Hearing Wrap Up: Congress Must Codify DOGE Cuts

 
WASHINGTON—Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency held a hearing today titled “Locking in the DOGE Cuts: Ending Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for Good.” During the hearing, members highlighted the billions of taxpayer dollars saved through the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts to waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Members also emphasized the need for Congress to codify these reforms to create budgetary savings for taxpayers and increase transparency within the federal government.

Key Takeaways: 

DOGE has kickstarted a range of cost-efficiencies across federal agencies by identifying excess federal entities, programs, grants, contracts, property, and personnel, but more needs to be done.  

• Dan Lips, Senior Fellow at Foundation for American Innovation, testified that “President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency is working to reduce federal spending, shrink the size of the federal workforce, and streamline operations. DOGE has already identified $100 to $180 billion in savings and reduced regulatory burdens by eliminating over $1.7 million words from the federal code.” 
   

• David Burton, Senior Fellow in Economic Policy at The Heritage Foundation, testified that “DOGE represents an effort to return to fiscal sanity and meaningfully alter our fiscal path. But DOGE itself is not enough, although it’s a major step toward American renewal. Most of the personnel reductions, grant reductions, and other forms initiated by DOGE will not result in actual savings unless Congress takes action through appropriations bills and the accompanying explanatory statements. DOGE and the Administration can, within certain limits, reprogram spending, implement administrative efficiencies, and rely on statutes authorizing withholding of expenditures, but ultimately Congress is going to have to make entitlements.” 

Federal government operations will cost less than expected this year due to DOGE’s work, and further streamlining the government will result in even more savings. 

• Matthew Dickerson, Director of Budget Policy at the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), testified that “You can reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy. I estimate that reducing the federal workforce by ten percent would allow discretionary appropriations for salaries and other benefits to be reduced by $559 to $608 billion over the next decade.”  
   

Congress should adjust federal funding levels for current and future years to lock in the full taxpayer benefit of DOGE reforms. Effective DOGE process reforms that increase government efficiency should be carried forward and made permanent. 

• Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) remarked in her opening statement that “[We] need to adjust the levels of new appropriations to align with the streamlined Government DOGE is creating. That’s what the President proposed last month, when he submitted to Congress a budget for next year that reduces non-discretionary spending by $163 billion. If we lower the spending baseline in that way, we can save two trillion in that portion of the budget over the coming decade. We need to lock in DOGE savings for taxpayers. And we should also be thinking about locking in the DOGE process that has produced those savings. DOGE has attracted enemies because it’s taken on Washington’s culture of spending. We should make that a permanent battle. We should institutionalize the battle against waste, fraud and abuse in Government.” 
   

• Mr. Lips testified that “Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where I used to work, have a tradition of passing bipartisan government reform legislation…[Improving] government efficiency should not be a partisan issue—it’s a fiscal necessity. The 119^th Congress has a historic opportunity to reduce waste, prevent fraud and misspending, and begin addressing long-term fiscal challenges.” 

Member Highlights 

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) questioned what it would take to push Congress to codify the DOGE cuts. 

Rep. Burlison: “What should happen to force Congress to actually make these cuts that have been identified?”  
 
Mr. Burton: “Congress needs to legislate it, and it hasn’t been. I mean, the [Government Accountability Office] has made countless proposals. The improper payments have been around for decades. And literally involved trillions of dollars. No one’s fixed that. That’s one of the few thing, though, that the administration has ability, through administrative changes, to do on their own because they’re legally required not to spend that money, and yet it’s going on. Congress needs to appropriate, there needs to be changes in the Authorizing Committee. A lot of grants that the Chairwoman was referencing could be prohibited through authorizing legislation. Congress needs to legislate, and [at] some level, it sort of has forgotten how to do so. Do you think that we could? Yes. I’m old enough to remember when you guys did.” 

Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.) inquired about the waste and fraud incurred in improper payments. 

Rep. Jack: “Mr. Dickerson, if you could, spend a little bit of time in the remaining time we have left, talking about improper payments. The first hearing, our chairwoman convened was on the trouble improper payments we discovered over the last four years of the Biden Administration. We’d love for you to touch on some of the challenges we face with respect to verifying identity with respect to payments that are going out the door.” 
 
Mr. Dickerson: “It is a huge issue. In one program alone, Medicaid, for example, spent $1.1 trillion over the last decade on improper payments, and that is incredibly harmful because it’s a waste [of] taxpayer money, but it’s also funds that aren’t going to people who are truly vulnerable and truly needy. This waste, fraud, and abuse is rampant throughout the federal government, and so one of the major sources of that is the lack of ability to identify the people who are claiming money and checks are going out the door to who are actually eligible. For example, the ‘Do Not Pay’ registry is supposed to be a database of accounts that the federal government [is] not supposed to write checks to, but in many cases, those checks go out the door and then they’re paying the registry. And in many cases, that registry doesn’t have access to all the databases that it’s supposed to. So, it’s a huge problem and you should really be fixing it.” 
 
Rep. Jack: “I recall in our first hearing we talked about the amount of payments going out the door—they’re still done by hand, not by computer or electronically. Is that something [you all] have uncovered in your work?” 
 
Mr. Dickerson: “Yeah, I think it’s something that we should be using new technology—using AI to actually look at what we have—to ensure that only people who are actually eligible for benefits are actually receiving it, no one else.” 

Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene questioned the Democrats’ witness, Ms. Emily DiVito, Senior Advisor for Economic Policy at Groundwork Collaborative, on whether the American people should have to pay for gender transition surgeries for children. 

Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “Ms. DiVito, in your testimony, you talk about so-called failures of DOGE. In your opinion, do you support the federal government funding HHS and NIH studies that promote the genital mutilation of children? Do you support forcing Americans to pay for the genital mutilation of children? Yes, or no, Ms. DiVito?” 
 
Ms. DiVito: “Thank you for your question. I think we all agree the government should work for people.” 
 
Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “No, I asked you, ‘do you support genital mutilation of children and the American people having to pay for it?’ That’s a yes or no question.”  
 
Ms. DiVito: “I think government research is responsible for all sorts of innovation that we do.” 

 
Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “So, for the record, you do support the American people paying for top and bottom surgeries of children, cutting the breasts off young girls, teenage girls, and castrating teenage boys. You support the American people paying for that?”  
 
Ms. DiVito: “I think government research is incredibly important.” 
 
Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “That’s not research, Ms. DiVito, that’s mutilating kids’ bodies before they’re old enough to vote, before they’re old enough to join the military, before they’re old enough to even be adults. That’s what you’re saying the American people should pay for.” 

Click here to watch the hearing.