has nearly 100 government contracts across 17 federal agencies at total $3 billion by all accounts musk is now running rampant through our F federal agencies accountable to no one and doing what he pleases with Federal systems and data with no transparency and no oversight
▶ 2:54:35it's still unclear if he has security clearance or if he's passed the background check he certainly hasn't found any Financial disclosures this is absolutely outrageous and Americans are rightfully mad this is the committee on oversight one of the most important committees particularly in this era yet Republicans did not bring Elon Musk the private citizen given access to all other private citizens data and the one leading all of this chaos and just this morning they blocked our efforts
▶ 2:55:05to bring them in musque has a bunch of 20s something year old child cronies accessing highly sensitive information and Technology at the office of personnel management the general Services Administration and Department of Treasury they they also have not been invited to testify before us today so I think we need to ask ourselves why does an unelected billionaire need access to American Social Security numbers in the $6 trillion doll payment system and if this operation is so legit why is there no transparency why are we pretending
▶ 2:55:36this is about right sizing the only logical answer is greed and Corruption Dr R do you agree that there is corrupt a corruption risk with this level of unaccountable access and that must could use this data to gain an advantage over his competit over his competitors Whenever there is no security clearance um there is a corruption risk uh Whenever there is uh entanglements in terms of being a contractor or a contracted entity and a regulated entity
▶ 2:56:06um but with uh um access to data or unfettered access to protected government data there is a risk of corruption thank you so much uh Beyond musk and the rest of the cabinet appointees just look at the powerful Tech CEOs who had front row seats to Trump's inauguration and also have Financial Stakes with the very agencies that Trump is now looking to fundamentally overhaul nearly every executive action taken so far has been designed to make corruption easier in the first week alone Trump fired 17 Inspector General
▶ 2:56:37across 18 agencies these are nonpartisan Watchdogs and this includes the one from the treasury Department who could have served as a guardrail against musk's efforts the hiring Free stopping federal spending and trying to Strongarm federal workers to leave their jobs are all actions designed to make our government fail and move things over to the private sector further uh fattening the bank accounts of these billionaires these unelected billionaires they'll consistently tell
▶ 2:57:07you that private is better but meanwhile the poverty Gap keeps growing and they keep laying off people while Americans wages remain low they're multi-million doll bonuses keep getting bigger Republicans are pushing these Cost Cuts so they can pay for their tax cuts workingclass Americans will not be benefiting from those tax cuts but musk these Tech billionaires and Trump's wealthy cabinet officials they certainly will meanwhile working-class Americans will be paying the price in jobs
▶ 2:57:37in lack of regulations and in the loss of government services like Medicare and Social Security instead of a federal government designed to serve all the people Trump is doing everything he can to to turn the government into a tool to serve just one group the rich oligarchs he calls his friends thank you for your time I thank you uh thanks to the panel and I yeld back gentle lady yields back share recogniz Mr Timmons from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman and I want to thank uh the witnesses
▶ 2:58:07for being here today I I do my best um to work across the aisle whenever possible and I think that that is how this place is supposed to work I try to earn the respect and the trust of all of my colleagues nobody's I I am sickened by the way that the left is categorizing and lying about what Elon Musk is doing in the federal government I'm gonna say what's true and then I'm gonna debunk their ridiculous lies
▶ 2:58:38number one president Trump hired Elon Musk he is a federal employee he does not make enough to trigger Financial disclosures those are the rules if you don't like them file be a to change them he has hired people to seek out waste Fraud and Abuse throughout all government agencies he leads a team within the administration that has smaller teams across all of government their job is to bring sanity to this process um they don't have to be Sate confirmed
▶ 2:59:08because they don't make enough money and they're not in positions of control they are in advisory positions their objective is to um give a menu of options to the president to the Secretary of Treasury to Secretary of Defense to all the different agency heads who are Senate confirmed of ways to conserve taxpayer dollars that's what this election was about we got 36 trillion dollar in debt we run a$2 trillion annual deficit this is unsustainable and the American people have
▶ 2:59:38spoken so what is he and what are his teams doing they're creating systems to track sources and uses we haven't done that when if government agency goes to the treasury and says we want this money there's no system through which they actually can say all right Congress appropriate authorized it and what are you going to use it for and then track all that so what are they doing they're creating systems to make sure that the money is going where it's supposed to go and guess what the Democrats are losing mind he's also
▶ 3:00:09um creating systems to ensure accountability all of this is going to be public all of this is going to be public and he's proven that he can turn around businesses that are failing and he has offered his time to try to save this country so uh I guess first just ridiculous lies that are being told Elon Musk does not have access to Americans personal identifiable information at treasury he just doesn't you have career bureaucrats that are mad that they're losing their jobs because they're no longer useful in uh
▶ 3:00:39the the future of this government because they've gotten us in this situation I had dinner with treasury secretary uh bessent and he assured us that all that the Doge employees at treasury were doing was checking sources and uses to make sure that um money authorized and appropriate by Congress is being spent on what it's supposed to be spent on the fact that we haven't done that yet in 2025 is insane so while people call my office and say oh Elon Musk has my records that's a lie
▶ 3:01:10it's a lie from the the flailing bureaucracy that is no longer useful because technology can solve all these problems well did gentleman yield for a clarifying question sure go ahead can you help us understand based on what you're explaining here then why nearly 2 million federal workers received an email from OPM with Elon musk's letterhead a fork and a road you know okay I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm debunking the fact that people are calling my office saying that uh he has access to hold on that he
▶ 3:01:40has access to uh their tax records which he does not the treasury secretary said that you do not know better than the Tre treasury secretary in angry bureaucrats don't know better than the treasury secretary that's our system of government we won the election El musk is the politically appointed and Senate confirmed treasury secretary says you're wrong so until you get actual data musk is bragging about it on his Twitter y'all go on I have an article here ink I'm reclaiming my time thank you
▶ 3:02:10um this is an article in Politico that uh was written after the dinner that we had Monday night with the treasury secretary where he confirmed to the house Financial Services committee that Elon Musk does not have access to Americans American taxpayers personal data so I'm gonna say it one more time everybody that's calling my office everybody's flipping out the media that's lying about this the Doge employees do not have access to American citizens personally identifiable information they their only goal is to
▶ 3:02:41track sources and uses and make sure that the money that we're spending is going where it says it's supposed to go this this is shocking it hasn't been done yet but they're doing it now and this is just the beginning um again I I'd say buckle up because this is going to keep going and we're going to save this country we're going to get out of this ridiculous financial situation we're in with that Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back chair recognizes Miss Crockett thank you so much Mr chair it's the fox outrage for me it's
▶ 3:03:11as fax as faux news um that I'm hearing because somehow you guys and when I say you guys I am referring to my Republican colleagues pretend as if you are the heroes of the story but let me remind you who set the house on fire it was y'all so let me go ahead and handle these receipts because I know that I always have to have proof even though I guess our econom our our education system is failing us because it seems like facts don't
▶ 3:03:41seem to phase people that vote for y'all but I'mma do it anyway so when we talk about debt I'd ask for unanimous consent to enter into a record this article that says Donald Trump built a national debt so big even before the pandemic that it'll weigh down the economy for years without objection so ordered thank you so much in fact it talked about the fact that he ran up our debt almost 8 trillion it was estimated to be 7.8 trillion at that time and that this is one of the it's actually the
▶ 3:04:11third biggest increase ever under any presidential Administration so I don't understand how y'all going to play the heroes um I also want to just kind of be clear about some basic level setting of civics because it seems like Civics is evading us and listen Governor I actually appreciate you I know that in today's times for whatever reason if you got a D or R in front of your name it has to be all hostile listen I am a former business owner if I
▶ 3:04:41was not sitting in this seat I would still have my Law Firm but you know we have rules right so I'm not allowed to practice law I'm not allowed to do a lot of other things because ethics decides that that's not really a good thing to make sure that the American people can trust that I don't have any divided interest in fact we do that for people that run our treasury typically so I'm curious to know if you have an elected Treasurer in state and you
▶ 3:05:11do actually we do I I know you do because I looked him up um and and I'm curious to know so it's my guest that he's the one that actually controls all of the treasury systems that you have correct some of the Investments he controls some of the Investments but also monies that need to be disseminated by the state that's done by him correct department of management in the Treasures Office okay in the Treasures Office two separate agencies okay but you have an agency that does that correct yes okay and
▶ 3:05:41as you are having this agency do that these are people that have some sort of eth ethics that they have to follow I'm sure I'm going out on the limb because I don't know how anything Works in Iowa I'm just being honest with you yes okay here is the deal I want the American people to understand that Democrats are not against efficiency in fact the last time that this country actually ran to the extent that there was a balanced budget and actually there was a surplus it was a democrat in the White House his
▶ 3:06:11name was President Clinton so we are not against this what we are against is this IDE aidea that we will evade the Constitution or we will evade um our own constitutional in fact it's not even an invasion at this point it feels as if y'all have just decided that y'all are going to castrate your constitutional Duty and hand it over to someone who is unelected it doesn't matter how many cheerleaders he had on the field campaigning for him that doesn't
▶ 3:06:42mean that he gets to go in and sit a top any of our agencies and the fact that had a vote today and we asked to bring him in because we have a constitutional Duty we all took our oath and maybe some of y'all just don't take it seriously but I take it seriously when I take a oath to do a job and my job is to look out and make sure that we don't have any Kings or Queens in this country but it seems like y'all have decided that it's going to be uh Mr King and his Queen and y'all can pick
▶ 3:07:12which one is which but either way I want to also talk about Governor I'm I'm curious to know if you know these the the answers to these questions which party controls the White House Republican which party controls the Senate Republican which party controls the house Republican is that about what the makeup is in Iowa yes and that has allowed you to be able to get your agenda across correct yes and you haven't had to bring in somebody to basically usurp any types of norms
▶ 3:07:42because you worked through the process correct well I did executive orders 280 agreements then went the legis as well it was all the My Time CU only got so much time left I also want to point out that you specifically talked about to the did you recently have three National declarations for disasters and I want to enter into the record a unanimous consent Trump moves to abolish FEMA shift Disaster Response to states without objection and my final uh unanimous consent I'd ask says that Mike
▶ 3:08:12Johnson's budget plan is at risk of collapse even though we know that y'all control all three levers of government so if this is what y'all want to do then go ahead and clean it up and fix it and just go through the process and honestly there's nothing that we will be able to say about it and with that I will yield okay that right thank you Gentle ladies times expired chair recognize Miss bobert from Colorado thank you Mr chairman uh the the outrage here um has been uh absolutely unhinged
▶ 3:08:43um as we've seen in the media we're seeing Politico who's laying folks off and as they're being defunded of American tax dollars uh they can no longer sustain themselves and so the outrage is just going to continue from those um who are no longer going to be able to support uh their businesses from American taxpayers and uh we simply want accountability we want oversight this is the oversight committee and unfortunately Congress has done a crap job of oversight and accountability over uh
▶ 3:09:13quite some time I would say decades and that is why we have this new Comm that is created and Americans are grateful for it president Trump campaigned on having this Doge commission to have oversight and accountability and it is our responsibility to codify what happens I am pleased with the the um ex uh the expedited efforts that have taken place to really get this out in the open and and expose to the American people what their money is actually
▶ 3:09:43being sent to and and let's just be honest with the American people unelected bureaucrats have been funneling their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to ridiculous and even malicious causes doge is doing the hard work to uncover the truth and make our government work for the people rather than funding policies that are actively hurting them for example Dr rush in your testimony you state that the
▶ 3:10:13recommendations from the Department of government efficiency will exacerbate at Public Health crises how is that the case when uh when doge is advocating to defund Eco Health Alliance which was involved in the research in the Wuhan lab that created K Corona virus that created this Global pandemic that killed people and ended the livelihoods of many others um my statement was in reference
▶ 3:10:43to uh across theboard firings without uh specific without specific I think government employees have been given the option they they can have an and those that those that will be given the option will be more uh competitive on a private Market basis than those that stay so and so then you'll be losing your best public employees as were our best public employees at uh the Wuhan lab of orology were those our best employees was that where our funding was going to the best and the
▶ 3:11:13brightest who started a global make a 20% across the cut without any I think there's been a lot of inefficiencies and I'm I'm excited to see um where this goes and the exposure of that and uh Dr Brash the last Administration weaponized NOS um to Aid and abet illegal aliens uh across and within the interior of the United States we saw millions of taxpayer dollars uh being funneled to NOS that were spent on on plane and bus tickets hotel rooms
▶ 3:11:43and uh even to coach illegal aliens on how to illegally stay in the country heck we have a congresswoman who is currently uh coaching illegal aliens on how to stay in the country what terms to use even if they are untruthful now Dr Rush how does transporting millions of unbedded illegal aliens into our country make America safer and how does stopping the funding of those ngos harm America
▶ 3:12:14that is tangential and irrelevant to myself oh it is not irrelevant um let's go through uh the list of of relevancy shall we uh when we have open borders allowing millions of illegal aliens coming into our country unve unvetted um then the relevancy is in terms of lake and Riley Joselyn Nung Rachel Moren Ruben uh Ruby Garcia Elizabeth Medina and I could go on and on and on and on with the American citizens who were killed
▶ 3:12:44at the hands of illegal aliens so I I think it's pretty relevant to say we need to look into these Nos and what they are doing with these unvetted illegal aliens coming into our country and remaining into our country would you agree does that bring some relevancy to the topic sir not to Workforce cuts across the American uh public service but we're also talking about the funding that is going out we are cutting spending at an executive level and I hope that we codify that codify
▶ 3:13:14all of that here within these Cham ambers uh to ensure that it doesn't go out again now in your testimony you also mentioned that Doge um proposals reflect an agenda to dismantle professional government according to you this is fundamentally at odds with the principles of democratic government go uh governance in in November president Trump won by a decisive mandate promising to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity and um how are how are actions
▶ 3:13:45um these actions fulfilling the president's campaign promises fundamentally at odds with the principles of democratic governance and while my time is running out I want you to answer that sir um but we hear about unelected folks um Democrats didn't even get a chance to vote for their own presidential candidate in their primary so don't talk to me about unelected people actually being involved in the decisions in this country but I would like to hear how that's at odd sir I have no response to
▶ 3:14:15that well that's chairman the general lady I I yield thank you chair I recognize Mr casar we're going to recognize Mr casar and then Mr Jordan and then uh at the request of the witnesses we're going to take a a brief bathroom break so chair recognize Mr casar for five minutes and then after him it'll be Jordan and then a then a brief 10-minute break chairman I don't know why Republican members even show up to this committee
▶ 3:14:45or to Congress when it's clear who's really in charge of the federal government right now and that's Elon Musk and at the beginning of this hearing when we asked our Republican colleagues if we could bring Mr musk to this committee Republicans ran cover for him they want him hiding in the White House tweeting and they voted unanimously that they didn't want to hear from Elon Musk supposedly this committee is supposed to be about rooting out waste Fraud and Abuse
▶ 3:15:15and I so let's talk about waste Fraud and Abuse the biggest fraud in US Government right now is Elon Musk pretending to care about efficiency when what he cares about is taking your taxpayer dollars taking your Medicare taking your Medicade taking your Social Security and enriching himself and his billionaire buddies with it the biggest abuse in the US government right now is Elon Musk $154 billion
▶ 3:15:46richer since the election just a few months ago while consolidating unprecedented power over your money and your government Mr musk invested 227 million in Trump's election and is making billions off of it that's waste that's fraud that's abuse and speaking of waste another waste is my house Republican colleagues showing up because they waste their time they won't speak out about any of these abuses against working
▶ 3:16:16people and taxpayers this is the oversight committee and there are 17 independent inspectors General they are watchdogs they are the oversight arm of the federal government and Trump and musk illegally fired 17 of them including a watchdog that was investigating one of musk's companies and what I've heard from House Republicans is either silence or defending that kind of behavior you guys know that it's embarrassing and it's wrong and that's why
▶ 3:16:46you voted to not have musk here before us Elon Musk is not doing anything to make government more efficient for working people he's using his position to more efficiently raid your taxpayer dollars to enrich himself and his friends I'm told that this hearing is about right-sizing government so I propose that we start rightsizing our federal government by firing the most dangerous man in it and that's Elon Musk to protect our taxpayers we should fire Elon Musk
▶ 3:17:16to keep American Social Security numbers private fire Elon Musk to protect Medicare and Medicaid fire Elon Musk to save schools and our jobs fire Elon Musk and to protect the idea that American people have a government for the people and by the people and not for the ultra rich and by the ultra Rich we must fire Elon Musk attacking Working Families is nothing new for him uh Mr musk's biggest Factory sits in my
▶ 3:17:46district and the first thing I did after I was elected to congress was to call for an OSHA investigation into the injuries and deaths of workers building that very Factory those are investigations to be launched by the Department of Labor where later today we're hearing that musk's minions are going to go and maybe start shutting down parts of that key agency that is built to oversee big corporations and defend the interests of workers musk's companies like Tesla have been sued
▶ 3:18:17and found liable for many labor violations screwing over working people is just part of the game for him he has been found liable for improperly giving not safety training to construction workers and withholding wages OSHA fined Tesla for exposing workers to hazardous chemicals without proper training and modering OSHA opened up investigation into deaths of workers at the Tesla gigafactory in 20124 SpaceX another one of musk's companies was found responsible for the deaths of one of their workers
▶ 3:18:47Lonnie LeBlanc due to head trauma that he got on the job so now musk has seemingly unlimited power to take advantage not just of his own employees not just of American consumers but of all Americans unlimited power to Americans data unlimited power to choke off funding meant for Americans and the programs that people count on enough is enough but thankfully our country isn't one of musk's companies our country is ours a billionaire
▶ 3:19:18whose career is built on the abuse and exploitation of workers should not have unlimited power in this country he should be before this committee and when he comes before this committee if somebody wants to do the right thing all you got to do is turn on your mic and say fire Elon Musk thank you Mr chairman now yiel back gentleman y's back before I recognize Mr Jordan Miss bber did you a yes Mr chairman I would um I have a document I'd like to submit for the record proceed um so this is a press release from the white
▶ 3:19:48house uh at USA uh waste and abuse runs deep and just some uh examples 2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam $47,000 for a transgender Opera in Colombia 32,000 for transgender comic books in Peru uh $2 million to sex changes in lbgt activism in Guatemala $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt and these are just some of the many many examples and I would like to submit that to the record without objection thank you it's ordered
▶ 3:20:18chair now recogniz is the chairman of the house Judiciary Committee for five minutes thank you chairman Mr Shotz is the federal government too big yes the expenditures certainly are which makes the entity itself s too big trillion dollar in annual spending 400 agencies and sub agencies 1,000 boards and commissions I think anyone maybe even the people on the other side of the aisle I think anyone would say almost everyone would say that's too big and when you have big government does
▶ 3:20:48big government have a tendency to spend taxpayer money on stupid things that's part of the reason that we're here and it's one of the things that citizens against government waste has been documenting for many many years you've been highlighting this for like a hundred years I mean I've known you for for a long time organiz God bless you for persist organization 41 years I've been there 39 and when you spend money when you're the person spending money on something stupid you just assume you would just kind of hope that people don't really know noticed that right you if you're if you're
▶ 3:21:18in the in the government and you're spending what did Miss bber just say 32,000 for a transgender e comic in Peru 16 million in gender development offic you're spending money on stuff like that you just kind of hope that people probably don't notice that is that probably fair to say that's kind of human nature I would think well that's part of the problem is that the taxpayers don't know exactly how the money is being spent because there is not the transparency that for example Iowa Ohio Arizona and other states have you should be able to push a button and find how your tax dolls are being and so it's understandable
▶ 3:21:48why everyone on the left all the proponents of big government all the supporters of big government all the people getting the taxpayer money from big government why why they it's understandable why they are attacking Elon mus because he's pointing out the stupid things that government spends money on is that fair to say well he's not making it up and in fact many of the recommendations he's making great point he's not making it up he's citing every single thing right go I'm sorry yeah no it's there I mean
▶ 3:22:19look the Department of Education has been something that was recommended by President Reagan to be eliminated and many other since then us digital service us Doge service digital service was duplicating the private sector same with 18f at GSA so he's already help save money by doing that so Democrats instead of saying yeah we should probably not spend 32,000 for a transgender comic and per yeah it's probably not a wise uh expenditure taxpayer money to have Sesame Street played in Baghdad Iraq uh it's on all that list instead of saying we should we should figure out how we stop that they're
▶ 3:22:49saying no no no we got to stop the guy who's pointing out the stupid things that government spending money taxpayer money the money that people in the fourth district that I represent their money on these kind of things um now it's being reported that there's something even maybe worse going on it's been reported today that media Outlets were paid millions of dollars by us Aid now the media Outlets are saying this is for subscriptions to their publication
▶ 3:23:19but I find that interesting and one of the particulars that's pointed out the FDA paid Politico $517,000 for 37 subscriptions that seems kind of high to me does that does that seem that way to you Mr Shotz uh doing the math quickly that seems excessive yes yeah that's a that seems a lot for now maybe there's some explanation here maybe this you know maybe Politico is so darn important that it's it costs that much and and and taxpayer money should be spent for but I find that interesting particularly 517,000
▶ 3:23:50for 37 subscriptions when it's the press the government paying the Press does that in some way maybe jeopardize what the press the Free Press that we're supposed to have in our great country oh it's certainly something that taxpayers probably didn't know until today I didn't know that didn't know until today and it's also government paying the press that kind of money 37 subscriptions will give you half a million dollars uh might might write favorable things about the particular Administration is paying that money I don't know I'm not
▶ 3:24:20say I'm not saying that happen but you can sure look at some of the things that's been reported by some of the press particularly political and you and you you can't help but ask that question Governor Reynolds I'll get I got like 50 seconds I you came all the way from the great state of Iowa I'll give you a chance to comment on any of the things I raised there but I do think this is this is amazing uh the guy who's pointing out the stupid things the government spends money on that's who gets attacked versus no let's fix the stupid things and not spend money on them I just get that and I think the American people have common sense and that's how they look at it my guess is I know lots
▶ 3:24:50of good people in Iowa they have lots of common sense that's probably how they look at it that's exactly how they look at it $36 trillion in debt 2 trillion annually being added to the debt Kevin and I have 11 grandchildren I want them to have the same opportunity I did Growing Up and I appreciate president Trump trying to rightsize this ship and get it back in line and I don't I don't hear any answers to the contrary what what what are their answers except for leave everything the way it is and uh that that's not not working so thank you that's not what you did I you didn't leave way it is and you changed
▶ 3:25:20things and taxpayers got more efficient government which is exactly what we want I yield back thank you gentleman yields back pursuant to the previous order the committee will recess for five minutes to accommodate a witness request the committee stands in
▶ 3:34:14e e
▶ 3:34:54all right the committee will come back and Governor Reynolds has an unmovable conflict and must leave at at 2 p.m that's just uh Arisen uh without objection the witness will be excused at that time and the and the committee will proceed without objection so ordered now recognizes Mr Burleson from Missouri is that right for five minutes
▶ 3:35:25thank you Mr chairman you know um thank you the witnesses for coming and for whoever is watching but what you're witnessing is the dying scream of addicts who who realize that tomorrow they're going into recovery because um this town Congress has been addicted on spending opium or other people's money for a long time and that's that's what you're witnessing today is this desperate Cry of individuals who don't want to see fiscal responsibility
▶ 3:35:56but we've gotten to this point and it's a point of we're getting close to where we're at a point of no return and so the a group called epic which is the economic policy Innovation Center said that we're nearing a fiscal cliff we're nearing a point in which we're going to start going down a debt spiral um they say that will that will occur under current policies if we don't cut any spending in the next 15 years it gets worse 15 years seems like
▶ 3:36:26a long ways out but you've got to slow this freight train of spending down to to have any impact 15 years from now in addition we're gonna the Social Security is going to go bankrupt in eight years right and the Medicare has another has another ticking time bomb in just 10 short years so look the spending spree is over we have got to return to some form of fiscal sanity or we won't have a country this is not a republican problem or
▶ 3:36:56a Democratic problem this is a math problem period and so I would have expected Democratic colleagues to see that and recognize that this is a serious problem and let's all get behind this and figure out a way to solve this problem and the way to do that is to figure out the easy way to do that with the least harm is to figure out how to make government more efficient with the dollars that we're bringing in right and and reduce that burden
▶ 3:37:26on the American people as was said we're at $ 36 trillion in debt our interest is over a trillion dollars a year which now eclipses all other spending we're at 120% of debt to GDP so it's absolutely unsustainable we've never been at that level of debt actually we were we're beyond the level of debt that we were just after World War II and we had just finished fighting a World War this puts us in a Tre a very critical situation where if we are faced with any kind
▶ 3:37:56of GL global conflict we have no money we have no room to go so and then when it was talked about some of the the the opportunities for waste and bringing in outside Consultants to identify and expose some things um because I you know this this town is a little bit incestuous I mean this they they generally do not think outside of the box um this town is one really good at doing one thing and that is saying why something can't be done right
▶ 3:38:26so it's good to have people outside of the box come in like Mr musk and I want to ask um Governor Reynolds thank you for being here today um I I understand in Iowa you you were Doge before Doge was cool right so in Iowa you've you've you rely on outside expertise to come in correct yes we did um because otherwise I mean you when you're in it you see it one way and you get accustomed to what you're doing and I think it's beneficial
▶ 3:38:57to have somebody from the outside come in and take a look at some of the practices and some of the initiatives and how we're operating uh so it was actually beneficial we we hired a consultant to do the alignment to help uh really manage it but to also help us compare how we were doing business uh with other states and we're standing up Iowa Doge and we're bringing this private sector in again for that very reason so they can look at some of the processes and how government operates and and give us recommendations on what we could do different yeah would
▶ 3:39:27you Embrace if Elon Musk offered to you uh to come in with no pay with a team of people with you know 200 level IQs yeah all with no pay would you would you Embrace that I would welcome that especially when we look at the Legacy systems and the adequated system that government is working under to have somebody from the private sector you know that risk their own capital on an idea to come in and take a look at how we can make government better I think would be a huge benefit for the taxpayers of Iowa you know I think Doge immediately
▶ 3:39:57just in the hiring probably raised the average IQ of federal workers you know here um let me ask question last question of Mr Shotz I understand that the citizens against government waste publishes an annual report called Prime Cuts which makes recommendations could you tell us about some of the latest versions of this report and what kind of savings taxpayers you know might be able to find what Doge might be able to find well we have a Prime Cuts comes out annually we're working on the report for 2024 but 2023 is $5.1
▶ 3:40:28trillion over five years addresses things I've discussed already um technology telecommunications Broadband consolidation sale of federal property which saves $15 billion over over five years some of them make perfect sense and a lot of them are common sense and that's something that I think is also in short supply in Washington DC thank you thank you my time has expired chair i recogniz m Presley from Massachusetts thank you Mr Chair
▶ 3:40:58by the hour Donald Trump Elon Musk and his enablers Advance their extremist anti- Equity unamerican agenda dismantling Decades of civil rights progress upending livelihoods incomes and lives and adversely affecting something they claim to care about the GDP um because all data supports that diversity equity and inclusion is actually good business Governor Reynolds my Republican colleagues
▶ 3:41:28invited you here today to promote what they see as a model of governance simply put Republicans vision of America is to be more like Iowa governor Reynolds let's learn more about the state do you know what percentage of Iowans are white and what percentage are black I don't know the exact percentages now we're by far U larger percentage of population that's correct Iowa is 90%
▶ 3:41:58white and only 4 and a half% black so that is drastically different from the national population so when Republicans suggest Iowa should be a national model they're advocating for a government that doesn't reflect our country so let's talk about what model of governance actually means in practice in Iowa you signed State Senate Bill 2385 to eliminate more than 80 state boards and commissions including those representing black Ians Latinos women people with
▶ 3:42:28disabilities and Asian Pacific Islanders communities that are marized and vulnerable and have fought for decades that have a seat at the table now Republicans call this fiscal responsibility I just call it a rer governor Reynolds the Iowa legislative service agency conducted a nonpartisan analysis of that bill do you know how much money was saved when you eliminated those commissions actually it was not about saving money it was about putting more resources behind uh the Department
▶ 3:42:59of Human Rights so that we could actually provide them more resources for minority communities reclaiming my time let me help you with the $122,000 in your state budget was saved so that is 0.001% barely a rounding error so honestly given your current salary Iowans would
▶ 3:43:29have saved more money just by eliminating uh your salary Mr chair I ask unanimous consent to enter the LSA fiscal note into the record without objection to order in addition to cutting boards and commissions Iowa started closing government agencies now this is the same thing that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are trying to do at the national level now Governor rynolds let's be clear I have no problem with Iowans um but I do with your leadership so let's look at the results shall
▶ 3:43:59we in Iowa there have been skyrocketing maternal mortality rates Mr chair I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled Iowa's maternal death rates rise as birthing units close with objection to order and I Iowa students test scores have been declining Mr chair I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled Iowa scores and 50 State education rankings declined from years past that objection to in Iowa more kids
▶ 3:44:29are going hungry this the kind of government efficiency y'all are talking about Mr chair I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled Iowa's food pantries hit record high numbers this Summer that objection to so let's be clear about what Republicans an are actually doing you are making people poorer you are making people hungrier more vulnerable and gutting their civil rights these attacks on diversity equity and inclusion they were never about
▶ 3:45:00efficiency they certainly never about Merit it's just a deliberate calculated attempt to erase marginalized communities from government while eliminating essential services for workers families and the people that we are actually elected to to protect they want a country for and by millionaires that advances white supremacy and that is the real agenda and I will do everything I can to speak truth to power and to stand in the way of that I yield back gentleman
▶ 3:45:30yields back chog oh and we've got to go to two Democrats now chize Mr Randall thank you m Rand thank you so much um Mr chair and thank you for our um panelists for taking the time to come before committee and testify today I think we have heard a lot of frustration from my Democratic colleagues in this committee today and you know on my part it is frustration that is reflected in the calls
▶ 3:46:00and the emails uh that we are getting from our neighbors neighbors who are scared at the attempts to come after programs that keep them alive um you know a colleague rep repan colleague me equated um this work to recovering from addiction and I think it is important to point out that many government programs are funding
▶ 3:46:30with Medicaid dollars and others addiction and Recovery support that is literally saving people's lives so if we are going to spend um dismissing those important life-saving programs the important lives of the people we represent I feel like we are doing a disservice um to our neighbors I want to talk about some of my neighbors um in the sixth congressional district a district
▶ 3:47:01that I have mentioned before um includes many federal workers many federal employees um 27,000 in the sixth congressional district making up almost 8% of our Workforce and these employees are doing lots of different jobs you know making sure that we get our mail providing healthcare service to Veterans and also ensuring that our National Defense
▶ 3:47:31is well staffed and ready to protect our country when necessary I got an email from um one such employee um who works for nabal based kitap who had served for six years uh for aboard the USS Jimmy Carter carrying out missions critical to our national security and after transitioning to the federal government he finds himself subjected to daily
▶ 3:48:01harassment despite the only goal being to provide for his family he hasn't had a day off in two weeks because he is supporting the PSNS and IMF mission and is rated 70% disabled by the VA but refuses to let that stop him from doing his job to protect our country and when my colleagues say that the average IQ has vastly increased because we have let unelected Elon Musk and his cronies
▶ 3:48:31enter our government building buildings I am offended on behalf of my constituents who are working tirelessly to ensure that our government programs are run to the best of their abilities to make make sure that our country is safe and our neighbors are cared for I believe in government accountability I represented the people of Washington for six years in the state legislature
▶ 3:49:02where we have one of the most transparent budgeting operations and we have a AAA Bond rating we have good budgeting practices and good programs that invest in community I believe that government can do both can invest in our neighbors and be accountable but we can't be accountable when we fire all of our inspector generals and take away that Watchdog Authority Dr
▶ 3:49:34rash our veterans have sacrificed so much for us and um a 2024 report by the VA Inspector General noted that 86 6% of veterans Health Administration facilities reported severe occupational staff shortages from medical officers 82% had shortages for nurses and yet we are seeing an unelected billionaire striving to IM immediately decrease 5 to 10% across the board cuts
▶ 3:50:05to our government's Workforce including the VA what would happen to agencies and departments like the VA if 5% of their employees suddenly left their jobs well in um when you're making broad Cuts uh indiscriminately you're not choosing uh per say poor performers you're just making blanket Cuts again it's going to create an environment of fear an environment of uncertainty and you're certainly not going to
▶ 3:50:35be attracting the best people to Public Service under those conditions and so what I would say to you is that what it will do is diminish the very capacity that you're looking for in government it's almost as if by losing the best people that work for you uh being a corporation firing your accountants and expecting profits J Lakes Times expired chair recogniz Mr Fallon from Texas thank you Mr chairman you know you hear a lot of interesting
▶ 3:51:05things when you sit on the oversight committee Doge It's Curious that it seems to me that that's like a dirty word for many Democrats they recoil when they hear it Doge or if they say the word Doge it's leaves a bitter taste in their mouth very acidic that say do but what does it stand for I'll tell you what it doesn't stand for it doesn't stand for oligarch it doesn't stand for billionaire it doesn't stand for unelected billionaire it doesn't stand for project
▶ 3:51:352025 and it sure as hell doesn't stand for Elon Musk it's the department of government efficiency who in their right mind would oppose our federal government operating with more wait for it efficiency who in their right mind believes that a 1.7 million strong uh civilian federal Workforce operates currently at maximum efficiency of course it doesn't but I figured I'd hear certain things and our colleagues across
▶ 3:52:05the aisle didn't disappoint they went to the tact of venerating the Flawless federal worker without whom we would all see our lives disintegrate before our very eyes how dare we even question these benevolent public servants and far too many instances Federal bureaucrats have become them not the public servants but they've evolved into public Masters now do some federal workers do a fabulous absolutely do some federal agencies provide
▶ 3:52:35critical services for Americans of course but not all and where there isn't value being provided we need to trim the excess we need to eliminate waste we need to expose the abuse and we need to streamline efficiency take for instance the Department of Education when you say you want to eliminate the Department of Education liberals heads explode but it was formed in 1979 and when you look at the Proficiency in math and reading
▶ 3:53:06from 1979 to current day it's stagnant it's a rounding error goes up a little goes down a little bit but when you look at adjusted for inflation the spending per pupil on education it was $961 15 in 1979 it's now just under 20,000 so we spent double the money but it's not reaching classroom performance block grants would be a far better way rather than spending $79 billion doll on a Department of Education at the federal level we went to the moon without a Department
▶ 3:53:36of Education so the growth in the federal government has been staggering if you look at just the last 100 years in 1929 the federal government spent $3.6 billion adjusted for inflation that's $66 billion today that number is $7,300 billion 100 times 110 times in 100 years or 11,1 100% in a century there are 400 executive branch agencies and sub agencies and a thousand Federal boards and commissions
▶ 3:54:06I think we should look to the states and we have Governor rennolds here and Governor Reynolds uh I I commend you for taking the cabinet position numbers from 37 to 16 and uh eliminating 500 unfilled positions and then eliminating 83 state boards and commissions how much uh is it projected to save your taxpayers governor in the first 18 months it saved $217 million and that's exceeded what our original projections were for four years so I will continue to see savings uh
▶ 3:54:36as we move forward as we've really have visibility into the agencies and look for opportunities to continue to make us better 2117 million and having been in a state legislature for eight years that's real money at the at the state level particularly in the state the size of Iowa uh what is the feedback you're receiving from is it I is it Iowans not iow whites right iow iow win okay what is what are Iowans telling you about this well they appreciate it first of all uh you know I have an obligation to make government accountable to the taxpayers and I want to continue to bring the taxpayer
▶ 3:55:07down the taxpayer burden down on Iowans and by keeping spending in check and making government more efficient we're going to be able able to do that I started my comments today when I took office our individual income tax rate was 8.98% today January 1st of 2025 it's 3.8% so when we saw 9% inflation under the Biden Administration this was a way that I could help give back to uh Iowa and some of their hardworking dollars so that they could offset some of the cost of gas and groceries that they were experiencing and what uh Governor
▶ 3:55:37what advice would you give the federal government as we try to streamline our services for the American taxpayer I think you know it makes us it's I go for it everybody's going to tell you you can't do it I haven't heard any other um suggestions uh on doing something different in Iowa had been 40 years since we' taken a look at the structure of government that's ridiculous it was bloated it had grown and we could do things better and this has been an opportunity it's changed the culture uh of our agencies our cabinet and most importantly our employers they feel like they're they're making a
▶ 3:56:07difference uh and they're making a difference in how they're serving Ians amen thank you and coming from Texas and looking at the growth of Texas in Florida people vote with their feet and they're moving to the states like you know Iowa Tennessee Texas Florida because we're doing it the right way and at the federal level Mr chairman we can and we must do better thank you governor and thank you chairman I yeld back chair now recognizes Mr subra mum from Virginia uh thank you Mr chair you know I've just been listening to um the comments today during uh this
▶ 3:56:37hearing and I hear these things like we want to tr we want to trim the inefficiencies in government we want to do the least amount of harm is what someone said we want to get rid of the low performing employees but that's not quite what's happening is it right these are blanket cuts across the board that are indiscriminate and let's be clear this Doge effort is it can't be about getting just getting rid of waste Fraud and Abuse uh because if you look at our federal spending civil servants are a drop in the bucket when it comes to our budget
▶ 3:57:08the math doesn't work actually in fact civil servants actually save us a lot of money down the road they prevent food illnesses they prevent a lot of bad things from happening that would cost us more money down the road so you know yes there are inefficiencies and government let's fix them that's bipartisan I've done that work myself uh but you know if the kitchen cabinets in your house are broken fix them don't burn the house down right at this and I don't think this is about waste Fraud and Abuse I think this is about revenge over civil servants who may have slighted
▶ 3:57:38the president I think this is about control over the federal agencies and federal government ones who especially had actual oversight and did actual regulation of companies that were sliding consumers and this is about stopping the protections of consumers and it's about having civil servants with a certain ideology and this is not legal and this is not constitutional and I wish we had the Doge folks in here today but we don't so we just have the governor of Iowa and so I'll just ask Governor Reynolds
▶ 3:58:08when you made Doge reforms in Iowa did you freeze all spending while you're doing a review no we did not and when you brought in those Consultants uh did you let those Consultants take over your payment systems and give access to every person's personal health information to them we did not and do you think it's okay for outside Consultants with no SEC security clearance to handle classified documents no and do you think it's okay for outside Consultants to handle
▶ 3:58:38sensitive data half-hazard that could cause cyber security breaches I'm just you know that's not been our experience in Iowa yeah you know and we don't know who the people are at least you knew who your Consultants were right uh we haven't we even tried to go into the treasury building and meet with them we tried to go into usaid and meet with them and we were turned away us members of Congress but the reason I know what's going on inside those buildings is because I have constituents who actually work in those buildings and let me just tell you some of the stories I'm hearing one at USDA said that
▶ 3:59:08they frozen funding to control invasive species uh protections which would cost us hundreds of Millions dollars if these P get into our country and devastate crops and livestocks in States like Iowa or at one agency they actually just came in one of the Doge employees came in and said just cut 50% of the employees indiscriminately and then the Doge employee actually started Living inside the building so our federal agencies are now airbnbs apparently and now we have uh nuclear scientists that are resigning we have phds
▶ 3:59:39they're not dumb people uh they may not have 200 IQs but it doesn't seem like the Doge people do either but what they're doing is they're resigning because they don't want to put up with this anymore and it's going to be hard to replace these folks it's going to be a brain drain on our federal government this is not the right sizing of government this is the dumb sizing of government and it has to stop and Congress has oversight over this this committee has oversight over this but what are we doing about it we're talking to the governor of IA no
▶ 4:00:09offense we're talking to think tanks we're talking to folks that are not actually doing this work let's actually give the American people answers let's give our constituents answers and let's actually use congress's powers to fight this or at least figure out how we can work together to fix what's wrong in government I'm down to do that I know both sides of the aisle want to fix what's wrong in government the American people deserve to know though what's going on right now why it's happening and how to fix this but what's happening right now is way overstepping
▶ 4:00:39the bounds of executive power it's overstepping congress's power we're getting rid of agencies that Congress authorized we're going way over the line here and this is unprecedent and needs to stop and so we're going to continue to ask questions we're going to continue to ask for hearings and we're going to continue to ask for the people who are actually doing this because we want answers i y my time to the ranking member and I would just ask the the gentleman from Virginia and we want to add to that we want Elon Musk to come here since he's an unelected unaccountable
▶ 4:01:09major player in all of this unlike the process in Iowa which was transparent and accountable uh in order to answer to this Committee in our legitimate oversight functions is that not correct absolutely that's correct I thank the gentleman uh chair I recognize myself for the purpose of asking questions Governor Reynolds again thank you for being here you're a role model for government efficiency that's why we asked you to come in and you've done a tremendous job explaining what
▶ 4:01:39you did in Iowa as we work uh at least on this side of the aisle to sincerely try to reform government and reduce unnecessary spending in Washington I understand you were asked a question that mischaracterized a bill you signed a couple years ago that addressed the Iowa state auditor can you talk about why the legislature passed the bill yeah the bill was passed uh again to Pro promote government efficiency so it completely fell in line with the government efficiency and Alignment bill that we were working on and what it
▶ 4:02:09did is it required that two government agencies uh to to mediate conflicts rather than going to the court and racking up uh legal bills that the taxpayers have to pay for so it did not limit the auditor access uh to necessary information it was more about the process of when two agencies disagreed that they could actually mediate their conflicts instead of taking it through the courts racking up additional cost on taxpayers right like like you worked with your legislature to amend laws that needed change
▶ 4:02:39to complete your alignment president Trump has said he will work with Congress where he needs to uh but he will take executive action where he can you did that too correct I did the same thing and when we started I did it through 208 agreements I had uh one uh director acting for both Public Health and Human Services we did it through a 28e or anou we did a proof of concept and then we took it through the legislature I also did uh executive orders with the uh rules moratorium uh we put that
▶ 4:03:10I initiated that with an executive order and then when we took the next step we actually took it through Congress when it needed a statute change to implement some of the ideas that we did either through an executive order that I stood up or through a 28e uh then we brought in the Congress and utilized them to make the statute reflect what we were doing great you eliminated a host of state agencies commissions uh it saved money and streamlined the state bureaucracy I wonder did you encounter opposition from
▶ 4:03:40entrenched interest when you did that you know we really didn't but I I will say we did a lot of the homework on the front end um so and these were Common Sense changes as I talked about you can't have different functions spread about across multiple agencies and expect to be efficient so uh we brought in the directors early we brought in the the leaders we brought in the chairs uh we worked reached out to stakeholders but no and the few incidents where there were some concerns that were raised they never it never came to bear
▶ 4:04:11so it sounds like people and I were were serious about reforming government I I I don't get that feeling in Washington DC at least with with half of the Congress what sort of blowback did these proposals get when when they were first announced well again I mean we hadn't looked at the government structure for 40 years so I don't think they were surprised uh I had done a complete tax overhaul uh again I started with the merger between public health and with uh Human Services and so I had a great proof of
▶ 4:04:41concept um so as we worked with the directors we were also able to anticipate what some of the arguments might be what some of the opposition would be so we could do the research on the front end to be able to provide the answers to the individuals about why we were doing what we did and it was uh very very effective but it's hard to argue that it doesn't make sense to not have agent uh licensing SP spread across 11 agencies or to put 100 Troopers back on the road by putting your motor vehicle uh enforcement unit in with the Department of Public Safety that's 100
▶ 4:05:11Troopers that we were able to put on the road what did did some say that your proposals would disrupt government services and lead to other problems a lot of it was the existing maybe some of the uh agencies that we were moving off the cabinet it was the agencies not the individuals not Ians uh that had the most push back I think that's who's leading a lot of the fear and criticism of Elon Musk I think it's some of the federal agencies and federal employees who are about to be disrupted yeah
▶ 4:05:41yeah that saw their kind of their their territory being up uprooted so were were their fears proven to be overblown was was there damage if any there there was Absolut there was not damage uh and I just it's we haven't had really uh any push back whatsoever and and I I keep saying this but even the employees and the agencies they love the culture that we're creating there's actually more upward mobility within the agencies because we've broadened their scope and what they can impact and they
▶ 4:06:12love that they like being a part of that were people in Iowa ever allowed to work from home for years after covid no not for years that that's part of the problem I think that's what set the ball rolling of fear and opposition among a lot of the federal employees there's so many in this town that that are still working from home because of covid years later so they've been brought back to work and and now we're talking about bringing agencies in and letting them justify their existence and and uh
▶ 4:06:42cutting agencies and cutting wasteful spending and eliminating duplicative services and eliminating duplicative agencies and it's just created all this fear and mass hysteria with my colleagues across the aisle but uh we're committed uh to work with this Administration to to uh reduce and eliminate unnecessary spending and wasteful spending and hopefully we'll be able to do that like you did in Iowa but thank you Governor thank you I appreciate that chair now recognizes
▶ 4:07:12uh M Anar andari thank you Mr chairman and thank you to the witnesses for being here today this is an unprecedented moment in our nation's history Donald Trump and an unelected billionaire Elon Musk are illegally dismantling our government agency by agency and illegally stealing your data your money and your services I would love for Mr musk to come here um and testify before this committee so we
▶ 4:07:42can understand his qualifications to do this because last I checked running a social media platform does not qualify you for understanding how the US government works and making sure that it can operate and serve the American people one of my Republican colleagues just went after the IQ of federal workers they want us to think that federal workers are faceless nameless bureaucrats roaming the halls of Washington DC when the reality is that over 85%
▶ 4:08:13of federal employees live outside of Washington DC and they're your neighbors your friends and your families more than 34,000 federal employees live in Arizona and about 7,000 live in my district they make sure that your highways are running smoothly and safety so we safely so we can get to work on time they make sure your grandparents get their Social Security checks on time so that they can afford food in my district we have multiple VA Health Centers to make sure our veterans get
▶ 4:08:43access access to basic Health Care Maricopa County one of the largest counties in the United States has over 245,000 veterans who do not know if they're going to keep getting their benefits that is absurd and disrespectful to so many arizonans who put their lives on the line for this country because of the musk funding freezes I had constituents calling my office panicking about whether they would be able to get urgent surgeries renters on subsidies are
▶ 4:09:13distressed about whether or not they will get Aid or get evicted and end up on the streets even after Trump realized how disastrous his misguided freezes were and reverse some of them there are healthc care clinics in my district that are laying off staff and cutting critical programs like STD prevention and substance abuse care because they were labeled as Dei Republicans want to take a vote about fentanyl later today and yet they're cutting care to get
▶ 4:09:43people off of fenol I previously served as the vice mayor of Phoenix Arizona the fifth largest city in the country and I can tell you firsthand how much Federal funding and agencies matter to a city like Phoenix it literally keeps your grandparents and your children fed your street safe your Public Safety and police and fire running make sure public transportation is operating and that air conditioning is running during our extremely hot summers
▶ 4:10:13while Trump and musk are allegedly concerned about making our government more efficient they want to lay off and dismantle the very people and departments who are keeping the country running these loyal dedicated employees are doing more and more with less and have been for decades this graph shows the federal Workforce it has remained at nearly the same level for 50 years while the US population has grown by 100 million people
▶ 4:10:44the bottom line is that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are lying to you they're lying to the American people under the guise of efficiency they are dismantling every Department that's not efficiency they are breaking down the government illegally from USA that's vital for National Security to the Department of Education to the Department of Labor to the Environmental Protection Agency they are going after your health care your schools your safety your data illeg Al unvetted
▶ 4:11:15and what is the ultimate aim for all of this to distract the American people to cut a little bit of money so that they can gift their billionaire buddies with massive tax cuts just watch them thank you I yield back uh would you yield to the ranking member I yield back to the ranking member no no to thank you uh just real quickly and is Does Elon Musk bring some specialty or some expertise in terms of ameliorating or
▶ 4:11:45cutting back or pruning or making qualitative judgments about the value of the programs you described that are being hurt right now does he bring some special expertise to that task he does not he has not shown any interest in the issues that affect Phoenix or any other city that I've heard of and that would be quite different than the process that we saw unfold in the reform effort in Iowa would it not what I heard from the governor was very different than what I've seen thus far there were no
▶ 4:12:16funding freezes um people you know PE programs were actually being evaluated it sounds like what was happening in Iowa was actually about efficiency where this is about illegally dismantling our government and taking away from the American people I think my colleag be yielding pursuant to the previous order Governor Reynolds is excused and Governor thank you so much for appearing today chairel recognizes uh Mr buire
▶ 4:12:46ask the governor a question but I understand you have to go but I just can't tell you how much our country is Greatful to what you've done in Iowa and I'm so excited that you're want to continue that type of efficiency and work with Doge and with President Trump's Administration we have a great country and it needs to make sense and I love what you said we need the best practices and the right people thank you so my questions I will I'll divert those questions a little bit but first of all I would say is that I don't think we can remind mind folks uh especially folks on their side enough
▶ 4:13:16is that through the grace of God president Trump won a mandate on November 5th he won the popular vote the Electoral College and the American people have spoken and I don't understand why every time he puts in an executive order or makes a decision it surprises folks because every decision I'm seeing is what he campaigned on and that's what the American people voted for I would tell you this uh there is a war on Common Sense and it's really an effort for all of us to bring our country back to Common Sense we have to have a meritocracy we
▶ 4:13:46have to have the right people in the right place or people get killed and we don't have time to go over all the examples I would say uh as a small business owner if the government was a business the government would be out of business we are spending more per day than we bring in per day and that is not sustainable um if the government were to build a car first of all it be over over a it would cost overruns it would cost a million dollars and nobody in this room would buy it
▶ 4:14:17it is amazing uh what the free market can do and how Innovative it is we probably saw Elon Musk created this rocket for 10 times cheaper what it would cost the government to do the same thing and I heard some folks on the other side talk about these young people involved in what's going on with our data but I want to remind them that young people are very capable you ought to research the ages of our found and fathers like Thomas Jefferson when they created this amazing country but if you look at the young people
▶ 4:14:47saved the world during World War II on the Normandy beaches from from Nazism so young people are quite capable and if you have the Bright Young Minds I don't care I got to tell you as a veteran if you saved my life on the battlefield I wouldn't care if you call yourself a Democrat Republican independent I don't care if you're young or old or pink or blue we're all Americans and we're in big trouble and I think we're on the way to a sovereign debt crisis because we're spending so much and I hear this talk
▶ 4:15:17and we all know the government's not efficient we uh Corporate America and the corporate world is talking about how people perform better face to face in an office environment and so we want to bring people back to work yet folks on the other side are saying it's a terrible thing to bring people back to work I got to tell you people in my district have to go to work every day and they don't understand why people who work in the government don't have to go back to work work we also heard a testimony in this committee about a week or so ago about a guy that took him three years
▶ 4:15:47to fire I talked to a very very successful businessman on breakfast yesterday and he said if we have a guy who's not performing we get rid of him in three minutes we need to make the right decision so my first question and I apologize if I pronounced your name um Mr shats yes sir so thank you for your work to uh find ways to make the government more efficient but I I I wish I could have asked this to the governor but she had three presidential disasters declared in her
▶ 4:16:18State and what are some things that you think we could have done better more efficient if we would have returned that power to the actual States or to the governors when they have these disasters well I think president Trump initially talked about eliminating FEMA but then he said he would like to reallocate that money back to the States uh the first line in any kind of disaster is local officials FEMA comes in late uh takes a while to get the money there's a lot of tape I think it's an area that absolutely needs to be examined uh these are things
▶ 4:16:49by the way the other way to address this is to set up a federal fund uh that Congress provides every year so that you don't have to have these special Appropriations uh supplemental Appropriations that then add on other funding for things that have nothing to do with the initial disaster a lot of states have these rainy day or Reserve funds I think that would address a different aspect of emergency spending but it would also uh Ed the need to have FEMA run out there every time something happens that makes a lot of sense when is the last time our um
▶ 4:17:19government passed a budget for congress uh it's only been done four times I believe since 1974 would you agree at the rate that we're growing government that we're in danger of a uh sovereign debt crisis well it's $36 trillion now going to grow by $2 trillion annually over the next 10 years and yes uh everybody says oh when it's when is it going to happen but we're really robbing our children and grandchildren of their future when we keep doing this yeah if we had we could make one
▶ 4:17:49best decision to fix this what would you do oh part of what this committee is doing today is determine which programs are essential which are uh which are functions that only the government should be doing and if the private sector can do it President Reagan talked about the Yellow Pages test now there's no more Yellow Pages but pretty common sense to have a business answer or have the private sector do something usually it's more efficient or at least match see which performs better thank you I yeld back gentleman yields back chair recognizes
▶ 4:18:21Bell thank you today marks just over two weeks since the Trump Administration took office in the last 16 days we have witnessed an unprecedented full-blown attack on federal workers and the services they provide to people at home in our districts a power grab by the Doge and unelected officials like Alon must that of the ear of the president um so to my colleagues I'm not surprised by
▶ 4:18:51uh the president's executive orders but as a prosecutor the rule of law matters I hear about Tork and we need to get people back to work but uh several of my colleagues um and myself went to usid and the administration had told them to tella work and to stay home so I'm a bit confused on on um the value or or or of these arguments or what have
▶ 4:19:21you um the president has Institute a hiring free slapped Federal workplaces with hostile and counterproductive policy changes took action to potentially Purge large swaps of the federal Workforce and weaponized career professionals by threatening involuntary Trump also sent federal employees an email offering them free paying benefits until September 2025 if they agree to
▶ 4:19:51resign by February 6th Dr re Dr rash will this approach lead to the retention of our best and brightest federal workers no it will not um when when they have uh blanket fires again uh the people who stay are likely to be the poorest performers uh the ones that go uh under those conditions are likely to be those that are more competitive on a on
▶ 4:20:21an occupational job market and so therefore it will likely lead to brain drain as opposed to uh the retention of the best employees and and let me ask you this what would accepting this offer mean for federal workers across the country including the nearly 13,000 federal workers in my district well first of all I'm I'm not sure that that accepting it is legal uh in terms of saying that you if you don't do it by February 6th that but if you do do it that you will
▶ 4:20:51have be put on administrative leave and paid through September 30th I believe the cap on any type of action like that is $20,000 that would not meet uh the several months that most employees are are using Trump also took making sorry sorry that's okay Trump also took the unprecedented an illegal move of freezing trillions of dollars in federal funding throwing the entire country in chaos um I spoke with Dr Kendra Holmes head of Affinia
▶ 4:21:22health care who feared that this would impact their ability to provide essential and critical care at their community health centers I spoke with Dwayne Butler the CEO of people's health centers in St Louis who said the action would have a significant adverse impact on not only healthc care centers but so many other federally funded companies and programs the Missouri Department of Elementary and secondary education had to pause payments to daycare providers
▶ 4:21:52and school districts in St Louis County were concerned about their ability to feed and support their students Dr R do the administration's actions reflect standard operating procedure for right sizing our government no no they do not in fact they increase uh inefficiencies um many of our partners whether they be private sector Partners universities nonprofits uh first of all have to also pause their operations
▶ 4:22:23they have uncertainty in the um you reliability of the federal government as a partner and yeah I think that's enough to to get the picture our federal workers go to work every day dedicated to serving the American people they are the reason that communities across the country receive critical federal funds that support Health Care safety education and infrastructure they deliver congressionally mandated services and administer
▶ 4:22:53congressionally directed funds the Trump Administration should be supporting them in their mission to deliver the best possible services to the American people not making that mission impossible we cannot and will not allow a takeover our of our of our government or our democracy thank you and I my time to the ranking member I thank I thank the gentleman for what he just said and I know that my constituents as well as his who work for the federal government appreciate it thank you
▶ 4:23:24chair recognizes Mr Gil from Texas thank you Mr chairman uh and thank you for putting on this hearing you know what it it's great to uh to be on the side of the aisle after having won a massive mandate from the American people president Trump of course winning not only the electoral college but the popular vote delivering us a majority in the house and in the Senate it's kind of funny to me because we've seen such outrage over Doge
▶ 4:23:54as if this is something that's new whenever I've been talking to my constituents in north Texas for months and months and months about President Trump coming to the White House and getting Elon Musk involved in cleaning up waste in our federal government it seems to me that leftists are are apoplectic not because our tax dollars are being wasted on idiotic things but because all of it is being exposed all of the sudden which I think is is
▶ 4:24:24certainly a beautiful thing so much of this government waste has been operating in the shadows where the American people don't know about it and has been largely unaccounted for and so many of these programs wouldn't exist and will not exist now that being exposed I could give so many examples of of wasteful spending but I'd like to to name just a few and and get y'all's opinion on these um just recently
▶ 4:24:55the Department of Health and Human Services spent over $400,000 studying whether lonely rats seek cocaine more often than happy rats do uh Mr shatz thank you for being here I'd like to ask you do you think that that's a respons I use of taxpayer dollars uh no it's not those are the examples that get people interested in doing more about wasteful spending they're silly but it's way their money is going that that that's
▶ 4:25:25exactly right and Mr R let me let me ask you do you think that it is responsible for uh the federal government to tax workingclass American citizens to pay for studies that cost over $400,000 asking whether lonely rats seek cocaine more often than happy rats do I have no position on that particular policy I would need to no more you have no position on whether we should be spending taxpayer dollars
▶ 4:25:55getting rats high on cocaine I know that I know that addiction is an important problem and if it leads to insights that lead to reductions in addiction I'm sure that it has a multiplying effect if that's the case you would have to see the indicator I agree I'm going to reclaim my time here I agree that addiction is a a very serious problem but I doubt that the plumbers and electricians and working class citizens of North Texas that I represent are going to be very happy whenever they find out
▶ 4:26:25that they're paying to get rats High um let me give you another example um we've recently spent uh $123,000 to teach youth in kerik Stand how to go viral uh Mr shatz do you think that that's a good use of taxpayer dollars no I don't I I don't either what about you Mr Rush no position no position okay got it let's let's do another one then um we've recently spent over $3 million from the Department of State for girl
▶ 4:26:56centered climate action Mr shatz is is that an appropriate use of our tax dollars I I don't think so Mr Rush no position no position got it um what about you know over the past four years the the United States has had a uh grotesque border crisis that was created by the federal government uh and the Biden Administration nevertheless we spent over $2 million for border security in Paraguay Mr shatz let me ask you do you
▶ 4:27:26think that that is an appropriate use given the context of of American taxpayer dollars well only if it impacted immigrants or uh non whatever you want to call them people coming to the United States illegally that that might have some Merit but depends on the purpose I I agree what about you Mr Rush again depends on the purpose and the outcome got it I think that that's uh enlightening you know over the past couple weeks really we have seen
▶ 4:27:56all of the nonsensical areas that our tax dollars have gone to we found that uh our taxpayer dollars we just found out today are being sent to left-wing media Outlets like Politico and the BBC we've known for a long time that our tax dollars are funding NPR and PBS we've seen our tax dollars go to leftwing Nos and I think that the the takeaway is that large portions of the left's institutional ecosystem are
▶ 4:28:26dependent upon taxpayer subsidies and I think that that's a problem I'm thrilled doge is here because we're going to take we're going to get rid of it thank you Mr chairman I yield My Time gentleman yields back chair recognize Miss Simon good afternoon Mr chair and ranking member and thank you Witnesses for coming uh to speak with us today I really appreciate the conversation and like much of the testimony and conversations I'm hoping to have and hear during my time
▶ 4:28:56in oversight um I think that there are spaces where we should all agree uh government should be more efficient uh absolutely as someone who went through college and had to bring my baby to child care I get it I understand and I remember when that child care was shut down I couldn't go to class I couldn't go to my night job I get it I am right there with so much of the conversation what's interesting though to me is last week when I returned to District I went to go visit like many
▶ 4:29:27members um organizations that are providing work on the ground for our most vulnerable populations uh I was prepared to offer a check that an organization East Bay Asian local devel Corporation had earned through a grant process to extend housing to elderly asian-americans in the East Bay again these are the descendants of the folks who built the West elderly folks seeking and needing lowincome
▶ 4:29:57housing clearly they're not going to get that money right now housing is on the line as is child care as is Medicaid as is Medicare after this meeting I will go and visit the president of a children's hospital he's in my office right now and I went to go literally sit with the folks in the nicku last week care is in Jeopardy there is a heart transplant that is in Jeopardy a small child I would like for us to look at the
▶ 4:30:27in the faces of that parent what's really interesting to me actually I have a question for you uh Dr rush like you I've had this amazing benefit uh to to study government budgeting I have an MP with a focus uh on uh Municipal and federal Finance I all I have a lot to learn as we all do but in understanding where we are in this Push by Doge and our colleagues to look at government spending
▶ 4:30:57which I agree we got to figure it out I I I'm curious because this ripoff we're talking about again halting essential services for people to live in communities where there is waste let's get rid of it but by freezing basic Services I want to ask you this by weakening the country's social s Social Service structure within a week causing chaos would you agree with me that instead of going after the
▶ 4:31:27Department of Education again if you have a young woman in college and she is abused the Department of Education has an infrastructure to investigate that rate I can go on and on they do we get rid of the Department of Ed happens there instead of going after the department of Ed and US Aid wouldn't it make a lot of sense for us to think about other areas that are right in our face listen the constituents of California's 12 District are paying over six billion
▶ 4:31:58dollars in tax dollars for DOD that to pay for 35,000 registered nurses per year and salaries of 50,000 Elementary School teachers if we're seriouser about rights izing our government I would recommend that we start there in an institution in a department that has failed seven audits seven audits with an estimated multi-trillion dollars of waste and abuse in contracts that
▶ 4:32:28go to private companies would love to know Dr rash your thoughts on where we should start congresswoman thank you for the question I I I'd just like to note that throughout this testimony I've been asked questions about a very very insignificant proportion of our federal budget and that is domestic discretionary spending if uh if the committee is serious about uh right sizing government in terms of dollars then it should not
▶ 4:32:58uh that very tiny proportion of our overall federal budget has seemed to be the the focus throughout this meeting um $144,000 Grant to something through a ID I is nothing uh compared to uh the non-discretionary funds but if we were talking about uh the the def the Department of Defense it is not subject to some of the same scrutiny as well as these
▶ 4:33:28programs that offer uh social services so on down the line thank you to all the witnesses thank you to all the witnesses that came today and thank you Dr rash for your answer I yield back chair recognize Mr Jack from Georgia well thank you Mr chairman and thank you for letting me get a little exercise this morning I appreciate that I um I want to start by saying you know throughout this hearing I've heard over and over and over again from our colleagues on the other side Elon musk's name invoked and to me it rings
▶ 4:33:59very similar to what I experienced over the last nine years I've worked for president trump it seems like the Democrat Playbook from 2015 through 2025 has been to singularly Target one individual and over and over over and over repeat talking points against that individual and some pre-political advice in 2016 it didn't work in 2020 House Republicans gained seats in 22 we gained seats in 24 Donald Trump delivered one of the most impressive historic landside victories we've ever seen and it's because
▶ 4:34:29he offers solutions to the American people and that's exactly what we House Republicans are doing I uh I want to spend my time today uh engaging with Mr shatz talking about a solution that I campaigned on something that resonated with the constituents across my district and I'll predicate by noting I'm probably one of the few uh members on this committee who actually was a federal employee from 2017 to 2021 I serve in the Executive Office of the President as the President's White House political director and one of the things that I was tasked
▶ 4:34:59with while working for the president was helping move departments and agencies outside of Washington DC so that they could be headquartered in areas that are more reflective of the people they're targeting to designed to serve and Mr shatz in your testimony I very much appreciated you noting that 17 of the 24 agencies only use an average of 25% of agency headquarters office space the American taxpayer is paying for office space that is not being used and it's one of the things that I'm very passionate
▶ 4:35:29about in 2019 we relocated large agencies with the Department of the Interior to Colorado we found a lot of success in doing so so I just would love to get your thoughts and comments on that I think that's an Innovative solution that this this Congress can move forward and something president Trump campaigned on and I'm so proud the American people gave him the Victory and affirmation for that well thank you congressman and we completely agree with that concept because it would enable the federal government to work more closely with state agencies that in many cases perform a lot of the same functions and that's another form of
▶ 4:35:59duplication that isn't necessarily turning those functions over to the States but it is determining where it might be more effective and more efficient and deliver those Services uh and and just briefly the object Ive of an agency should be to deliver a service to someone period right and then determine how that gets done and then determine how much it costs and the reverse is true it's spend the money if that doesn't work spend more money don't tend take the time to figure out what works this
▶ 4:36:29would be very helpful to reaching that conclusion well in that vein and as my uh esteemed colleague to my left um Mr Gil noted all the programs uh that were privious all the money previously spent by usaid I have to imagine the people of Texas's 26th congressional district or Georgia's third congressional district would not have made those decisions that they' be employees at that agency headquarters and in that vein I just want to also note for the record you'd have to drive an hour from where we sit right now to reach a Precinct that voted for President Trump
▶ 4:37:00yet uh of course we saw a landslide Victory across our country to me you need a federal Workforce that's reflective of the balance that America is and in this general area we've got 90 95% Dem Democrat participation in elections to me that's from where our federal Workforce is coming that's why we have so many problems uh that we've discussed here today um I I also want to note Mr shadz your your uh leadership at citizens against government waste has led to trillions of dollars of savings for Americans you've done an incredible service to your country
▶ 4:37:30and I just want to close with a final question to you based on your wealth and knowledge and experience what are the most prominent patterns or locations that you find waste Fraud and Abuse in our federal government um any advice to the committee before I finish well it runs across uh all agencies and I would note on the Department of Defense when the grace commission made its recommendations and found uh $424.58
▶ 4:38:11technology 80% of the systems are Legacy systems and some of them they're so old you can't find people to fix them or Surface them and that's an investment in our view that's worth making upgrade those uh systems and then people will be able to find out from the click of a button you know what's going on with their with their money and that would be extremely helpful for transparency accountability and more efficiency well I'm grateful for your testimony today I hope uh every Committee Member reads all the innovative solutions that you've offered us and like I hope
▶ 4:38:41my colleagues join me and helping relocate our departments and agencies outside of Washington DC I yield back to our distinguished chairman Mr comr gentl yelds back chair organiz is Mr Men from California Mr shatz Dr rash thank you for testifying today now this hearing is happening because of repub concerns about the size of our government but I would submit they're missing basic economics here in particularly the chapter on public goods as a reminder public goods are things that governments provide that we all benefit from National Defense infrastructure education police
▶ 4:39:12firefighting air traffic control all examples of public goods and the most important thing to recognize is that these are all things that private markets typically do not provide on their own so when we're talking about making cuts to the FAA budget uh for air traffic controllers understand that no one is going to fill that Gap to make our Sky safer when we cut the budget for FDA and USDA inspections no one's going to step up to come and ensure that our foods and drugs are safe that is why the government provides these things now I realize it makes for great talking point to talk
▶ 4:39:42about getting rid of waste in government and I'm sure there are many examples we can point to I know my colleagues have have pointed to some if we look closely enough just as I'm sure we can find lots of examples of waste and corruption in large private companies as well but here's the thing the reality is that what you're looking for is just not possible at the scale you're talking about Elon Musk and many of my colleagues on the Republic side of the aisle have publicly stated that their intention is to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget the problem is that this is just bad math and yes I'm and yes I'm pretty good at math
▶ 4:40:13but you don't have to be very good at math to understand this the chart behind me illustrates very clearly the entire domestic discretionary budget that's the primary focus of today's hearing is only $917 billion you can cut everything education food safety Air Traffic Safety Wildfire prevention affordable housing the FBI the doj and you're still not even halfway to the amount that Elon Musk and the republics are trying to cut you can fire every single person in the federal government that's 4% of the federal budget a tiny fraction of what you're looking at cut right now you can cut all military
▶ 4:40:43spending $85 billion you're still not there so let's be realistic and talk about what's really at stake here it's when we're talking about $2 trillion we're talking about non-discretionary spending which is a fancy way of saying Social Security Medicare and Medicaid these are earned benefits the checks that my mom and dad rely on for their retirement that your moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas rely on that they spent their lifetimes paying into and let's be clear this is what Elon Musk and many of my Republic colleagues are targeting right now they've made it very clear their statements such as when Nancy ma
▶ 4:41:13in March 2023 called for huge cuss to Social Security uh saying everything is on the table quote and so that brings me my first question Dr rash uh I assume you're familiar with the United States Constitution yes sir Article 1 Section one States all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives Article 1 Section 9 gives exclusive Authority for Appropriations to Congress are you aware of any provisions in the Constitution that allow that allow the president of the United States to unilaterally
▶ 4:41:43take away congress's legislative and Appropriations Authority I am not are you aware of any provisions in the Constitution that allow a special governmental employee appointed by the president to take away congress's Powers I am not are you aware of any references in the Constitution to efficiency I am not that's right because they do not exist because efficiency while important is not something that the founders thought was a constitutional priority Founders were very aware that democracy was a messy and inefficient way of running a government it would be far more efficient to have
▶ 4:42:13a monarch or dictator decide how to fund programs rather than have 435 members of the house and 100 Senators debate and deliberate and vote about it but this country was not founded as a monarchy not founded as a dictatorship because we expressly decided that Democratic representation as inefficient as it might be was more important than pure efficiency and that's the point that my repub colleagues need to recognize we can debate our views on Social Security and Medicare and government spending in fact it's critically important that we do that but those debates belong here
▶ 4:42:44in Congress and we should not lose sight of the fact that Elon Musk an unelected billionaire is playing God with the federal government deciding at a at whim which programs and agencies he wants to quote delete at the flip of a switch Elmo has gained control over our federal Payment Systems he's universally declared that certain agents we've created here in Congress are terminated he's locked federal employees out of their systems and he's threatening to end Federal dispersements that he does not like this is all illegal and grossly unconstitutional the United States of America is not a
▶ 4:43:14monarchy it is not a dictatorship and Elon Musk is breaking the law repeatedly by taking congress's legislative Authority so to my Republic colleagues I want to plead with you this is not a partisan issue it is your Authority here in Congress that is being stolen by Elon Musk right now if you do not speak up you are going to permanently lose your legislative Authority we all sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and that is what I'm asking you all to do we have an obligation to uphold the rule of law
▶ 4:43:44and defend the Constitution against this unprecedented assault I yield to the ranking member I have three seconds so thank you I thank I thank the gentleman for his observations and for his cjun points I also would like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record a New York Times article titled US Agencies fund and fight with Elon Musk a trump presidency could give him without objection to order which describes how Elon musk's work quote promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts
▶ 4:44:14last year with 17 federal agencies got it thank you Mr chair I I also have a unanimous consent request Mr chairman I ask unanimous consent uh that the uh statements of the American Federation of government employees and National active and retire federal employees be entered into the record without objection to order and I further ask unanimous consent that the article Doge AIDS search Medicare agency also be inance without objection to order I thank the chair chair oriz Mr thank you so much Mr chair since we're entering
▶ 4:44:45um items to the record it's really important as I do a lot of these question lines to center it around my constituents and my residents who very much feel like there's so much instability and Chaos right now uh so if I may I would like to submit a letter from the CEO and founder of Cody Rouge action Alliance in the 12th congressional district in Michigan um just about the freezing of the funds and what it meant for her seniors and uh many of the community uh members that she supports many of them are retirees many of them
▶ 4:45:15rely heavily on this agency to again supplement uh the co the high cost of living right now for many of our families and so if I may i' would asking D's consent again uh send this uh letter without objection to order thank you you know I want to cut through the BS because I am from Detroit and we like to speak truth the power and be very honest uh you know the American people feel very much we're in a constitutional crisis they cannot understand uh you know this billionaire I don't even know really how to describe them
▶ 4:45:45of course he's the richest man in the in the n in the world uh and to think that he can just walk in to an agency that I can tell you for many of my families from the Social Security Medicare I mean it is literally part of how they survive in our country uh and it's not just about the private information it's about the fact that this person who they have no no way of they didn't get the elect him he's not held accountable to them
▶ 4:46:16the community the public and so they are very much living in fear right now and we are in a constitutional crisis uh one of the things that I continue to talk to our ranking member about and thinking about even the folks that voted for the president and others if I was to ask the American people do you think Elon Musk cares about you do they think that they he cares about your disabled child that relies on Department of Education uh Services through the Ida uh act do you think he cares
▶ 4:46:46for any of our families right now no matter how hard they work they're still in survivor mode not thriving in our country the disconnect that he his own lived experience will never ever be able to connect to that family in North Dakota to the teacher in Detroit to the child living and and trying to survive through the education program living with autism and so much more and so I'm just curious I mean really this is my do you do you think Elon Musk cares about the American people Mr Shades
▶ 4:47:17uh I don't think that's the issue I think the question is what is going to be done about the $36 trillion debt and the 2 Tron you want to talk about the debt but the Congress they're in control why not go through the public process if you want to make Cuts then vote to cut it why are you having this person do it are you giving him your power as an elected person representing 750,000 people you represent equal number of people I do I want to get a chance to vote on this hear from my constituents have it be done in a
▶ 4:47:47public process you want to deal with it you're in power you have a trifecta the White House the Senate and and the house not but no you want to do it this way the cruelty of it the fact that even American people no matter in their political affiliation I'm telling you right now feel like they have no control over the decisions being made why because members of Congress have circumvented said hey we're good go ahead and do it for us go ahead even though they know it is going to impact Farmers veterans
▶ 4:48:17disabled residents folks living with disability and so much more of these infrastructures that they don't understand support all of our families so you can keep talking about the debt they have control they can deal with the debt if that's really what they want to do instead they're just yielding their power to Elon Musk who has again been unelected and we can continue to say that but one of the things you can go around the country is they don't want Elon mus making that decision they want their member of Congress that is elected making that decision Mr shates that's the problem and I will never and Mr
▶ 4:48:47chair knows this vote your District come here and vote your District if your District wants you to cut these various programs go cut a public education department of education then go ahead and vote on it introduce a bill to cut the department of education do not say hey I don't have no custom you're just literally giving it to this person it doesn't make any sense Mr Dr Rush do you do you think think the American people think that Elon Musk cares about them I don't think the American people should really care what he
▶ 4:49:18thinks I they should have someone making decisions who's taken an oath to the Constitution oh that's actually very important isn't it you know the Constitution gives Congress control over the spending not the president and certainly not Elon Musk and the American people need to understand why that balance of government is there it's to protect all of us from these kinds of decisions that are hurting people now and Mr chair just know this this is the same man that continues to want to cut cut cut but he has
▶ 4:49:4820 billion dollar in federal contracts can I get our money back because he is the richest man on earth and he's still taking a hand out from us the public $2 billion Mr chair if it's really about that and not about hurting these public infrastructures which really are critical and important for against the most vulnerable and really you''ll be surprised how many people in your community and your in your districts no matter again public affiliation will be harmed by these decisions that again overpass the the Congressional
▶ 4:50:18public process it's our constitutional Duty and responsibility to be able to authorize spending and cuts we should be able to do it not Elon Musk with that I yield gentle lady yields that concludes our questions in closing I want to thank our Witnesses once again for their testimony today I'm now going to yield to the ranking member member uh for a for some brief closing remarks I thank the chair and I thank our Witnesses um
▶ 4:50:49you know we've spent the entirety of this hearing under the rubric of uh right siiz in government as if we all know presumptively what the right size is which of course nobody does uh in fact it's not even necessarily A question but we have ignored half of what should be involved in the in in
▶ 4:51:19in any Enterprise business nonprofit or government and that is the revenue side of the picture you cannot rightsize whatever that means government by only looking at expenditures and Investments you've got to look at how we Finance it does anyone think that Elon Musk in running test had a meeting when he took it over and said to his management crew whatever we do we are never again discussing or
▶ 4:51:49modifying the price of a Tesla whatever it is today it's frozen forever and all company profits will be derived from spending expenditure cuts of course not I heard the governor of Iowa say we ought to run government like a business well then run it like a business and that means there are two sides to The Ledger Revenue as well as expenditure I also heard the governor of Iowa say that there's nothing
▶ 4:52:19wrong with looking at the Enterprise and making recommendations I couldn't agree more but that isn't what Elon Musk and Company are doing they're taking a wrecking ball to the federal government they're firing people they're intruding in very sensitive databases they are threatening to close down entire department departments and agencies of the federal government without any mandate without any confirmation by the US Senate and without a howy do by the Congress of the United
▶ 4:52:49States this committee and Congress cannot be supine in the face of that threat we must play our legitimate role and if my colleagues on the other side can muster a majority to in fact shut down these agencies then so be it but it cannot be something delegated to an unelected billionaire oligarch from South Africa I yield back gentleman yields back uh I must say there's been a virus
▶ 4:53:20that has been throughout the inside of uh Congress for the past four years it's called Trump derangement syndrome but it appears over the last week it's mutated now into musk syndrome and all we have here is a business guy an outsider uh much like many Outsiders and many business people
▶ 4:53:50on the local and state levels All Over America that have been asked essentially to serve on a board to make recommendations to make government more efficient what a noble idea on the federal level and we welcome Elon Musk we any individual in America who has ideas on making government more efficient but I will say this
▶ 4:54:20publicly to make government more efficient and to live within our means which is what the American people voted for in November we're going to have to make Cuts we're going to have to reduce the size of government and that's not going to be an easy task it's easy to spend money everybody's popular when they're spending unlimited amounts of money and doing check presentations and things like that but when it gets to making Cuts that's tough that's what people
▶ 4:54:50in the private sector have to do every day that's what people who work and pay taxes and struggle to make ends meet have to do every day they have to make tough financial decisions Congress has been immune for that for a long time but the day has come and the American people have spoken to where we're going to have to tighten our belts and that's what at least my side of the aisle is committed to doing and we're going to work with Doge we're going to work with the Trump Administration we're going to work with all of his cabinet secretaries we're going to
▶ 4:55:20work we're willing to work with Democrats across the aisle on sincere ideas to make government more efficient to end duplicative services to reduce wasteful spending that's what we want to do that's what this hearing was about and I want to thank our Witnesses who came here today to testify about that and uh with that and without objection all members have five legislative days within which to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses if there's
▶ 4:55:50no further Business Without objection the committee stands
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