Washington Conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy and tech billionaire Elon Musk started discussing ways to cut federal spending and regulations once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in person with congressional Republicans on Thursday.
Trump has given Musk and Ramaswamy the responsibility of making recommendations to restructure the federal budget and bureaucracy. While many Republicans claim to support this objective, presidents and congresses of both parties, as well as divided government, have consistently fallen short of it.
Musk and Ramaswamy visited Capitol Hill to speak with members of the House and Senate. Since Trump appointed them as outside advisers to lead a commission known as the Department of Government Efficiency, this was their first trip of this kind. DOGE is also the name of a cryptocurrency and an online meme.
In between meetings, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., informed reporters that this was a brainstorming session. According to him, the discussions are setting the stage for the actions that lawmakers will take the next year.
They have a lot of work ahead of them.
Even prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, Trump presided over a rise in deficits during his first administration. In addition to reducing waste and fraud, he pledged during his 2024 campaign to maintain Social Security and Medicare, two of the most costly budgetary components. In addition to extending his 2017 tax cuts, he demanded trillions of dollars in new overtime and tip tax deductions, all of which would increase the debt. Another big piece of the pie is military spending, which the majority of congressional Republicans are committed to keeping up.
Musk, one of the richest individuals in the world, may be able to influence congressional Republicans due to his newfound closeness to Trump and his readiness to utilize a portion of his enormous money for political purposes. Even as late as Sunday, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla has cautioned Republicans over and again to align themselves with Trump’s agenda or risk a primary fight in 2026.
However, Musk and Ramaswamy’s positions are merely advisory in nature. With a deadline of July 4, 2026, they will be submitting suggestions to the Trump White House rather than serving in the administration.
Musk’s recent political clout comes after he spent the summer and fall campaigning for Trump. According to disclosure filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission, Musk and his associates provided a large portion of the more than $152 million that his super PAC, America PAC, spent to support Trump and other Republicans. Additionally, Musk hosted Trump rallies in Pennsylvania, a battleground state, and used his company, X, as a platform to spread pro-Trump sentiment.
After losing Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primaries, Ramaswamy, a former biotech CEO, later endorsed him.
When Musk advised on the government budget, he was frequently questioned about possible conflicts of interest. NASA and the Defense Department are two of SpaceX’s many federal contracts. Additionally, Ramaswamy claims that a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian Automotive, a rival to Tesla in the electric vehicle market, is one of their possible targets. Musk has not stated whether or how he intends to settle those disputes.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., stated Thursday that while it was too soon to predict the priorities for cutbacks, it would be wise to begin by easing regulations through Congress and administrative action.
According to Tillis, regulatory relief of tens of billions of dollars is currently available.
The Peterson Foundation estimates that the U.S. budget for fiscal year 2023 was $6.1 trillion.
Nevertheless, Tillis referred to the Thursday discussion as an organizational meeting, like an engagement meeting I might have with a client.
In between meetings, Musk spoke to reporters and reaffirmed his support for removing tax subsidies to promote the sale of electric vehicles, joining Republicans who are considering cuts to financing for sustainable energy.
When asked about tax credits for electric vehicles by a reporter, he responded, “I think we should get rid of all credits.” (Musk has stated in the past that EV credits benefit Tesla’s rivals.)
As he and one of his kids strolled through the Capitol’s hallways, Musk didn’t say much more. The billionaire remarked, “It’s like there’s ambient press,” since Capitol Hill reporters were following him so intently.
According to a source engaged in the process, Musk and Ramaswamy will have a tiny office with 10 to 12 employees under the president’s executive office after DOGE is founded. This office will collaborate closely with the Office of Management and Budget, NBC News reported.
According to the source, they will also have DOGE liaisons working for each federal department and agency. To fill such positions, Musk and Ramaswamy are looking for people with business experience who are interested in cutting bureaucracy. According to the source, many of these people will be attorneys or have worked at that organization before.
Musk has indicated that he is open to the idea of reducing funding for some of the most well-liked federal programs, such as Social Security. Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, posted on X on Monday, calling for a reform of Social Security that would resemble private retirement accounts. Musk wrote: Interesting thread.
While Ramaswamy spent a little more than an hour meeting separately behind closed doors with a group of 15 Senate Republicans, Musk met with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Thursday morning. They met with more members of the House and Senate in the afternoon.
As Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., left the meeting with Ramaswamy, they told NBC News that it was a constructive discussion that involved exchanging ideas. However, they would not reveal the precise policies that were debated within.
House members who want Elon and Vivek to fix all of their issues voiced their complaints during the open mic session, according to a person familiar with the afternoon private meeting who spoke to NBC News.
To cut spending and regulations, several Democrats have indicated that they would like to collaborate with Musk and Ramaswamy. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, wrote on Xon Thursday that Congress ought to base its work on a committee from World War II that was chaired by then-Senator Harry Truman.
He wrote, “Let’s take a cue from the Truman Committee and make sure that Americans receive value for their money when it comes to DOD spending.”
Although Republican attempts to cut back on unnecessary expenditure and shrink the federal government are not new, senators did not provide many suggestions about how this endeavor would be different or perhaps more effective.
When questioned about fiscal deficits, Tillis responded, “You’re way too ahead.”
Ramaswamy also refused to respond to queries from reporters as he left the meeting.
Republicans secured a paper-thin House majority of 220–215 and a Senate majority of 53 votes in the 2024 election. Democrats may have some sway over the result because of those narrow margins, and some of them make fun of the new Musk-led initiative.
DOGE is a fake. As stated by Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the leading member of the Budget Committee, “just because someone says there is now a department of so and so does not mean the actual department now exists.”
Regarding the budget and debt, Republicans are complete hypocrites. Boyle went on to say that Trump increased the national debt more than any other president in American history. Thus, I’ve already seen this film. If Trump is successful in passing a second round of tax cuts, I am positive that the national debt will skyrocket.
Veterans of previous unsuccessful debt-reform initiatives, such as the 2011 bipartisan super committee under Obama, are skeptical that the DOGE will succeed unless it is prepared to take on holy cows.
The DOGE has an uphill battle if the past is the prologue. Zach Mallove, a lobbyist who served as a policy staffer to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., when she co-chaired the super committee, stated that while the DOGE’s jurisdiction and reach are still unclear, managing the federal budget cannot be accomplished with talking points.
For it to be meaningful, lawmakers will need to endure some political suffering, according to Mallove. Ultimately, the math just does not match up: you cannot reduce $2 trillion without using the nation’s social safety net if you have an annual discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion.
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